Even if you’ve never willingly drifted into a 46-year-old Allman Brothers album while staring out a dusty summer window wondering where the last three decades went, this is still the exact season for peaches. National Peach Month begins today, which means civilization briefly remembers that fruit can, in fact, be transcendent instead of merely decorative beside hotel waffles.
Peaches belong everywhere right now — collapsing into cobblers, hiding beneath pie crusts, melting over vanilla ice cream, drifting through beer glasses, staining your fingertips at roadside fruit stands while somebody nearby quietly puts on Eat a Peach because August apparently comes with its own soundtrack.
The peach itself carries one of those ancient wandering histories that makes modern grocery-store produce seem deeply depressing. Originating in China thousands of years ago, peaches have been cultivated since the earliest roots of Chinese civilization — long before social media, before electricity, before anyone decided yogurt needed birthday-cake flavoring. Spanish explorers carried peaches into the Americas during the 16th century, and eventually the fruit spread through Europe, landing in England and France where Queen Victoria reportedly enjoyed peaches served in elegant cotton napkins because royalty, too, occasionally needed protection from glorious juice chaos.
Meanwhile, Indigenous tribes across North America helped spread peach trees westward the practical old-school way: carrying seeds while traveling and planting them as they moved across the continent, quietly scattering future orchards into the landscape like edible destiny.
Today peaches rank as America’s third most popular fruit, which honestly feels suspiciously low considering a perfectly ripe peach can briefly heal emotional damage you didn’t even know you were carrying.
And nowhere does a peach hit harder than in Washington state, where the proper way to eat one is outdoors, standing near the orchard or roadside stand where you bought it, the fruit still warm from the sun like it’s been charging itself all afternoon. Brush off the fuzz with your sleeve, take one bite, and suddenly juice is running down your chin, your hands are sticky, and the entire concept of adulthood feels pleasantly optional.
Of course, Peaks & Pints believes the best way to drink a peach is through beer.
Which is why Peaks & Pints’ Craft Beer Crosscut 8.1.18: A Flight of Peaches exists — a fuzzy little celebration of orchard sweetness, tart farmhouse funk, juicy stone-fruit perfume, bright acidity, hop glow, and all the strange beautiful magic that happens when brewers look at peaches and think, “Yes, let’s absolutely ferment summer itself.”
Peaks & Pints’ Craft Beer Crosscut 8.1.18: A Flight of Peaches
Dogfish Head Festina Peche
4.5% ABV, 8 IBU
Dogfish Head continues its love affair with fruit with its refreshing Festina Peche neo-Berliner Weisse. This lacto-cultured beer pours a straw yellow with an earthy, lemongrass and lager aroma with a hint of funk. It washes over the tongue with whole grain cereal sweetness; then … Bam! sour notes and peach flavors storm into the picture, leaving puckered cheeks in their wake. It’s a clean beer that’s heavy on the tart, but is just forgiving enough that no sugars are needed to counter the experience. It’s a perfect blend of sweet backbone and acidic refreshment.
Ecliptic Carina Peach Sour
5.5% ABV, 10 IBU
In 2013, famed brewer John Harris founded Ecliptic Brewing purchasing the brewhouse from friend and Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione. Harris’ love for brewing and astronomy shines as he pushes the limits of creativity rotating Ecliptic’s offerings every six weeks in accordance with the old world calendar, producing seasonal favorites. Ecliptic Brewing’s Carina Peach Sour Ale — a year-round delight — takes its name from the constellation Carina, the keel of the ship Argo in the southern sky. Loaded with fresh peach flavor, Carina hits the nose with peach. It launches with sweet peach flavors, and lively mouthfeel. The Lactobacillus gives the craft beer a complex combination of flavors and aromas.
Almanac Peach Galaxy
7.5% ABV
Almanac Beer Company’s Peach Galaxy is the fruit forward brother of Alameda, California brewery’s Tropical Galaxy. The brewery’s “Galaxy series” of beers inspired it to pursue a 1960s sci-fi style of illustration, and this new twist on the label includes plenty of new peach inspired touches as well as a new peach color scheme. But, let’s get to the drinking. Peach Galaxy is a dry-hopped (Galaxy, Citra) sour farmhouse ale aged in oak barrels with peaches and spices. The aroma has very slightly sour peach with a woodnote, but the flavor is all peach, with some woodnote and moderately lightly sour.
Goose Island Halia
7.5% ABV
Literally meaning “remembrance of a loved one” in Hawaiian, Halia was brewed in memory of the dear friend of one of Goose Island’s brewers who loved peaches. Peaches, indeed. Halia is a tart, farmhouse ale aged with fifty pounds of peaches per barrel in spent cabernet barrels used to mature the Chicago brewery’s Juliet beer, plus Brettanomyces Claussenii. Flavor is lightly tart, brightly sweet, dry finish, but still quenching. The carefully orchestrated interplay of winey, peachy, sour and astringent makes it a worthy sipper.
Silver City Sun Glitter
6.5% ABV, 60 IBU
Gleaning its name from the radiant visual of sunlight reflected from Pacific Ocean waves at sunset, Silver City Brewery’s Sun Glitter IPA is a fusion of peach flavor with a dense, hazy malt profile and lactose sugar, yielding a deliciously creamy and vanilla-like sweetness. Dip the nose for peach and tropical flavor. It’s not a peach bomb, but rather sports bitter citrus with some peach sweetness.
