Fruit Beer. Who knew I'd make a good one?

I certainly had no idea that I would craft probably my best beer yet, and that it would be a fruit beer at that.

In anticipation of the upcoming Fruit Beer Festival at Burnside Brewing, I brewed an entry for the fruit beer homebrew competition. At first I wanted to brew something with dates, something dark strong and earthy, but then I found out that dates aren't in season right now and I didn't want to spend a lot of money. While crafting a kolsch recipe for the LOLA brew day at Lucky Lab, it hit me that I should brew a kolsch, and use pineapple as my fruit. I pretty much envisioned a light fruity beer with bright color and tartness, something refreshing and effervescent. I wasn't sure how much pineapple flavor I would get so I decided to dry hop with centennial to give it some citrus aroma, so that it would have the hint of pineapple even if I didn't get full on pineapple flavor.

I was super surprised to find that the pineapple worked amazingly well with the kolsch yeast and the Northern Brewer hops. Joe even asked if I had used any acidulated malt because of the tartness of it. Not only was there pineapple aroma there was huge pineapple flavor as well and the tartness made for easy drinking. I'm making this one instead of the shandy for summer drinking. The lightness of the beer itself is deceptive in that it is at least 7% alcohol and though much more heavily hopped than a true kolsch (which it isn't) everything worked well.

I was surprised to not hear any comment from my brewing partner Joe, who usually always has a little bit of advice on improvement. For this beer he literally said that for him he could detect no flaw in the beer. High praise, indeed, coming from a man who can tell the difference in malts and hops in a lot of beers. I submitted this with no aspirations of even placing. I think it was a solid beer but palates are subjective. I am going to submit this to the Collaborator competition though. It is an excellent beer.