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Fruit beers and shandies add complex flavors and drinkability to many beers, and they will rejuvenate your spirit as the humidity goes up.
“Shandygaff is a very refreshing drink, being a mixture of bitter ale or beer and ginger-beer, commonly drunk by the lower classes in England, and by strolling tinkers, low church persons, newspaper men, journalists, and prizefighters,” wrote American journalist and author Christopher Morley in his book “Shandygaff” in 1918. Today, as summer temperatures rise, regardless of whether you are a strolling tinker or a prizefighter (or, God forbid, a journalist), you might well reach for what is now called a “shandy” or other fruit beers.
Some brewing purists firmly believe only water, malt, hops, and yeast should make up beer. One can certainly make an excellent beer using only those ingredients, and many breweries do just that. But consider the fact that the use of hops in brewing is a tradition that dates back “only” 1,000 years, so using hops is a relatively new thing. Brewing itself has been around since 7000 B.C., and recent evidence suggests Hawthorn berries and grapes may have been used in some of the earliest fermented beverages in Neolithic China. Before incorporating hops, brewers often brewed with fruits, using whatever produce was available in the town street market.
Jump ahead 800 or so years, and some thirsty and overheated folks in England in 1842 came up with the idea of combining ale and ginger beer, creating the “shandygaff,” although the origins of that name are unknown. The term was shortened to “shandy” by the late 19th century, and, around this same time, shandies mixing lemonade or lemon soda with ale rose to prominence in England. In Germany, a similar mixture of beer and lemon soda emerged by 1922, commonly known as a “Radler,” particularly within Germany.
Regarding fruit beers in the modern era, Belgian breweries used Morello cherries in lambic beers and witbiers by 1930. Later, they brewed with raspberries, Curaçao oranges, peaches, bananas, grapes, and pineapples. Some German brewers, particularly in Berlin, were also brewing Berliner Weisses with bananas by 1930.
By the early 2000s, many U.S. craft breweries began experimenting with adding fruits or juices to beer. Culinary trends likely influenced the thinking of some brewers, including the incorporation of fresh, local ingredients in dishes, which enhanced and complemented flavors, not masked them. The first American shandies appeared by 2007.
Today, many U.S. breweries incorporate fruits, juices, and fruit sodas into their creations. American beer styles that include fruit or shandy versions include pilsners, lagers, wheat beers, sours, blonde ales, stouts, India pale ales, and pale ales.
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Pulping Up
Brewers in citrus states like California and Florida, as well as in apple-growing regions like Washington state, often have access to fresh fruit, as do breweries seasonally in numerous other states. As commercially available fruits in some grocery stores often have preservatives, bacteria, and chemicals on them—all of which can affect beer flavor—brewing with fresh fruit grown without these things has strong advantages.
Fresh fruit is often added to a beer recipe during the boiling or fermenting processes. Doing this during boiling is wise, as the heat burns off chemicals and bacteria, both of which can ruin a beer’s flavor. But it also creates a different flavor than when added later in the boiling process, leading to fermentable sugars mixing in with the wort. The resulting flavor can be somewhat more wine-like. Adding the fruit after fermentation but still during boiling can retain fresh fruit flavor while eliminating contaminants.
Up to 2 pounds of fresh cherries per gallon is added to cherry sour beers, and up to 1 pound per gallon for citrus beers, including grapefruit India pale ales.
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Many breweries use frozen fruit, purees, or juice for their fruit beers, and if the brewers ensure the fruit base is free of chemicals and preservatives, this can be an easier way to add fruit, with less time to prepare the fruit for brewing, ease of storing the ingredients, and cheaper cost, especially if a large amount of fruit is called for.
Handy Shandies
Breweries making shandies have a little easier time of things. The entire brewing process, except for carbonation, occurs before a brewer adds lemonade. The common ratio for brewers is 1 part lemonade to 4¼ parts beer, which introduces a strong lemonade flavor but not the typical sweetness of lemonade.
Once the beer is mixed in with lemonade in the Brite tank, a vessel used by breweries for bulk aging of the beer, about three days’ storage at 33°F is required before the shandy can be bottled or transferred to kegs.
Fruit beers come in numerous base beer styles, with some of the best being tart lambics—both Belgian and American—but also everything from grapefruit pale ales to mango wheat beers. Shandies, often lagers mixed with lemonade, are widely available from American, Caribbean, and British breweries.
Fruit beers and shandies pair well with many foods. Berry beers go well with buttery cheeses, like brie; most fruit beers pair well with salads topped with things like toasted nuts and feta; sweet duck or pork dishes taste lovely alongside sweet fruit beers; and shandies sidle up nicely with spicy foods.
If you’re looking for a refreshing beer during a muggy afternoon or evening, pop open a shandy or fruity ale for an invigorating way to cool down.
