Kick off summer beer drinking with these craft brews

Memorial Day weekend traditionally marks the unofficial start of summer, a time when beer drinking becomes more popular than ever. Here are some suggested brews to help craft beer drinkers weather the change of seasons smoothly.

Tampa Timeshare Gose

Wrecking Bar Brewpub, Atlanta Available on draft and in 16-ounce cans.

Profile: Wrecking Bar’s take on the regional fruited Berliner weisse style, called Floridaweisse, is a spring seasonal that uses its popular gose as the base. It’s soured with house lactobacillus culture and salted with a blend of sea salts from Atlanta’s Beautiful Briny Sea.

From there, the beer is dosed with Thai and sweet basil, fermented on grapefruit juice and pulp, and aged on grapefruit zest. The result is a stylistic mashup that brims with sunny tropical aromas and flavors tinged with briny, spicy and herbal notes.

Pair with: Wrecking Bar does a keen, under-the-radar weekend brunch. The Marianna, an open-faced omelette, with housecured coppa, radish, spicy local greens, shaved fennel and buttermilk vinaigrette, would make a great match for Tampa Timeshare, and, so would one of chef Terry Koval’s seasonal salads.

Tropical Lover Berliner Weisse

SweetWater Brewing Co., Atlanta Available on draft and in 12-ounce cans.

Profile: SweetWater’s take on the increasingly popular German Berliner weisse style was conceived by Nick Burgoyne, lead brewer for the Woodlands Project barrel-aging facility. Brewed with two-row barley and wheat malt, Centennial hops and house ale yeast, it gets a tropical twist with the addition mango, guava and passion fruit flavors.

All that adds up to a clean, crisp, pale wheat ale with a tart, acidic essence that’s fruity and refreshing, with a tickle of soft carbonation on the palate. With a low alcohol content of 4.5 percent, it’s a beer that easily will translate from spring to summer.

Pair with: Berliner weisse often is billed as a brunch beer, and with good reason. Soft and fruity Tropical Lover would make a fine accompaniment for a goat cheese omelet, eggs Benedict, or bagels with cream cheese and all the fixings.

The Hemperor HPA

New Belgium Brewing, ort Collins, Colo.

Available on draft, and in 12-ounce bottle six-packs.

Profile: Billed as a groundbreaking blend of hemp and hops, New Belgium’s new year-round hemp pale ale gives cannabis lovers and beer drinkers a giddy sort of common ground.

The Hemperor is brewed with hemp hearts, pale and wheat malts, and Nugget, Cascade, Simcoe and experimental HBC 522 hops. The result is a frothy golden ale with a burst of pungent, herbal aromas, followed by a dank, bitter-sweet flavor that lingers into the finish.

Pair with: A beer made for the munchies? Try it with microwave popcorn, Zapp’s Voodoo Chips, Krystal Burgers or a Kit Kat bar.

Saison

Allagash Brewing Co., Portland, Maine

Available on draft and year-round in 12-ounce bottle four-packs.

Profile: Allagash was one of the first American craft breweries to make Belgian-style beers, and Saison is its interpretation of a classic Belgian farmhouse ale. It’s brewed with a mix of Allagash two-row malted barley blend, malted rye and oats, and Northern Brewer, Bravo and Cascade hops, plus traditional Belgian saison yeast and dark candi sugar.

The result is a snappy, effervescent beer, with citrus aromas and flavors, peppery, spicy notes, and a soft, malty backbone that gives way to a dry finish.

Pair with: Saisons are famously food-friendly, and this one from Allagash is no exception. Try it with lively pastas, such as cacio e pepe, grilled or smoked salmon, charcuterie, or Lao, Thai or Vietnamese dishes.

Tropical Lover Berliner Weisse.