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How Much is Too Much Flavour in Beers?

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By: Joerg Factorine

Second-Year Brewmaster Student


    Since the Craft Beer Revolution started, brewers have realized they can add more flavours to beer. At first, it happened by trying new combinations of beer's fundamental ingredients: malts, hops and yeast strains. Although some styles had existed for centuries, they were rediscovered. Belgian beers inspired brewers to try some exotic additions, like fruits and other sugar sources, or even wild yeast and spontaneous fermentation. After an industry that was long dominated by simple tasting Lagers, revisiting the past sharpened the curiosity and imagination of brewers- and that was a path with no return. 

    “And if I add that, how will it taste?” “I can’t wait to try this.” That was the kind of thought that moved brewers to try new flavours. Fueled by the competition among new breweries, the creativity kept increasing, every new step achieved wasn’t enough, and the limits to dare have been expanding.

    Nowadays, fruit additions are no novelty anymore, but the costumers’ thirst for the new is still insatiable. Breweries try to innovate, not just by inserting new ingredients, but by rescuing old techniques. Methods such as barrel aging and wild fermentation are being used, along with rethinking and creating new styles, as we saw recently with New England and Brut IPAs.

    So many ingredients have been added to beer that today we have Pastry Stouts with lactose, peanut butter, cocoa, spices, pepper and whatever else fits. Popcorn, hamburger buns, cookies and all sort of unusual adjuncts can be found announced on some breweries’ Instagram postings- with pride. Some people started pouring whipped cream on top of beer, and now you may have already heard about some with cheese on it. Has our imagination gone too far? Are we running out of options to after so much creativity?

    In the same direction, IPAs went from malt balanced, bitter beers, to crazy juicy hazy IPAs. The need to showcase all the hops’ potential led brewers to so drastically increase the amount of hops in these beers that it’s not rare to hear about the terrible “hop burns." This is when there is so much vegetable material that the astringency feels like it’s burning the back of your mouth. So, is there a limit? How much is too much?

    It looks like the excess of creativity has been saturating people’s palates. The demand for simpler beers has been increasing, and classic styles are making a comeback. Even Lagers, once seen as a symbol of large brewing corporations, are being more sought after by the craft beer costumers. So, what the future reserve for craft beer? Will we be able to keep inventing new flavours? One thing I am sure of, there is space for both complex and simple beers, we just need to do it right.


Image: Just A Taste [2020] Fruit and creamcheese breakfast pastries [Website] Retrieved from: https://www.justataste.com/fruit-and-cream-cheese-breakfast-pastries-recipe/

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