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Fruit beers are hot
Fri 13/04/07 - The Belgian beer market changed substantially in recent
years. Tired of "white" beers, young and female consumers nowadays
prefer lighter and fruitier beers. There are over a hundred of them
already and their reign is not over yet.
Fruit beers together with abbey beers have managed to fill the void
that was left after the decline of the so-called "white" beers and the
amber-coloured beers.
The popularity of "white" beers such as Hoegaarden has taned
(Belga)
The popularity of "white" beers such as Hoegaarden has taned
According to beer journalist Geert Van Lierde of the specialist
journal Café-Revue in the Flemish daily De Standaard, beer brewers
realised just in time that they had to do something about their
falling sales figures.
The introduction of fruit beers has proved to be a hole in the market
and a worthy alternative to alcopops such as Bacardi Breezer.
In recent years, the Belgian breweries have come up with one brewage
after the other. As a result, fruit beers are no longer associated
with cherries but contain far more exotic ingredients such as figs,
bananas or g.fruit.
In spite of all of this, the all-time favourite Kriek remains hugely
popular. The cherry beer is found in 45 of the 100 fruit beer
varieties.
Trendy beer, catchy name
Because trendy beers also need catchy names in order to please to ever
more demanding customer, they have been given names such as "Mystic"
or "Wittekerke rosé" that present them as the ultimate beer to drink
in a sunny outdoor café.
(Belga)
Fruit beers are lighter because they have been diluted with fruit
juice. Because of this, they go down well, especially when drunk cool.
Not surprisingly, the new types of beer are hugely popular with young
people as well as women.
The breweries couldn't be more pleased. They know the fruit beers
lower the threshold for younger customers who in the end, will learn
to appreciate their traditional beers too.
In the beginning, there was Kriek
Kriek is a cherry beer on the basis of lambic, the appellation of the
spontaneously fermenting style of wheat beer unique to the Brussels
Zenne valley.
It has been part of Belgium's culinary heritage for as far as anyone
can remember.
The cherries used to brew Kriek are traditionally grown in the
Brussels municipality of Schaarbeek and are smaller and sweeter than
the cherries used by for instance bakers.
But as the demand for Kriek beer rose, brewers found themselves short
of the traditional Schaarbeek cherries. Instead, they started to use
fruit juice to flavour the beer.
What started off with raspberries and peaches eventually resulted in
over 100 different varieties of fruit beer.
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