Author: James Smith, The Crafty Pint
Original Article published on 28th November 2025
Time for a bit of a catch-up on shenanigans at Hawkers with what's, for the most part, and in various ways, a fruity foursome.
The most obviously fruited is the marvellously-named Grapefruits Of Wrath, even the beer is rather breezier than its epic title. It's not quite ruby or red like the fruit that went into it, but this sour is certainly blushing. Grapefruit literally explodes out of the glass yet is rather more demur in the way it takes on your taste buds in a beer that's tart more than sour, crisp and effervescent, and should pair well with your festive Pav.
Also containing fruit, but alongside other adjuncts (and Mosaic Cryo, Krush, Idaho 7, and Citra Cryo hops) in an oat cream IPA, is Guava Train, a collab with Newcastle-based Good Folk Brewing. Such beers seem to be less prevalent than not too long ago yet retain a fervent fan base. Presumably said fans enjoy the way such beers can tweak your taste buds in a few ways, in this case mixing juicy fruitiness (guava led, of course) with a vanillin creaminess both in feel and flavour, and a quenching, almost tart finish.
Containing no fruit is Signature Move, a hazy IPA that brings to mind that classic British dessert of the '70s and '80s: trifle. Blending Mosaic, Citra and Motueka with lesser-seen Aussie hop Melba, if one were to deconstruct the trifle-through-a-blender concept, you'd be left with ripe stonefruit, jelly-coated fruit chunks, some classic pine (OK, that isn't very trifle-esque), and a biscuity / cake sponge sweetness.
And last but certainly not least for this bunch is Four Seasons Summer 2025, completing a series of beers featuring one of the four hops in their flagship West Coast IPA. In this case it's Mosaic every which way, which courtesy of all the heft and booze involved in this 9 percenter is as much mouth-coating and fluffy as it is the proferred "juicy" of the labels. A mélange of stonefruit and berries seem to have been elicited from the ubiquitous hop in a beer where the bitterness faces an uphill battle for supremacy against all the candied fruit-soaked brioche in liquid form.
