A new brewery for me today with a slightly wacky beer to boot. Play Brew Co. is based in Middlesbrough and the beer in question is ‘Cherry Bomb’. It’s a 5.4% Cherry Cola Ale. I always like trying new breweries and even more so when they have some slightly odd beers. I wasn’t too sure what to expect from this as it doesn’t appear to have a defined style.

The beer pours a maple syrup like colour with a slight haze. Light white head that dissipates rather quickly. The aroma of the beer is certainly cherry cola providing a bit of nostalgia. On the taste that cola and cherry flavour is present but a lot more subdued than I was expecting. The body is rather flat unfortunately but it is smooth drinking from start to finish.

A quick note on the can art: Fairly straightforward can design with all the information on the front. The overall look feels a little retro, like an old school american fizzy drink can.

On the whole I’m actually a little disappointed with the beer. I think most of that stems from it being so flat. When you describe a beer as cherry cola I expected the same sort of fizz to push those flavours around. So while the cherry cola flavour was good it wasn’t elevated to it’s potential. It could have even been a sour and I think it would have been more interesting. As such while it tastes fine, when you consider how much craft beer like this costs I wouldn’t buy it again unfortunately.

Score: 6/10

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Additional Information:

• Hops: Not Available
• Malt: Not Available
• IBU: Not Available
• ABV: 5.4%
• Gluten Free: No
• Vegan: No
• Purchase Location: Arch Rivals