The need for brewers to react to market trends efficiently and effectively is more important than ever, explains Maxim McDonald, director at Gerald McDonald, the largest independent juice supplier and blender in the UK.
We supply an extensive range of fruit juices, purees and concentrates for the brewing industry. Some of our most popular purees for brewers include raspberry, blackcurrant, passion fruit, alphonso mango and red cherry, whilst on the concentrate side we’re see demand for many citrus such as lemon, lime, yuzu and blood orange, and others such as elderflower extract, prickly pear, and lychee.
We stock everything from traditional juices/purees through to more exotic varieties that help brewers create distinctive flavour profiles.
Crucially, we don’t impose minimum order quantities, which means we can support craft breweries experimenting with small batches as readily as we serve larger operations.
Trends and demands
The craft beer movement is a very exciting sector for us as it’s very adventurous and always willing to explore and try out new things. We see for example a lot of interest in Asian-inspired ingredients – yuzu and shiranui orange are doing well for radlers and wheat beers, whilst alphonso mango is popular for tropical IPAs.
There’s strong demand for berry blends in sour beers, with blackcurrant and raspberry purees being particularly popular. Brewers need fast turnarounds for seasonal releases – we hold stock of all our core range here in the UK, and we can do mixed pallet deliveries which is perfect for smaller breweries wanting to experiment with multiple flavours without huge commitments.
The road ahead
Speed and flexibility are becoming the key differentiators in this market. Brewers are working on shorter lead times than ever before, often developing seasonal and limited-edition beers at pace.
Having stock readily available in the UK, combined with our ability to deliver mixed pallets, means brewers can be more experimental and responsive to market trends.
We’re also seeing more brewers branching out into other alcoholic beverages such as gins, hard seltzers and rums. Also they are jumping on the low/no-alcohol trend.
