The last few years have seen a few trends emerge in the world of Craft Beer here in the UK. Alongside heavily hopped, hazy pales and a rekindling love affair with Lagers and traditional bitters, fruit and beer has become a big thing and in particular, fruited ‘sour’ beer.

You can see why – who doesn’t enjoy a fresh fruit juice or a smoothie? With additions such as mango, watermelon, cherry and orange and inspiration for the beers comes from all over, be it from classic cocktails through to your favourite dessert. These beers are intentionally tart – thanks to yeast strains such
as Brettanomyces and bacteria like Lactobacillus.

Of course, the Belgians have been producing their famous Lambic styles for over 100 years and the Germans too with the Berliner Weisse and Gose styles
and alongside those pioneers of the styles, we’ve some great UK producers too.

Over the past few years we’ve seen several breweries focus a large part of their production on these styles of beers. It’s led to some exciting and fun experimentation and definitely opened up beer to a new market – be that Cider drinkers looking for something different, those who just love anything a bit tart whilst also helping convert people who don’t like ‘beer’. Here’s a few from our fridges that we just love here at Fuggles right now:

KRIEK BOON

An all time classic from the Boon Brewery, located in Lembeek on the River Senne to the South-West of Brussels. Boon have produced Lambic since 1978, a style of beer fermented with wild, naturally occurring yeasts, native to this region of Belgium (the only region you can legally brew and call a beer a ‘lambic’). A blend of different ages of lambic beer, it is then aged on whole cherries. This gives it a tart, yet sweet fruitiness with a delicious cherry flavour to it.

GISPY HILL "TAFA TAFA"

Gipsy Hill have always produced a great range of fruited sour beers and this is one of our all time favourites. Inspired by the classic Mai Tai, this is super juicy, sweet and sour thanks to fresh whole oranges and pineapple. Seriously tasty and the perfect summer refresher!

YONDER "WATERMELON GOSE"

Based in Somerset, Yonder focus on producing a great range of beers using various mixed fermentation and barrel aging techniques, fruit and foraged ingredients. Their range of Gose style beers are a firm favourite with us. Gose as as a style is essentially a tart wheat beer, lactobacillus helps to add acidity whilst
the beer is also traditionally brewed with the subtle addition of salt as well. Yonder have found a wonderful balance with their base beer and regularly dose it with silly amounts of fruit, such as Raspberry or Watermelon. Super refreshing and light, with a touch of tangy natural yoghurt in the background too.

TILQUIN "MURE"

Tilquin are a blender of lambics, only recently they have started to brew their own. The bulk of their beer comes from other legendary producers of Lambic beer such as Lindemans. Pierre then blends these after years of aging in his own barrels to produce his own styles of ‘Gueuze’ (this is a blend of aged lambic with
at least 3 different years in it’s make up, producing a tart, but balanced beer somewhat akin to ‘proper’ farmhouse cider). Their range of fruited beers is second to none, my favourite being the stunning ‘Mure’. Blackberries provide a lovely fruity sweetness and depth to the beer, helping to really balance out the natural acidity.

UNBARRED & MASH GANG "MANGO BERLINER WEISSE"

Brighton’s Unbarred brewery have teamed up with the No/Low Alcohol folks at Mash Gang to bring us a lower abv option that really delivers on the flavour thanks to a lot of Alphonso Mango’s. Think breakfast smoothie with a bit of fizz and a lovely, fruity tartness to the finish.