Are fruit flavoured hazy IPAs the beers of the summer?

Heineken has picked up on hints that watermelon is poised to be summer 2024’s top flavour. But is its latest release from Beavertown Brewery what beer drinkers really want? Jessica Mason finds out.

Take one look at the 4.5% ABV hazy IPA release and you may query where things have got to in terms of beer, flavours and styles.

Beavertown’s marketing team, citing a nationwide marketing survey by Paragon Brands, has identified that watermelon is destined for big things this summer with over a third of Brits (37%) selecting it as their favourite summer fruit flavour for an alcoholic beverage.

Enter Lunar Melon – a limited edition watermelon hazy IPA that is pink in colour and, according to the brewery, “blasts a wave of flavour into the stratosphere”.

Speaking to the drinks business, Beavertown Brewery marketing director Tom Rainsford said: “At Beavertown, we’re always looking to make our beers full of flavour and refreshing. With Lunar Melon, we wanted to create the ultimate summer drink, bursting with natural watermelon flavour and a cheeky twist – a pink haze when poured. Perfect for those warm summer nights.”

Described by the brewing giant as “effortlessly drinkable with a fresh watermelon taste and a pink haze” as well as a beer that “glows pink like psychedelic watermelon sunsets and promises to unleash wave upon wave of refreshing, juicy watermelon flavour euphoria” there is no doubt that the brewer expects the beer to pique the interest of drinkers this summer.

Heineken has additionally insisted that Beavertown is “leading the charge with the launch” and keeping ahead of the watermelon trend and noted that the beer release is also part of the business’s wider plans for Beavertown which involve “expanding its range”.

For a European perspective on what is driving the market for flavoured beers and some brewers’ responses, author and beer writer Adrian Tierney-Jones recalled a recent interview with Ulrike Genz owner and head brewer of Berlin’s Brauerei Schneeeule, which is renowned for bringing back the traditional Berliner Weiss.

Genz said: “I got really angry with one of my friends who had invited me for to brew, and once there I smelt this strange smell and he said it came from the bucket in which I make the mango sours. We had to remove it, I couldn’t smell anything all day. ‘Why do you make them?’ I asked. ‘It sells’, he replied, ‘the market wants it’. ‘What the f*** the market wants it’, I said. ‘This is not brewing craft beer, this is industrial brewing with flavouring. To make these beers you don’t need art, you don’t need fermenting art, you just add flavourings like a chemist. I don’t want it’. I get really angry with it, [it’s] horrible’.”

Tierney-Jones explained: “There’s a market for them and beer should have an element of fun but personally I tend to regard them as baby food for adults, the infantilisation of a great and noble beverage, it’d be a bit like a great wine producing chateau around Bordeaux adding mangoes or preserved lemons to their vintages.”

Author and beer writer Pete Brown added: “I talk to so many brewers who say they brew hazy, fruity beers because that’s what the market wants. Then I look at the total share that hazy, fruity beers have in the market and think….’really? Looks to me like they want Guinness and ‘Spanish’ lager’.”

Not all beer drinkers will feel similarly to Genz, Tierney-Jones and Brown about beers that add flavours in a similar manner and some will continue to follow flavour trends as they arise.

Lunar Melon will be available to buy via Beavertown Brewery’s webshop in cases of 12 for £23 or 24 for £43. The new beer will also feature as part of Beavertown’s limited-edition ‘Case of Summer IPAs’ multipack which contains 18 of the brewery’s summer beers or £40.

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