Fruit and vegetable beer

A bottle and glass of beer flavored with cherry lambic.

Pineapple beer on sale in China

A fruit beer or a vegetable beer is a beer brewed with a fruit or vegetable adjunct or flavouring.

Fruit

Fruits have been used as a beer adjunct for centuries, especially with Belgian lambic styles. Cherry, raspberry, and peach are a common addition to this style of beer. Modern breweries may add only flavored extracts to the finished product, rather than actually fermenting the fruit.

Some historic ales used fruit to generate a second fermentation in the cask; brewers try to recreate this in modern beers.^[1]

One prominent brewer of fruit beer is Yanjing Beer, a large Chinese brewery, which widely markets Pineapple and Lemon beer. New Glarus Brewing Company, of New Glarus, Wisconsin, produces Raspberry Tart, a framboise made with raspberries, wheat and year old Hallertau hops, and fermented in large oak vats. Magic Hat Brewing Company of Vermont brews '#9', quite popular in the northeastern U.S. and is a 'not-quite-pale ale' flavoured with apricots. RJ Rockers Brewing Company of South Carolina released Son of a Peach Wheat Ale in 2009 which is made with real peaches added during the fermentation process.^[2] Früli is a Belgian fruit beer made from 70% wheat beer and 30% fruit juice.

Pumpkin-flavored beers are brewed seasonally in the autumn in North America. An example, Pumking, is produced by Southern Tier Brewing Company.

Vegetable

Chile pepper is used to flavor pale lagers. More popular American chile beers are Eske's by Sangre de Cristo Brewing and Rogue's Chipotle Ale. Eske's "Taos Green Chile Beer" is made with New Mexico roasted green chiles. Black Mountain Brewing Company in Cave Creek, Arizona brews "Cave Creek Chili Beer", the only internationally marketed chile beer. Chiles are also used in darker beers, such as Stone Brewing Co.'s Vertical Epic Series.

Anheuser-Busch brews Tequiza, a beer flavoured with tequila from blue agave nectar. Desperados is a tequila-flavoured beer popular among German and French youth.

See also

• List of World Beer Cup medalists for Fruit and Vegetable Beers

References