Christopher Osburn
There are a lot of different beer styles that taste more or less the way drinkers envision beer to taste. We mean the pilsners, lagers, and less hopped pale ales of the world. But — seeing as beer is complex, complicated, and absolutely sprawling — some beer styles read just a little bit different. Enter fruited sour beers which are fruity and sour (no surprise, considering the name), sort of a twofer in terms of unique, memorable flavor profiles. More specifically, these brews are known for their slightly acidic, sometimes funky notes and can be brewed with pretty much any fruit, from peach to raspberry to sour cherry.
Sean Towers, owner and brewer at The Seed: A Living Beer Project in Atlantic City likes sour beers, but actually hates the term “fruited sour.”
“The style of fruited sour has come to mean kettle-soured or quick soured beer with unreasonable levels of highly processed, pasteurized, fruit purees added post-fermentation for an overly sweet, gluttonous, fruit juice with a completely masked background of beer,” he explains. “But that short rant aside, there are many beers out there that very harmoniously pair a reasonable level of acidity with fresh, pure, fruit character.”
Since we’d rather find the latter, we decided to turn to the beer pros for help. We asked a few well-known craft beer experts, brewers, and brewing professionals to tell us the best fruited sour beers they don’t make themselves. Keep reading to see all of their picks.
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