Tart beers offer citrusy perfection for hot weather

Over the past few years, sour beers have grown in popularity. Just a decade ago only a handful of American breweries were producing these acidic, incredibly complex beers. Most sour beers were still coming from European breweries. Today there are hundreds of breweries in the U.S. producing sour beers for a growing audience discovering that acid and sharpness in a beer can be a wonderful thing.

But not all sour beers are the same. While we love to put beers into broad categories — think stout or IPA — there can be dozens of interpretations within each style, and the sour style is by far the broadest. One of the fastest-growing and most popular types of sour beer is what I refer to as “tart” beers. These have a sharp, acidic tartness that’s usually paired with a fruit flavor. These clean sours focusing on the refreshing qualities of tartness are attracting new fans, many of whom usually prefer white wine.

>> A recent release in Hawaii seems as though it was custom-made for our warm climate: Cucumber Sour Crush from 10 Barrel Brewing. This beer is so popular that 10 Barrel has spent the past year expanding its brewery just to make more of it. Its base style is a German Berliner weisse, a classic tart beer that has become common in the U.S. A sip of this offering is like biting into a lemon, but that tartness is balanced by a refreshing dose of cucumber flavor. It also has notes of melon, making for a beer that many sauvignon blanc drinkers can get into. At only 4 percent alcohol by volume, it is light and crushable (drinkable), like its name suggests.

>> Another classic German-style sour that has become wildly popular is the gose. A wheat-based beer, it has a wonderful tartness generated from lactic fermentation. Traditionally lower in alcohol at less than 5 percent, this style uses tartness and salinity (yes, they actually add salt to the brewing process) to create a highly refreshing beer. Anderson Valley Brewing Co. has three popular versions of gose perfectly suited for warm-weather climates. Their Blood Orange Gose starts as a traditional gose, brewed with wheat malt, coriander and salt, but it strays from tradition with generous amounts of blood oranges added during fermentation. The bright citrus flavor adds a layer of complexity to the tartness, but it also balances it out. A touch of salinity comes through at the back of each sip, which encourages the next. When the weather is hot, this is a beer for quenching the thirst.

>> A common characteristic of tart beers is a sharp, lemony flavor. Wittekerke Wild, from Brewery De Brabandere in Belgium, is like a can of carbonated lemonade beer without the sweetness. This is a highly unique offering that showcases the incredible flavors that can be generated with wild yeast and bacteria. Brewery De Brabandere starts by creating a classic Belgian wit ale that it ages for a short time in large oak vessels, called foeders, that contain the bacteria and yeast. The result bursts with bright lemon, lime and saltine-cracker flavors — a refreshing, surprisingly smooth beer. Like the other tart beers, Wild is only 5 percent alcohol by volume, making for light and very easy drinking.

All of these beers are affordable at about $2 to $4 a can, making it easy to try them out. By the time we get to summer, you may have found a new favorite for those sweltering, sunny days.

Tim Golden, a certified cicerone, shares his obsession with all things craft beer monthly. See his blog, “Beer in Hawaii,” at beerinhawaii.com.