The rise of light beer

This month has seen both London Craft Beer Festival and Great British Beer Festival hit the town, so it’s safe to say we’ve got beer on the brain. And looking around, it’s clear there are some changes brewing.

If ‘craft beer’ brings to mind deep, amber, spicy ales and a bearded crowd, well, you’re only half-right. While beards are still very much in, when it comes to the drinks, a new style is on the rise as fruity, light and ‘sessionable’ picks take centre stage.

Those same things that made craft beer really popular a few years ago - powerful, hoppy IPAs and big robust flavours, are the same things we’re now turning away from. Having flavour-bombed our palates, these days we’re looking to lighter, more elegant flavours, but still with plenty of complexity, body and length. Dare we say our tastes have become more sophisticated?

That means sours, saisons and lagers are on the up, and the same trends we’re seeing in food - think local, seasonal flavours, natural ingredients, and even foraged fruits - are finding their way into cans, bottles and taps across the country. Here are some of the styles and trends to look out for.

Sour Beer

These tart, refreshing beers are thirst quenching, palate cleansing, and work well with food, due to their higher acidity. With mouth-puckering punchiness, sour beers are niche and can be love ‘em or hate ‘em, so try starting light with a gose: a lighter style characterised by coriander seasoning and salt. Italy’s Birrificio del Ducato ‘Kiss Me Lipsia’ is a golden ale blended with gose and Himalayan pink salt (no less!), it’s nicely mellow on the acidity, with a mineral lick from the salt. From Bethnal Green, Redchurch Brewery’s Urban Farmhouse ‘Barrels 1&2’ is a sour beer aged for 24 months in Chardonnay barrels, and is tart and juicy with a nice hoppy complexity.

Saison

This light ale is modelled on the southern Belgian farmhouse style, with dryness and aromatics, together with hoppy, maltier flavours. “In the early days in Belgium, they used to brew the beer ready for harvest,” explains Tim Toovey from Kicking Horse craft beer merchants, “so that farmhands had something to drink during harvest season. Look out for the dry, pepperiness, that’s really important.”

Saison’s natural tartness works well with fruits and you can find great infusions. Lindheim Ølkompani brewery in Norway ferments fruits from their own orchards into their beers. Try Farmer’s Reserve Raspberry Brett, barrel fermented with wild yeasts and then infused with raspberries. It’s fresh and vibrant on the nose, and this fruit-driven style of saison is more gentle than a sour beer. For hyper local, seasonal flavours, try Burning Sky Saison L'été, brewed with gooseberry and fresh elderflower picked from the hedgerows around the brewery in Sussex.

Lager

The humble lager is making a big comeback. This isn’t your average pub lager though - forget about flat, flavourless, bitter pints; the new style is all about long-lasting flavours, elegance, and complexity. Look out for Braybrooke Beer Co Keller Bier, it’s unpasteurised, and unfiltered, so it’s a bit hazy and keeps more flavour in the glass. With a rich, malty flavour, it’s a perfect lager to convert ale drinkers, and its extra body and richness means it works well with food. Although rich, it’s still got that signature lager crispness.

Wild Ferments

“People are coming back to traditional methods,” says Andy Weir, from east London’s Marksman Public House. “We’re at a point in the industry where we’ve ‘done’ the IPAs and big, juicy flavours, and we’re looking towards brewing something different, so wild ferments are coming in. That’s where fermentation happens naturally with yeasts that are already in the atmosphere, and isn’t controlled. The exciting thing about them is they brew a slightly different beer each time, meaning they’re absolutely tied to that moment in time, and have bottle variation, so each one is unique.” An example of that is Mills Brewing, Gloucestershire. It’s tart, it’s fresh, it’s acidic, and a great example of the current styles.

No and Lo

Finally, don’t be surprised to see no-and-low-alcohol beers making an appearance, as the trend for less alcohol but (almost) equal taste spreads across all areas of booze. Try Schofferhofer Grapefruit Radler at 2.5%, or Nirvana Brewery’s Karma Pale Ale at 0%.

Craft beer’s all grown up.