Burley Oak Launches the J.R.E.A.M. Sour Series

In late 2016, Burley Oak Brewing Company in Berlin, Maryland, launched its J.R.E.A.M. series with Berry Cherry J.R.E.A.M. The name abbreviates “Juice Rules Everything Around Me,” a reference to Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M.” The beers used a sour base with lactose and large additions of fruit to produce vivid colors, pronounced sweetness, tartness, and a creamy texture intended to resemble a smoothie. Burley Oak rapidly expanded J.R.E.A.M. into a rotating series featuring different fruits and dessert-inspired ingredients. The series became a prominent early expression of the American smoothie- and pastry-sour movement, demonstrating how kettle-soured beer, milk sugar, fruit purée, and culinary adjuncts could be combined into beers deliberately modeled on smoothies and desserts.