THE DRAYMAN

Flavoured beers

Are experimental drinkers really seeking out discordant fruit blends?

The silly survey is usually a red flag, a lazy PR tactic to generate any old publicity for a brand that hasn’t got much else to say. When the survey is heralded as coming from the “mad scientists of sour beer” it seems like justification for the government to send out a real-life version of its new emergency text alarm.

Edinburgh-based Vault City is one of those breweries with a tendency to call its beers things like The Muffin Man Mango & Blueberry Pastry or Tonka White Forest Gateau Session.

Though the opportunity for beer to constantly reinvent itself is one of its most appealing characteristics, I’m generally of the opinion that in doing so less tends to be more. The Germans created a law permitting beer to be made only from water, barley, hops and yeast for a very good reason: they’re all that’s really necessary.

However, I’m no purity law purist, and prepared to accept that subtle tinkering with grain content and adding the odd bit of fruit here and there can deliver beers that are desirable beyond the basic formula.

Where, say, the Belgians have got it right with fruit beer is by focusing on elucidating the best possible expression of a single ingredient rather than trying to accommodate a discordant blend of several.

Back to Vault City’s survey, which has come up with a list of what it says are the most “experimental” cities in the UK when it comes to trying new drinks. Norwich and Sheffield tied at the top, closely followed by London, Birmingham, Glasgow and Bristol, with a gap to the bottom half of the top 10 (or 11, as two cities tied in tenth) comprising Manchester, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Cardiff and Nottingham. It’s slightly surprising to find boho haven Brighton and craft beer-strewn Leeds failing to feature.

Vault City founder Steven Smith-Hay says it also revealed that a third of drinkers are “more experimental” than they were before lockdown.

“I think the days of ‘drink as much as you can for as little as you can’ are gone for most,” he says.

If all this is true, and my trend radar is woefully out of step with the times, it seems only fair to give Vault City the chance to stake its claim as the go-to brewery of choice for what Smith-Hay unabashedly calls “weird and wacky flavour combinations”.

Samples (bought from a third-party source, not freebies from the brewery) reveal a house style of gentle sourness, smooth body and coherent fruit combinations, though the sourness is underplayed and needs a bit more beery alcohol character to pull it along.

Paradise Punch is billed as a kiwi, melon and mango session sour, but punch is the very thing it lacks – a mocktailish-tasting fruit melange with a moderate sour edge. It’s sour beer for people who don’t like sour beer, a pleasant entry point, perhaps, before progressing to more challenging fare. Orange Soda comes across like Fanta in a beer form: lacklustre but harmless.

Pear Drops Keep Falling On My Head is an odd flavour choice, as the aroma of the retro sweets – undeniably present here – is widely considered to be a beer fault. It’s made even more puzzling as the beer’s fruit character appears to be derived from fresh pears rather than the additives used to make the confectionery.

It’s a shame, because, setting that aside, the modesty of its fruit flavour makes it the one that most allows some beer-like hop character to come through.

Definitely one for the hipsters of Norwich and Sheffield, but not Leeds or Brighton.