ABV – 9.30%

Perennial Artisan Ales

Oh fruit beers. Whether it be over sweetened shandys or adding an orange Blue Moon, for a while fruit and beer combos got a pretty bad rap. But no longer are we in that era where fruit meant beer wasn’t really beer anymore.

Luckily, for those of us who would much rather spit out Wild Dog blue, the American craft beer industry started focusing on beer fruit influenced beer.  Now it seems like every fruit you can imagine is being used to enhance and innovate the kind of beer consumers are enjoying.

The art of pairing these fruits with different styles, spices, yeasts and the like, we’ve come to a gourmet turn of events where fruit beers are not seen as such terrible things. Bring Perennial’s Hereafter to the picture. Perennial Hereafter pairs a belgian style ale with the addition of pears and white sage.

On the nose there’s a full pear tartness with a rich belgian yeast sweetness. On the palate there’s a lot of that pear without much white sage and it almost drinks very young in that the booze and belgian yeast are the main showcases.

I would prefer a little more sage and time before I opened this puppy up. The mouthfeel is a surprisingly moderately light for a 9.3% and its finish is somewhat lingering-dry. The idea of the pear addition seems promising but it only added to that lush belgian yeast and might have paired better with the spicy dryness of a french style saison.