Among thousands of casks and kegs filled with beer at Boulevard Brewery, there is one — the aronia berry kriek — made with the little-known fruit.
“From a brewer’s standpoint, it's like I always wanted to use native ingredients,” said Brent Cox, one of the company brewers. “It just kind of adds to the terroir and the impact of the flavors.”
For this beer, the Kansas City brewery partnered up with the botanical team at Powell Gardens to harvest their very own aronia berries—more commonly known as chokeberries. It’s a native shrub found throughout North America. The fruit’s skin and flesh can be a dark, deep purple. It might resemble a blueberry, but it tastes nothing like it when eaten raw.
“It's super astringent. It kind of takes all the flavor out of your mouth. Like, there's a reason why it's called chokeberry,” Cox said.
That might not sound great on its own, but Cox and his team think it's perfect for brewing. The end result is a ruby-colored beer. It smells funky and sweet. But the flavor, said Cox, is “deep” and “really reminds me of the kind of wines I like.”
This beer has a limited release, but it’s meant to put the spotlight on aronia berries, while paying homage to Midwestern ecosystems and agriculture.
There are more than 1,000 aronia berry farms around the U.S., according to the 2022 Census of Agriculture. Based on that figure, the American Aronia Berry Association estimates there are more than 1 million fruit bushes, mostly on farms in Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Many farmers manage the bushes as a side crop that can be grown alongside corn and soybeans for additional income.
Along with wine and beer, the berries can be made into syrup, juice, and supplemental powder. Yet despite a reputation for health benefits, chokeberries have yet to catch on in the U.S.
“You know, it's been tough going for the aronia industry,” said Dale Hilgenkamp, president of the American Aronia Berry Association. “I mean, the public awareness is not very high.”
While the fruit is native to the U.S., he points out that Poland is actually the world’s largest producer of aronia berries. It’s made for an uphill battle for American growers to get consumers to notice them.
“We just haven't been able to get any market development, haven't been able to get any larger companies on board to include aronia berries in their products,” he said.
Hilgenkamp, who grows the berries on his farm in Arlington, Nebraska, says that both revenue for farmers and membership in the association have shrunk over the last eight years. Many of his people are “frustrated and discouraged” by the current state of the industry.
Still, he’s glad to hear of any new efforts to highlight the fruit, including Boulevard Brewery’s limited release aronia berry kriek.
“Any way you can increase consumption is a win,” Hilgenkamp said.
The berry’s benefits
Aronia berries have a long history of use throughout North America, said Chris Van Metre. He’s a horticulturist at Powell Gardens — the source for Boulevard Brewery’s berries.
“Native tribes would use them as a food source and often as a cold remedy,” Van Metre said. “When dried and used in combination with other plants, they make a good tea, a good jam, and are really helpful due to their large number of antioxidants.”
In recent years, researchers also have found that the berry’s properties could help with hypertension, obesity, and other chronic conditions.
Among those trying to sell more aronia berries by marketing their health benefits is Changmou Xu, a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He and his wife, Xiaoqing Xie, co-founded A+ Berry, a company that produces juice sourced from local aronia berry farmers in the Midwest.
Since 2021, the company has been working with Midwestern growers to purchase their berries and harvest them into a juice that can be found at some Hy-Vee grocery stores throughout the Midwest. Xu, who doesn’t think of himself as a businessman, said this is one way to keep farmers from shuttering.
“It's a really nice resource to help fund the farmer's business,” he said.
While Xu said demand for the berries has fluctuated over the years, he believes it could improve as consumers learn about the so-called super fruit’s high antioxidant levels and dietary fiber.
“I believe [demand will] grow again, especially if more and more people pay attention to healthier food,” said Xu.
For Dean DuVal, a retired chemist, the berry’s potential is what drew him in.
“I just kind of ran across it accidentally, but have been very intrigued with the chemistry,” said DuVal, who’s also the American Aronia Berry Association’s chairman for research and education.
Over the past decade, DuVal went from reading scientific articles about the aronia berry’s high antioxidant levels to growing them himself. He now has about 4,500 bushes on his family’s century farm in Onawa, a small town in western Iowa.
DuVal sees it as a positive crop for the land and people.
“It fits with the sustainable and regenerative agricultural movement and not just the antioxidants,” he said. “I mean, it's high in soluble fibers, it's high in vitamin C … so there's a lot of positives about it.”
Each year, DuVal is able to harvest enough berries to fill a semi-truck, which he said makes for a decent side income after accounting for transportation and cleaning costs. But more than anything, he just wants people to know that aronia berries exist.
“This is a native superfruit that they should be consuming,” he said.“ If they're out there spending money buying pomegranates or Acai powder, they need to be taking a look at us.”
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
