When the cherry brews begin to blossom, it must be spring

There's a seasonality about cherry beers that fits perfectly with local legend and custom.

The early birds start to pop up, appropriately, around George Washington's Birthday. (Our first president is inextricably linked with cherry trees as a result of Parson Weems' fanciful biography published more than 200 years ago.) They'll linger until the final pink blossoms drop into the D.C.'s Tidal Basin sometime in late April or early May.

Don't expect the winelike fruitiness of a Belgian kriek. Most domestic versions are brewed to refresh, not to shock and awe. But you'll find a wide variety in both the base beer and choice of cherries.

Fordham & Dominion Brewing in Dover, Del., had marketed a maibock and a strong golden ale as its spring seasonals before its D.C. distributor joked, "I can't believe you guys don't do a cherry beer!" So recalls Casey Hollingsworth, vice president for sales and marketing. The brewery tentatively pumped out 40 kegs of Cherry Blossom Lager in 2012, then added a bottled version the following year.

This ruddy amber lager is fermented with a Bavarian yeast that yields a clean, malty brew. A fruit purée (containing both sweet and sour cherries from Michigan, as well as red currant, apple and plum) is poured into the beer post-fermentation. The fruit manifests itself primarily in the fresh cherry-pie aroma.

Barrett Lauer, head brewer at the District ChopHouse, began perfecting the recipe for his Cherry Blossom Fest back in 1996, when he worked for the Wharf Rat (now the Pratt Street Ale House) in Baltimore. Like Fordham & Dominion, he's shooting for a subtle cherry flavor in a pinkish golden lager. The malt bill is over one-quarter wheat, which Lauer says "adds a little depth and chewiness. Otherwise, you'll get a beer that tastes like a wine or cider. The Pilsener malt just gets overwhelmed."

He adds the purée (a blend of dark sweet and tart cherries, 336 pounds per eight-barrel batch) to the fermenter before pitching the yeast. That gives the yeast a chance to chew up the fructose molecules, resulting in a less-sweet beer. The extra sugar kicks up the alcohol to 6 percent by volume, higher than for most of the other cherry beers I sampled.

Press brewers about their fruit beer, and they'll probably concede that it gives them pains that other beers don't. "There's a lot of loss making this product," says Lauer. "It leaves so much debris at the bottom of the tank." The purée is sterilized and vacuum-packed, so it won't introduce any wild yeast or bacteria into the brew, as freshly picked cherries might. But the mashed and processed fruit still contains proteins and pectins that could cloud the finished beer. Fordham & Dominion, explains Hollingsworth, "decants" its beer through the side of the vessel to avoid the fruity gloop that settles to the bottom.

Beer geeks seeking a cherry beer with a little more gravitas - and who aren't put off by a haze in their beer or sediment ringing their glass - might want to seek out Bluejacket's Cherry Trouble. The brew is based on Trouble, a Belgian-style sour brown ale called an oud bruin. Bluejacket's beer director, Greg Engert, originally co-brewed Trouble back in 2013 with Urbain Cotteau of De Struise Brouwers in Belgium; it graced his first beer menu.

• Kitsock is the editor of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News.