If you'd told people fruit sours, turbid IPAs, pastry stouts and hard seltzers would be part of the local brewing industry even just a few years ago, not many would have taken you seriously. But here we are, in a place that, certainly pre-COVID-19, knew no limits when it came to conceiving the next 15 beers in one's limited release schedule. Yet this autumn release from Holgate Brewhouse still feels like it occupies a place of its own.
They've got a track record for getting in early, not just as one of the longest-established craft breweries in Australia but in being, among other things, one of the first to play with barrels and the first to make a hoppy sour part of their core range. The arrival of a fruited beer-cider hybrid in a clear glass bottle is still quite the eye-opener, however, especially when the sample arrives at the same time as tallboy tinnies filled with Millennium Falcon IIPA. Safe to say, they're for different audiences.
Apple Berry Beer is pretty much what it says on the labels: there's an upfront hit of earthy, kinda funky apple juice from the Harcourt grown and crushed Pink Lady and Granny Smith apples with sweet raspberry juice riding through the middle. The beer sits in the background – sweet, malty and lager like with nothing in the way of bitterness to distract from the fruity confection.
James Smith
Published April 22, 2020 2020-04-22 00:00:00
