By Annie Tobey
Take a walk in Virginia bottomlands, along rivers and streams, in late August through September. If you notice a faint, naturally sweet, yeasty smell, look on the ground for green oblong fruits, about three to five inches long. Pawpaw fruits fall to the ground when they’re ripe – if you shake a pawpaw tree, you may be able to dislodge a few that are ready to eat. Split open the firm but pliable skin and discover a soft yellow interior with a tropical, banana-mango taste and a custardy texture.
Fine Creek Brewing in Powhatan County, between Richmond and Charlottesville, has these native American fruits on its property. It made its first pawpaw beer in 2019 and has harvested pawpaws every year since.
In 2024, Fine Creek harvested 370 pounds of pawpaws, its highest harvest yet. It conditioned the fruit on a blend of Saison and Belgian Tripel for three months. This contributed tropical notes of the fruit and introduced a natural wild culture of microbes, producing the acidic characteristic of a wild ale. Finally, the beer was conditioned in bottles and kegs with Brettanomyces. The resulting beer had funky tropical notes, lightly tart, dry, and light-bodied.
“The process for each year is a bit different and is dictated by the harvest. From the beers we blend to age on the fruit, to how much beer we make, to how long the aging goes on for, all of it is determined by how much fruit we get and the quality of that fruit,” says Fine Creek head brewer Brian Mandeville. “When working with wild fruit we really have to let our production be guided by nature, and not the other way around.”
The pawpaw is the largest edible fruit native to North America, found in the eastern, southern, and midwestern states. Despite its appealing taste and texture, grocery stores and farmers markets rarely carry it because of its fleeting goodness. While fruits like cherries and grapes can be harvested in one pass, pawpaws have to be harvested over several weeks. The tender fruit bruises easily, making it fragile to harvest and tricky to transport. In addition, it goes from ripe to rotten in just a few days.
“We typically harvest in late September, which is when the pawpaws in the patch of woods we collect from are ripe,” says Mandeville. “But each year is different, so we are constantly checking on the ripeness of the fruit and have to be ready to start gathering pawpaws whenever they are ripe that specific season.”
(Freshly fallen pawpaws. Photo by Annie Tobey.)
Fine Creek doesn’t have to worry about transport, but it does have to manage the lengthy harvest and short shelf life. “We freeze our pawpaws in order to preserve them,” says Mandeville. “This process also helps to break down cell walls, allowing for better flavor and aroma extraction.
The first appearance of Fine Creek’s pawpaw beer in 2025 will be at the Pawpaw Festival at Powhatan State Park on Sept. 20, either short pours of this year’s release or beer set aside from 2024.
The beer appeals to customers for a variety of reasons. “I think some customers are primarily interested in these beers because they are curious about the fruit, want to learn more, and want to try something made with that fruit,” says Mandeville, “while others just enjoy the fruity and funky character that they add to the beer.”
Acknowledging that nature will ultimately call the shots, Mandeville hopes to have this year’s beer available at Fine Creek the weekend of the Powhatan Pawpaw Festival. Or soon thereafter. Given the limited production, the brewery is the best place to find it.
Few other breweries have brewed a pawpaw beer. Three notable exceptions are Pawpaw Wheat from Jackie-O’s (Ohio), sour, barrel-aged Pawpaw from Upland Brewing (Indiana) and Dinnsen’s Orchard Pawpaw Tripel from Fullsteam Brewery (North Carolina).
Fullsteam’s Dinnsen’s Orchard beer pays tribute to Wynn Dinnsen, who managed a pawpaw patch in Chatham County, N.C. After Dinnsen died, Fullsteam owner Sean Lilly Wilson took over management of the orchard. “We’re getting a lot of requests for paw paw fruit, seedlings, and seeds,” wrote Wilson in an August Instagram post. “Unfortunately, with all the rain this year, it looks like a modest season at best. That said, the paw paws are starting to fall and soon we’ll have fruit, seedlings, and possibly puree for sale.”
Other orchards and university research programs are working to make pawpaw fruits more accessible and are breeding them for taste and size. In the meantime, Virginians can forage for themselves or head to Fine Creek to experience how the fruit complements a beer.
