Pineapple Beer and Cider Captures Hearts and Tropics
Pineapple is the hottest fruit ingredient in Beer and Cider this summer and only seems to be gaining in popularity.
Vacations are hard to come by this summer, but brewers and cidermakers are bringing the tropics to you in an explosion of pineapple infused brands. The sweet and spiky fruit has a distinct flavor that consumers are finding much less divisive than adding pineapple to a pizza.
"Tropicals in general have become a hot ticket," says Chris Hodge of the industry leading fruit for fermentation supplier Oregon Fruit Products.
Lead by the rise of fruit beer in 2015 and the shift towards tropical flavors in the last three years, pineapple is the fastest growing in-demand flavor in beer and cider. The trend lines up with hazy IPA, dessert/pastry beers and cocktail-inspired beers that have all seen a huge surge in popularity over the last few years.
Pineapple fruit originates out of the southern hemisphere where many of the hottest new hop varieties are grown. New Zealand is known for defeating the coronavirus and breeding dual use aroma and bittering hops like Nelson Sauvin, Motueka, Pacific Gem and Southern Cross. Pineapple is very popular in New Zealand where they are often garden grown in hot houses or farmed in the winter-less northern region of the country.
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Local kiwi John Lovegrove is a pineapple and beer enthusiast living in Portland, Oregon. He once visited 34 breweries in a day and chronicled his trip in the documentary PDX: Brew City (which I also briefly appeared in.) Lovegrove has been an avid homebrewer of pineapple beers, an advocate for a pineapple beer fest, and authors an instagram dedicated to the fruit called @summerofpineapple.
"It’s hugely popular in New Zealand on anything," says Lovegrove of his beloved fruit. "Especially pizza. Cheese and pineapple grilled cheese sandwich is an option at every cafe."
Lovegrove has been a huge advocate for the strong flavors of his homeland that can assert themselves in bold hazy IPA's but is still looking to find pineapple in more dark beers.
"One of the most popular New Zealand candies is called a pineapple lump, a chocolate covered pineapple semi-hard marshmallow," says Lovegrove, noting the untapped style opportunities that could still be on the horizon. "Chocolate and pineapple are naturally good together. "
Oregon Fruit Products
Oregon Fruit Products (OFP) is one of the reasons we can find so much quality fruit beer in the market. The Salem, OR-based company specializes in making aseptic all natural fruit purees for fermentation. The ease of use and pre-processing of their fruit purees strikes a perfect medium ground between processing whole fruit or using an extract. Pineapple puree debuted as a limited release OFP puree in 2016 and has only grown in popularity.
"We would have been foolish to keep it as a seasonal. Just this week alone we have had 100-200,000 pounds of pineapple on order. The orders just don't stop, they continue to roll in daily," says OFP sales manager and craft beer industry veteran Chris Hodge.
OFP sources their pineapple from Costa Rica with annual contracts to ensure availability and pricing. The fruit is processed in Salem grade with food grade "A" pineapple chunks with the only additional ingredient being pure pineapple juice to dilute the natural fiber of the whole fruit and keep the product from becoming too viscous. "It adds a brightness to the flavor profile and an ease of use to filtration," says Hodge.
According to Hodge, one of the many reasons for pineapples popularity is it's natural flavor and the rise of juicy Hazy IPA, Milkshake IPA and Slushie Sours. But pineapple also lends itself into fruit blends where brewers are using it in conjunction with mango and passionfruit (two of the other most popular fruit purees.)
"It's sort of the go-to fruit of the summer, there is not a day that goes by that we don't get a new customer demanding pineapple," says Hodge.
Great Notion Brewing
Portland, Oregon's Great Notion Brewing is one of Oregon Fruit Products biggest customers, it seems like nearly every week they are packing hundreds of pounds of pineapple into their fermenters.
When Great Notion first opened and were brewing on a 7bbl brewhouse on NE Alberta, they were using about 21 pounds per barrel of OFP puree. They loved the result and found it went well with the tropical fruit forward hops of hazy IPA's like recent release Space Invader.
"We noticed pretty quickly that the fermentation tends to blow off a lot of the really cool pineapple character so we started saving a little bit out of the box and adding it to the brite tank post fermentation," says Great Notion co-founder/co-brewer Andy Miller. "[co-founder] James Dugan would even come in with cans of Dole pineapple juice and dump it into a fruited IPA we were about to carb. Even a small amount of juice really accentuated the fruit character. This is obviously something you can get away with at a pub a whole lot more than a production facility."
At Great Notion's NW Portland production facility they are trying every which way to get the most pineapple flavor into each beer.
"We got to where we were putting a pallet and a half of puree into 30 bbls of kettle sour," says Miller. That's when Great Notion started adding concentrates on top of the puree just to get more into the tanks as they ran out of room.
"One thing James and Metro tried at the pub recently that I thought was pretty cool and adds a layer to the pineapple character is adding some to the whirlpool at flameout. They added just 1 42# box of puree in 7 bbls and at the production facility we added just 4 boxes to 30 bbls. Anyway, if you added that amount to the fermenter you would barely perceive it in the finished beer. It really gets locked into the beer and reminds me of pineapple upside down cake. That cooked candy like pineapple character."
Look for Great Notion Juice Invader or Pineapple Pillows Hazy IPA's when available.
Oakshire Brewing Piña Colada Hazy Smoothie IPA
Coconut and pineapple are a favorite combination in summer drinks and foods that bring the feeling of vacation. Piña Colada, the classic blended tropical cocktail is captured in a creamy smoothie IPA by Oakshire Brewing in Eugene, Oregon.
Piña Colada Hazy Smoothie IPA was bittered with Mosaic hop oil and Citra and Mosaic hop pellets. To get even more tropical aroma out of the hops, a triple dry hop of Mosaic, Citra and Galaxy was made in the tank before conditioning on fruit.
Oakshire used about 2 gallons of pineapple puree per barrel, about 1,000 pounds total in a 15 barrel batch of Piña Colada Hazy Smoothie IPA. The puree came from Stahlbush Island Farms in Corvallis and was added to brite tanks with cold cellared beer.
"The purpose was to retain the purest form of taste from the puree itself," says Oakshire brewmaster Dan Russo. "We've used this puree before and don't see significant gravity pick-up to worry about re-fermentation in the can, so felt confident in that decision."
To get the desired level of coconut flavors and creaminess, Oakshire used 150 pounds of both shredded coconut and cream of coconut. Vanilla beans were added to compliment that smooth soft milkshake flavor. No lactose milk sugar was harmed in the making of this beer.
"The result is pretty stunning. All the characteristics of a good pina colada. It is smooth and creamy and has the big pineapple bombs, all those other tropical notes from the hops and the coconut layers with the ending creaminess from the vanilla. But it still stands as an IPA," says Russo.
Piña Colada Hazy Smoothie IPA is a new release from Oakshire Brewing available now in 16oz cans and on-draft while it lasts.
Goodlife Brewing Beach Life! Pineapple Pale
Bend, Oregon's Goodlife Brewing has had huge success with their two time GABF gold medal winning Sweet As! Pale Ale. In 2017 Goodlife brewed a special one-off Pineapple edition of Sweet As! for the Bend Brewfest and it was an instant hit, selling out and winning the People's Choice award.
The beer was such a hit that brewmaster Tyler West and the Goodlife crew wanted to brew a larger packaged version of a similar pineapple beer. But there were numerous challenges to getting there.
The first problem was one of brewing philosophy and an adherence to company traditions.
"Our late brewmaster Curt Plants was never a fan of fruit beer, so I told the team we would make a Beer with fruit aroma and flavors, not a Fruity beer, we were all on the same page," says West.
Goodlife settled on a Pale Ale that would showcase the citrusy Amarillo hop with a fruit character that wouldn't fundamentally alter the acidity or perceived sweetness level of the beer.
"I think brewers have trended towards fruity sour type beers, but we wanted a beer that you could slug a pint, and order another," says West who hand selected his Amarillo hops at the beginning of harvest.
To back up the grassy citrus of Amarillo, Goodlife selected the new school German hop Mandarina Bavaria to add during the whirlpool "to get a very fresh Orange character with a Danky, Diesel finish."
The last problem in bringing a packaged pineapple beer to market was one of the actual fruit itself. West tasted through multiple flavorings, extracts and purees.
"I smelled through a lot of pineapple extracts, and none of them had a real pineapple aroma," says West. "You know when you are trying to pick out a fresh pineapple at the market, and you smell the bottom of the fruit, or pull a leaf and smell the base of it, that's what we were going for. That first slice kind of aroma!"
Goodlife settled on a pineapple concentrated puree added at the tail end of fermentation to achieve a smooth essence of the fruit flavor without added sweetness or acidity. The pineapple sits firmly behind both the hops and malt flavor. Beach Life Pineapple Pale is a summer seasonal available now on-draft and in 6-packs.
Pono Pineapple Express
Pono Brewing Pineapple Express
"We may be one of the only breweries that a Kolsch/Fruit beer is our top selling beer," says Pono Brewing owner/brewer Larry Clouser.
Pono gets their name and logo inspiration from the tropical island culture so it's no surprise that they have been more focused on brewing with pineapple than similar brewers of their size. Pono has made special versions like a gin barrel-aged version for Loyal Legion beer hall and the Pineapple Expresso for the NW Coffee Beer Invitational.
"Pineapple has gotten more popular in both the alcohol world and in cooking so we have had to work very closely with our supplier on projections to make sure we always have pineapple available.
Clouser's choice of base beer is the light bodied Kölsch because it allows him to not overwhelm the more beery flavors with fruit. Striking that balance between pineapple flavor and malt, yeast, water and hops has been difficult as some of the German Kölsch purists have taken issue with adding fruit.
"We add the pineapple into the fermenter a few degrees above terminal right after we dump the yeast so that we have a lower risk of introducing oxygen into the beer this late in the fermentation process," says Clouser. The unfermented wort is then recirculated and pumped back through the tanks to get the puree mixed into the final beer evenly. From years of working with pineapple, Pono is considering taking their experience to making a pineapple seltzer or IPA.
"I have learned is that using a fruit with hops that have flavors/aromas of said fruit is that they don’t always work well together," says Clouser, who is considering southern hemisphere hops for a Pono Pineapple IPA in cans.
Swift Cider Pineapple Hop
Swift Cider Pineapple Hop
Bridging the constantly shrinking gap between beer nerds and cider craft is Swift Cider's Pineapple Hop. A product that the Portland hard cidery has been making 5+ years under the name "Dank Hop" until recently.
"While we loved that name, as the popularity of pineapple beverages increased we rebranded it to Pineapple Hop," says Swift regional sales manager Ali Digenis. "As consumers learned more about the cider category as whole, they were drawn to ingredients or fruits that they quickly recognized."
As the name suggests, Pineapple Hop is a heavily hopped cider that is aged on real whole pineapple chunks. Fruity and dank northwest hop varieties Chinook, Centennial and Ekuanot are all used to create a hopped cider to please beer and cider fans alike.
"Blending in pineapples during aging adds body and sweetness to balance the bitterness of the three IPA hops," says Swift owner and cidermaker Aidan Currie. "The super heady aroma of citrus, pine, and dank blend effortlessly into the tropical flavor of pineapple. Even people who say they don’t like hopped cider tend to enjoy the beer-like balance of this one. For the hop heads among us, this cider is straight up dank."
Swift Cider recently opened up a taproom in N. Portland and has made the jump from 500ml bottles to brand new 16oz cans where you can pick up a 4-pack of the Pineapple Hop.
21st Amendment Tropical Sparkale
Cocktails inspired beers are a growing trend in the industry, combining the influence of spirits and fruit the team at San Francisco's 21st Amendment Brewery came up with Tropical Sparkale.
Unlike the common threads weaving pineapple and coconut into extra sweet, thick and creamy sours and IPA's, 21st Amendment rolled that combination into a crisp and refreshing fizzy ale.
To achieve that light crisp flavor with a hint of acidity, 21A actually uses northwest apple juice made from Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Gala, Fuji, Pink Lady, and Granny Smith apples. The blend is designed to meet a specific level of brix sugar ratio, acid, color and flavor profile. Those light concentrated sugars from apples promote a lighter and drier finished beer.
The pineapple in Tropical Sparkale is from a natural concentrate made from real fruit from Hawaii and Thailand. The result is a sparkling ale with tart pineapple flavor and sweet coconut with reduced gluten.
"Tropical Sparkale brings a sense of relief and a reminder that we can still enjoy a 'getaway' while at home," says Shaun O'Sullivan, Co-Founder and Brewmaster.
Tropical Sparkale is available in 12oz cans in all 30 states where 21st Amendment is distributed.
Locust Pineapple Smoked Pepper Cider
Locust Cider Pineapple Smoked Pepper Cider
Washington's Locust Cider makes more of the more unusual renditions of pineapple drinks in a seasonal Pineapple Smoked Pepper hard cider.
Washington apples are pressed for the cider base and a blend of pineapple puree and pineapple juice are added to give a sweet, almost confectionary pineapple dessert flavor.
An earlier pineapple spice cider used Habaneros, but for the newer packaged cider the cidermakers wanted to use something that would be even better at cutting through all the sweet tart flavors. For this product they smoked Morita jalapeno peppers and steeped them in the cider to give a slightly smoky and spicy chipotle bite with notes of campfire and hickory.
More Pineapple Beer and Ciders:
Reverend Nat's Hard Cider Tepache
It would be difficult to find a more pure expression of pineapple in fermented form then Portland cidery Reverend Nat's Tepache. Made from fermented pineapples sourced from Costa Rica, piloncillo from the Mexican state of Michoacan and a furtive selection of spice.
Prairie Artisan Ales Upside Down Cake
A new pastry inspired sour ale from Tulsa, Oklahoma's Prairie Artisan Ales has cherries, pecans, pineapples and yellow cake. Available now in 12oz cans.
Ska Brewing Tropical Hazy IPA
A take off of Ska Brewing's first hazy IPA in cans released in 2019, the Tropical Hazy IPA goes full fruit bomb with both papaya and pineapple. Available wherever Ska is sold.
Gorges Beer Pineapple Tart
A Chardonnay wine barrel-aged saison made with pineapple puree, on tap now at Gorges Trailhead taproom in SE Portalnd.
Portland Cider Co. Pineapple Rosé
A bright and juicy cider available year-round with a splash of real pineapples and a dash of blueberries for a pinkish color and berry mellow. Find it in 6-pack cans, 19.2 oz cans on on draft.