Happy Valley Cherry Cola Sour

There are beers based around lollies that give you a kind of kiddy nostalgia; they’re all candy and rainbows in your mouth. Then there’s Cherry Cola Sour, which is designed to evoke the sour coke bottle lollies from your childhood, but somehow tastes a bit more grown up. It’s a more mature drink: a cherry cola that means business.

Cherry Cola Sour pours a shade lighter than the colour of cola, and smells like a mix of Dr Pepper and cherry cough medicine (though to some, those two liquids are one and the same). When it hits the tongue, it manages to be simultaneously flavoursome and easygoing. Both the sweetness of the "cherry cola" and the sourness of the "sour" are toned down; it brings a cleansing refreshment rather than a syrupy soft drink or a face pucker.

Having said all that… I still kind of want to drink this beer on the ferris wheel at a carnival.

Mick Wüst