While lagers hold a very special place in the collective heart of the Freshie crew, they can be tempted into brewing the occasional ale too. So it is that, as well as dropping two more lagers in cans this spring – Nirvana Pils and Sunbeams Japanese rice lager – they canned their mango sour and the latest iteration of their XPA.
The former is Stay Salty is, according to brewery co-founder Jonny Bucknall, "a riff on a beer we brew at the start of summer: a gose with a different fruit each year." After featuring passionfruit and watermelon in the past, mango was the request for summer 2024/25. It presents more fruity and juicy than funky, as mango sometimes can, almost venturing into uber-fruity NZ savvy b territory on the nose, albeit without smothering the impact of the souring lactobacillus. Tart and quenching, aided by a dash of salt that leaves you ready for the next sip before the one in your mouth has even disappeared.
If mango was the most requested fruit for this year's Stay Salty, then XPA has been the most requested style, which has seen the brewers tinkering with a recipe all year and weighing up adding Freshie XPA to their core range. The beer looks the part – the faintest of haze, light gold in colour, a pure white head – while pineapple, passionfruit, lemons aplenty open proceedings before a drying citrus rind bitterness keeps things lean. There's a touch of candy / sherbet to the flavours in a beer that's livelier and sharper than many XPAs on the market.
James Smith
Published Today 2024-11-21 00:00:00
