What Makes Our Beer Special: Refermenting on Fruit

For our Fruitful Pursuit beers we add hundreds of kilos of fruit. This fruit is sourced through Steve & Dan's Fresh BC Fruit and is grown by them and the farmers they work with. We typically process the range of fruits we use by cutting, de-stemming, and removing pits. We treat each fruit differently based on the needs of the given fruit to get the desired impact on the beer.

Fruit beers are very common and there are many methods to make them. We get the best outcome when we use whole, fresh fruit rather than extracts or purees.

We’re in a fortunate position because we can use whole fruit; most beers can’t as there are microorganisms on the skin of fruit that can contaminate a standard beer. Fortunately in our case those microorganisms are largely the same types of microorganisms that we use to make our beer so this skin contact helps initiate the second fermentation of the beer rather than spoiling it. Our finished blend of beer referments on the fruit in a dedicated stainless tank for 2 to 3 months. The amount of time is determined by the fruit variety, chemical analysis, and the progress of fermentation and flavour development. We use exceedingly high fruiting rates, similar to the Belgians, as even though it’s expensive it also creates the best possible beer.

Browse our Fruitful Pursuits Series →