Many people have asked when we will make a fruit beer… Well, we have several in process! So why has it taken us so long to have fruit beers on draft or in the bottle? We know many people want us to make fruit beers, and we haven’t ignored their wishes, but our process for making fruit beers takes some time. Most breweries make fruit beers by simply adding fruit extract to a keg, or they use fruit concentrate or aseptic puree. Before we opened our little brewery we decided that we would only use natural, whole fruit. And instead of just adding fruit to a keg, we ferment the fruit to dryness, which takes an additional 2-3 months after our beer has already been barrel aging for several months.
Whole fruit is more difficult to work with than puree or concentrate, and separating beer from whole fruit at the end of the refermentation is not always easy. But we prefer the more integrated, complex results achieved when working with whole fruit. If our goal was to create the most intense fruit flavored beer we would use fruit concentrate, but we feel that whole fruit creates a more nuanced, intricate product.
To create Moras, we blended two of our golden wild ales that were aged in our large French Oak puncheons for several months, and then we transferred the blend onto a massive amount of blackberries. We allowed the blend to referment and age on the blackberries for three months until we decided the beer was ready to package. Instead of using gelatin, isinglass (fish bladder) or some other substance to cause the fruit to drop out of solution and make it easier to separate from the beer, we used time and stainless steel strainers to do the job in a natural way, without chemicals or animal products. We are proud to say that our beer is always a completely natural product, and we avoid the use of so called ‘process aids,’ enzymes, or anything that is not a food product which can be consumed on its own.
Moras is a light bodied, fruity, highly drinkable beer. It’s the kind of beer that is meant for sharing but doesn’t need to be- I can easily drink a 750ml bottle by myself. We blended two beers to achieve what we believe is the ideal level of acidity, making this beer thirst quenching and vibrant without it being sharp or overly acidic. This is a beer that will age gracefully and develop more funk over time.
April 6, 2018
