The most traditional Belgian type fruit beer is the sour cherry obtained by the addition of “griotte” cherries in lambic to produce a kriek beer or to a strong ale to produce a typical Belgian highly alcoholized cherry ale. The strong and complex acidity was imparted to beer by a mixed fermentation of yeasts and bacteria obtained by spontaneous fermentation and oak barrel ageing.
At the origin the cherry beers were very sour and were served with a piece of sugar which was crushed with a special utensil.
More recently, some cherry beer brewers have added sugar to the final product of their fruit beers, in order to make them less intense and more approachable to a wider audience. They also use cherry juice rather than whole cherries and the beers are matured for much shorter periods. The resulting beer is more fruity and the sweet/acid balance leans towards the sweet side
The second fruit used is raspberry and more recently other fruits like peach, strawberry, apple, black currant, and also exotic fruits like mango, lychee, passion fruit, pineapple, coconut, etc.
These recent resulting beers are fruity, sweet and acidic at the same time.
We propose different solutions to produce these more recent fruit beers of Belgian style. The products are based on concentrated fruit juices in a complex acidic matrix boosted by their corresponding natural flavors. The brewer can add some sugar to adjust the sweetness at his desired level or if it is preferred we can add the sugar to our solution to enable the brewer to use one unique product.
Here are some examples and descriptions of our combinations to produce different fruit beers:
All these products can be customized according to the own criteria of the brewer to be adapted to the brewer base beer and to reach a specific target.
For more information please contact our technical team: technicalteam@cbsbrew.com