Fruit-flavored beer: Evansville Brewing Co. brews upscale and exotic.

• Author: Gilbert, Jo

Just when you thought you had tasted it all--imported, domestic, light, dry--someone comes along with a different kind of beer.

In this case, it is conceptualized in Chicago and brewed in Indiana, goes by the name of Bicycle Beer, and comes in Veri Berry, Misty Lime and the soon-to-be-marketed Apricot Stone.

What? Fruit flavors? "A lot of people don't like the taste of beer," explains Terry Southerland, director of marketing at Evansville Brewing Co. "Only 40 percent of the drinking population does like the taste of beer." The other 60 percent? Well, wine, wine coolers and mixed drinks are probably more to their liking.

"What we've made is an alternative, alcoholic, carbonated beverage that fits that niche," says Joe Pickett, president of Bicycle Beverage Corp. "Basically, we've brewed the beer flavor out and brewed the fruit flavor in." Rather than adding flavoring after the beer is brewed, it's added before the brewing even begins.

Evansville Brewing is not the only Hoosier company to benefit from Bicycle Beverage Corp.'s fruity idea. The natural flavoring is purchased from Universal Flavor Corp., a food- and beverage-flavors manufacturer in Indianapolis.

For those with a palate for anything that's spicy hot, Evansville Brewing also makes Ed's Original Cave Creek Chili Beer. This beer was developed at a microbrewery in Arizona. Faced with growing demand, Cave Creek went in search of more production capacity.

"It's incredible," Southerland says of the taste. "You're not tasting beer, you're tasting a combination of beer and hot pepper juice. So it's a very spicy, hot beer--even though it's ice cold."

Each bottle of the spicy beer comes complete with its own chili pepper. Not sure what to serve with this beer? "You'd love it with pizza," Southerland says.

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