A Fruit Beer. New Tastes.

Behind water and tea (yes, even beating wine and coffee), beer is said to be the third most popular drink in the world.

The brewing industry is one of the most innovative industries, and the fruit beer concept is an exciting development that consumers can enjoy today. Brewers are introducing a wide range of fruit beer concepts, from citrus varieties to bold, cherry-flavored brews to a milder apricot beer that caters to the need for low-alcohol content fruit beers – often marketed as favorite summer beverages.

Fruit beer is in essence beer with fruit. Fruit can be added at any point in the brewing process before consumption. Fruit beers are riding a wave of popularity in 2023.

Mixing fruit juice with beer has a long history dating back to the early 1900s in the Munich region of Germany. In the early 1900s, when a bartender in the German town of Deisenhofen mixed beer with lemon soda, he created a drink for cyclists who stopped at his bar during a long ride. The drink was called Radlermass ("cyclist litre") or Radler.

When the drink became popular, Radler was adopted as the name for the style of beer. In terms of flavor, Radler is light and refreshing, with a balanced combination of beer and lemon.

Now the term "Radler" encompasses almost any beer mixed with almost any fruit juice, including flavors like grapefruit, pineapple, watermelon, blood orange and tangerine.

The Radler-style drink became so popular, it spread to other countries and many regional variations started to appear.

In England, for instance, the mix became known as a Shandy. Today many brewers are taking the process one step further and actually brewing the beer and fruit together to create a beer with sweet, bitter and sour tastes in harmony.

Over the past five years, one in ten global beer launches has included fruit tastes from concentrated juice, flavor extracts, or fruit peel. Significant brewers like Anheuser-Busch and Carlsberg have adopted the practice since it started with shandies in Europe.