Fruli

Van Diest Früli or Fruli is a range of fruit flavoured beers with an alcohol content of 4.1% ABV. The Belgian brewery which produces this range is called Brouwerij Huyghe. Früli is a blend of 70% white beer and 30% fruit juice. [cite web | title=Fruli Facts | url=http://www.fruli.com/facts.html|accessdate= 2006-07-27]

Awards and public response

Früli won the gold medal at the International Beer Competition 2004.

The high intensity of the strawberry taste in the strawberry Früli tends to polarise the general public's response. Those who prefer an intensely fruity taste to their fruit beers claim that Früli is the most natural-tasting fruit beer (in fact, devotees of the slightly sweeter fruit beers tend, perhaps unsurprisingly, to rate the distinctly sweet strawberry Früli more highly than any other beer).

By contrast, those who like their fruit beers to be more 'beery' (and those with only limited affinity for fruit beers) tend to find the fruit intensity of Früli excessive and overwhelming, and find the taste of Früli to be unnatural, often raising questions as to whether Früli qualifies as a beer in anything but name and manufacturing process. Detractors often also complain of a perceived artificiality or inappropriateness in the sweetness, which they find remeniscent of sherbet or cream soda which most likely derives from Fruli's strong and distinctly vanilla-like after-taste which is only partially balanced by the characteristic sourness (very familiar to those acquainted with Hoegaarden) of white beer.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.fruli.com The official site of Fruli the fruity Belgian beer]
* [http://www.frulibeer.com Unofficial Früli web site]
* [http://www.myspace.com/fruli Unofficial Früli Myspace page]
* [http://www.vandiest.co.uk Van Diest site]