What is a Slushy / Smoothie beer?

Like you, this Slushy / Smoothie concept was new to us not that long ago.

We noticed a few other prominent breweries across the country making these beers with tons of fruit and no actual “beer” taste. Some breweries stopped making traditional beer altogether and rebranded their entire company to produce these beverages.

So we decided we poke a little fun at the current “trend” of the beer industry of making beers that don’t taste like beer at all.

We thought, “Is this really what people want?”

The answer, as we quickly learned, was a resounding “YES”, or maybe “YAAAS” would be more appropriate.

We embarked on our first-ever batch of The T•R•E•N•D•S in early 2021, and after many different fruit variations, it’s still one of the fastest-selling beers that we produce.

how we make it

Most people in the industry are using a kettle sour as an alcohol base for these fruity beverages.

We decided to use a Neutral Malt Base for T•R•E•N•D•S, which is a super clean, high ABV (7%) alcohol that doesn’t take away from the fruit whatsoever. In fact, we think it enhances the fruit blend and provides a “sparkling smoothie” type of mouthfeel & flavor. We wanted the fruit to do all the talking.

For fruit, we use literal tons (well over 2,000 lbs), of fruit pureé per batch and blend that with our Neutral Malt Base after fermentation.

After we carbonate and pasteurize the juice to make it shelf-stable, we drop it into cans for you to enjoy.

The final result is a thick & viscous, smoothie-like beverage that doesn’t taste like it has any booze in it whatsoever.

The distinction of Slushy or Smoothie is still up for debate. But T•R•E•N•D•S might just be in its own category.

The one where…

Our very first T•R•E•N•D•S, the “OG” Pineapple Guava, is what started us on this fruit-forward journey. It’s been a fun ride so far, and we’re excited to continue iterating and improving this style of…beer?