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Book club: Fruity beer’s bookish buds

Read time 4 Mins

Posted 22 Sep 2022

By
Dimitri Tricolas

Fruity beer has arrived just in time for spring, so soak up the sunshine with these essential bev and book pairings.

Like sunflowers turning to serenade the sun, our thoughts have swivelled to spring. Vacay fantasies and sandy dreams are setting the scene for the season’s most anticipated drinkable debutant – fruity beer. Brimming with natural fruit flavour (and none of that beery bitterness), we’re betting on it becoming a fast fave. So, if you’re posting up in the sunshine with a refreshing drink and a good book, we’ve got your tote bag essentials covered. Read while in the sun with cold fruity beer.

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Pair: Passionfruit Mosey and a Caribbean journey through love and healing

Lush Caribbean scenery, a brooding celebrity chef and a second fleeting shot at love – we couldn’t think of a better match for the tangy taste of Passionfruit Mosey than Akwaeke Emezi’s latest novel. Five years after the car crash that killed her husband, Brooklyn artist Feyi Adekola is ready to start living again. Breaking her celibacy with a rooftop romp with a stranger, Feyi winds up in a situationship that leads her to a Caribbean island. But her budding romance is tested by the pulsating chemistry she feels towards somebody else – her new beau’s celebrity chef father. Dripping with Emezi’s signature wit and razor-sharp writing, You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty is a heartfelt and darkly funny celebration of grief, healing and love against the odds. Author of New York Times bestseller The Death of Vivek Oji and National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honouree, Emezi has rapidly cemented their place in the pantheon of contemporary fiction writers, but You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty may be their best work yet. Set the scene with the sultry tropical taste of a Passionfruit Mosey for this one. It’s a belter.

Pair: Mango Sungazer and a bogan coming-of-gender epic

Cadance Bell is electric. With a rap sheet of accolades and accomplishments to chew up precious column space, we’ll have to settle with a toast instead. So, grab a Mango Sungazer and raise your glass high. This subtly sweet and ultra-juicy fruity beer is the ultimate sidekick to Bell’s latest work. Set to the meandering backdrop of bleak Mudgee Australiana, her new novel All of It: A Bogan Rhapsody is an urgent and life-affirming coming-of-gender memoir. Overweight, underloved and suffocating on a secret, all Ben wanted to do was die. Caught in the crosshairs of his self-loathing, Ben changes everything – by becoming Cadance. Finding safe harbour was never going to be easy, but in Cadance’s quest to experience the all of it, Bell sows riotous humour into heart-aching tragedy and reaps tenderness from the absurd. A bombastic examination of family, rural life and trans experience, The All of It is bogan-lit at its finest. 

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Pair: Strawberry & Lime Empire and an (almost) forgotten hero

Sweetness always needs a little zest – for balance. That’s why Strawberry & Lime Empire works so well. It’s also what makes Robert Drewe’s latest book so bloody good – which, coincidentally, is what we reckon you should read while you drink your fave new fruity beer. You probably don’t know this, but Johnny Day became one of Australia’s first international sports heroes when he won the World Pedestrian Championship (yep, that’s just competitive walking) at age 10. Then, at just 14, he won the Melbourne Cup with a horse called Nimblefoot. That’s the sweet bit. The zest? He disappeared without a trace. Picking up where Johnny left off on the night of his historic win, Nimblefoot is the imaginary odyssey answering the question of ‘what happened next?’ Without giving too much away, Drewe’s story lands Johnny in the company of the Prince Alfred and some choice Melbourne identities. Bearing witness to a double murder in a Ballarat brothel, Johnny finds himself growing up fast and on the run from the law. Nimblefoot is a turbo-charged pub yarn about a forgotten Aussie icon, a thrilling cat-and-mouse adventure of good luck. Hooroo.

Pair: Blueberry Mosey and an encounter with unmitigated genius

A beer that replaces bitterness with natural blueberry goodness? Genius. Syncopated beats and deep-cut samples? Also genius. Cracking open a Blueberry Mosey and flipping through the chronicles of your favourite producer’s favourite producer? Extremely genius. Dan Charnas’ Dilla Time is a fascinating biography of the late, great James DeWitt Yancey, AKA J Dilla. Succumbing to a rare blood disease at the age of 32, Dilla’s legacy nonetheless casts a long shadow over hip-hop, jazz and music theory across the board. From groundbreaking collaborations with the likes of D’Angelo and Erykah Badu to a string of cult-status EPs, Dilla’s output continues to inspire musicians to this day. His sense of timing and innovative approach to sampling formed the basis for an entirely new musical vernacular, leaving musicians and scholars dumbstruck. In Dilla Time, Charnas combines over 150 interviews with graphic visuals to paint a clearer picture of the man and his music. More than just a biography, this book tells the story of beat-making, Black culture and inexplicable genius.

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Pair: Watermelon Sungazer and a music-soaked feminist coming-of-age story

Beer always tastes better with a soundtrack. In the case of Watermelon Sungazer, your best bet is to bust out the vinyl and lose yourself in the pages of Katherine Pollock’s hilarious rock-tinged tale, Her Fidelity. Bringing springtime vibes with its natural fruit sweetness and delicately creamy texture, this brand-new fruity beer makes for fab book club fodder. If you’ve seen Pollock’s work before (featured in Kill Your Darlings and Funny Ha Ha), you’ll already be familiar with her signature brand of humour and cultural insight. Winning the 2021 Queensland Writers Centre’s GenreCon short story competition, her first feature-length novel does not disappoint. With her thirties on the horizon and her friends moving on with their lives, Kathy’s lifelong career at a dysfunctional Brisbane record store is coming into discomforting focus. Tired of proving her worth to her gatekeeper dude-bro colleagues, she finds herself wondering how she can break the funk she’s in. Pointed and downright funny from cover to cover, this feminist coming-of-age story is a must-read. There’s even a ready-made playlist from the author herself!
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Authour image
Dimitri TricolasCasual wine enjoyer and meat raffle devotee, Dimitri writes words and takes pictures on Gadigal land.
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Hit ListFun pairingsBook ClubAustralian productsCraft BeerBeer
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