From the Beer Writer: There are a number of fruits I have always thought to be perfectly suited as flavor-enhancers for sour beers: pineapple, apricot, Meyer lemon (a sweeter variety of this citrus fruit). But my hands-down pick for the most pucker-ready produce is passion fruit. With sometimes bracing, citric tartness, just a touch of earthy sweetness and even a bit of natural funk, the flesh of the fruit tastes like a sour ale all on its own. In fact, I find myself describing a number of sours as tasting like passion fruit. It would seem the brew-crew at Mission Brewery agrees. Their current limited-edition seasonal release is Mission Passion Fruit Gose, a salted, kettle-soured ale of Germanic descent given added fruitiness by passion fruit added during primary fermentation. The result is an intensely tropical beer that comes on strong with a burst of salinity that gives way to flavors of passion fruit with a touch of lemongrass and the aforementioned mild-funk in the finish. Logical and lacking complication, it’s a beer that tastes good and goes down easy in large quantities.
From the Brewer: “In spring of 2016 we started brewing one-off kettle sours fairly frequently for the tasting room. In doing so, we experimented with a couple different fruit purées and really enjoyed how the subtle fruit character played off the ‘sour’ flavors we were getting from the lactobacillus. After finding a limited supply of passion fruit purée, we knew it would be a winner in one of these kettle sours. Passion fruit has a certain funk to its flavor-profile, and certainly meshed well in this beer.”—John Egan, Head Brewer, Mission Brewery