Kumquat Beer. Why Not?

April 10, 2015 – There are plenty of weirdly flavored beers out there.  Pizza.  Key Lime Pie.  Coconut Curry.  Maple Bacon Coffee.  Coffee turns up more than a few times.  We just read about Kentucky Breakfast Stout from Founders Brewing Company in Boston.  If you like bitter, burnt coffee flavors it tastes pretty good apparently.

So when we read about kumquat beer, we became quite interested because we are very fond of kumquats.  On the off chance that someone hasn’t discovered this delightful member of the citrus family, it a very small (about and inch long), slightly oval, orange-skinned fruit that is usually available in supermarkets in the early part of the year, sold in small containers for a large price.  It is the opposite of an orange in that the skin is sweet and edible and the inside is bitter, also edible.  We had a friend with an enormous kumquat in his front yard.  He had lived in the house for 20 years and never knew what it was or tasted it.  We became the happy recipients of bags and bags of fruit that made a delicious cake, excellent jam and was added to fruit salads and so on.

 
Smog City Brewery in Torrance, Southern California, is making the kumquat beer.  Owned by the husband and wife team of Jonathon and Laurie Porter, they started their label in 2011 using another brewery’s facilities but opened their own brewery, with a taproom, in 2013.  The Kumquat Saison debuted that year in their Forager’s Series.

Like our friend, the Porters had a big kumquat tree in their backyard that produced enough fruit for a few kegs.  It was so popular that Laurie Porter bought more commercially produced fruit but the flavor was different.  A fortuitous meeting with an organization called Food Forward suddenly gave them access to fruit from 45 trees!  (Food Forward is a volunteer-powered grassroots organization in Southern California that collects surplus from farmers markets and backyard gardens to feed the hungry.)

 
Ryan Trousdale, the affable Operations Manager, told us that this year they handled about 1,000 pounds of kumquats.  After the fruit is washed, it is frozen to break it down for better extraction.  The fruit is pureed whole.  The yeast eats through the sugars resulting in a tart and refreshing flavor.  After making about 20 to 40 gallons in the last two years, Smog City will brew in excess of 1,000 gallons this year.  It will be featured at a Spring Melt fundraising dinner on April 25.  Some will be bottled for select local accounts but mostly it will be available in the taproom starting in May.

Ryan explained that other beers in the Forager’s Series were a fennel flowers Scotch Ale and a passion fruit Saison.  Scavenging fennel flowers must have been an interesting challenge while the passion fruits were donated by f.o.b.s – friends of the brewery who just happened to have vines on their back fences.

Sadly, we will never get to taste the Kumquat Saison from Smog City, unless we drive 400 miles plus to Torrance.  California law allows them to sell at retail at the brewery premises but they are not permitted to ship outside Orange County.  We’ll just have to dream about how it might taste but for you home brewers with a kumquat tree in your yard – or your neighbor’s yard – go for it!