You’ve probably squeezed a cherry into the mouth of a stout bottle, or at least seen others do it. That little twist of cherry turns your chocolate stout into a Black Forest cake. Luckily many brewers these days are infusing cherries into their beers in a produce-aisle range of offerings. Cherries can balance otherwise heavy beers or add extra freshness and flavor to the lighter styles. Cherries have been added to beer for centuries, especially with Belgian lambic styles, which are called krieks. Cherry beer is no longer a throwback to centuries past. North American brewers are adding cherries to their craft, whether it’s a kriek, or another beer style infused with the finest cherries. Last night, Peaks & Pints had a tulip of delicious E9 Brewing’s Wild Tacoma Big Cherry … and thus today’s in-house flight of cherry beer is a thing, which we call Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: Cherries.
Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: Cherries
Fort George Consider The Fruit Punch
5.1% ABV, can
The adult version of a juice box, Fort George Brewery‘s Consider The Fruit Punch bright, refreshing, tart, sweet red fruited sour is super clean on the palate with lovely effervescence. It hits the nose with a tropical fruit medley, funk, and a light tartness, followed by punchy fruit flavors of cherry, orange, and passionfruit. Expect a slightly grainy finish.
Abomination Drippy Popsicle Rocket (Rocket Pop)
5.5% ABV, can
According to Abomination Brewing in Pennsylvania, “The name ‘Abomination’ stems from the fact that for hundreds of years, Germany had a beer purity law, or Reinheitsgebot, that placed strict demands on what was and wasn’t legally allowed to put in beer. This law stifled creativity and forced German brewers to create only tradition styles of beer with little to no variation. It could be said that they would look at what ABC is doing as an abomination to what they consider beer. We look to continue pushing the envelope of beer with new and exciting hop profiles and tweaks on old and new world styles.” Abomination’s Drippy Popsicle Rocket is a fruited smoothie sour with cherry, blueberry, and raspberry that tastes just like the half-melted rocket pops we all remember.
Ommegang Rosetta Kriek
5.6% ABV, can
Brewed and blended by Ommegang‘s sister brewery Liefmans in Belgium, Rosetta combines old (aged on cherries at least three years) and young Flemish brown ale (or oud bruin) with a lively and fruity kriek, or cherry beer. The blend, which was developed by Ommegang Brewmaster Phil Leinhart, results in a complex yet refreshing mahogany-brown brew that is an intriguing interplay of tartness and sweetness.
E9 Wild Tacoma Bing Cherry
5.8% ABV, draft
Established in 1995, E9 Brewery is the first craft brewery to emerge from Tacoma, at first to supply the Original Engine House No.9 pub and restaurant, then, in 2019, as a self-contained, much larger brewery in Tacoma’s Historic Brewery District. Their Wild Tacoma Bing Cherry multiple year barrel fermented blended fruited American wild ale is aged on whole fruit Bing cherries for three months. These cherries are grown on the slopes above Lake Chelan at Diamondback Acres.
Crooked Stave Mama Bear’s Sour Cherry Pie
7% ABV, bottle
Crooked Stave‘s Mama Bear’s Sour Cherry Pie is a burgundy sour ale aged in oak barrels with more than 3,000 pounds of Colorado Montmorency cherries is the result of blending carefully chosen batches of Origins with a heavy-handed addition of cherries sourced from orchards on the Colorado western slope. Expect all the jammy sour cherry notes, plus caramel, earthy notes, tart, cinnamon, and berries. The finish is sour and sweet with cherry, cinnamon, tart, berries, and earthy notes.
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