Fruit beers are easy—you acidify some wort, dump in a load of puree, and voila, you have a low-effort crowd-pleaser. Right?
Wrong.
Drinkers today are drawn to recognizable flavors—especially fruit flavors—and we have more options than ever for adding fruit to our beers. Yet there’s an underappreciated art to making flavorful, delicious, balanced, drinkable beers that really taste like the fruit that’s in them—those where you have to keep going back for more.
Few breweries have had as much success with fruit beers—or have accumulated as much intelligence on what works and what doesn’t—as Cincinnati’s Urban Artifact, known for their “fruit tarts” such as berry-laden Gadget, lemon-lime Spyglass, and tropical Teak—which we named one of our Best 20 Beers in 2022.
In this 93-minute course, included in your All Access subscription, Urban Artifact cofounder and COO Bret Kollman Baker opens the books on what he’s learned about brewing tasty, fruit-first beers that drink well below their strength. Along the way, he covers:
- why you should cook your strawberries
- the smart sourcing of whole fruit
- the benefits of leaning into purees
- what to know about using fruit juices and concentrates
- why you should avoid dehydrated fruit but experiment with freeze-dried
- aseptic versus frozen purees
- delivering the fruit flavor promised on the can
- the careful use of fruit-flavor extracts for top notes
- using WONF products (those “with other natural flavors”)
- what to ask your supplier about their fruit
- working directly with farmers for custom purees
- making connections at the farmer’s market
- adjusting beer’s other flavors to emphasize the fruit
- the importance of yeast nutrient when fermenting fruit beers
- adding manganese as a nutrient for Lactobacillus
- when to add the fruit
- fruit-first or beer-first, and choosing a base beer style
- key considerations for natural-tasting acidification
- respecting the power of vanilla
- spices, hops, and pragmatic flavor considerations
- adding and dialing in tannins for greater drinkability
- how yeast selection affects fruit flavors
- the Urban Artifact approach to brewing fruit tarts
- fermenting for a cleaner lactic acidity
And more.
Plus, be sure to check out our Fruit Dilution Calculator tool, based on calculations provided by Baker at Urban Artifact.
Want access to more video courses like this one? All of our subscriptions come with a 100 percent money-back guarantee. Get your All Access Subscription to tap into a library of more than 100 full courses on a diverse range of brewing topics. If you don’t love it, we’re happy to refund your money.
