It’s officially a week to go until my one year anniversary on the blog! Keep your eyes peeled as I am sure I will have something funky going on to mark the occasion. In the meantime we have another beer review. I recently picked up this Staggeringly Good beer from my local bottle shop/bodega Arch Rivals. It’s only my second beer from these folks and just so happens to be another entry in their triple fruited sour series; Souropod. This time the flavours they’ve gone for are blood orange, apricot and star anise with the ABV coming in at 6.4%. The last one I had poured out as thick as a smoothie so I was excited to sink my teeth into this one too.

Visually, the beer poured a perfect orange juice colour. No where near as thick as it’s counterpart meaning a small head formed too. On the nose there is a pleasant aroma of sharp ripe oranges. The flavour matches the smell, with it tasting exactly like a glass of sour orange juice. The star anise didn’t come through as much as I would have liked but as the beer warmed there were little hints of it on the finish. Incredibly smooth and drinkable but naturally not like most other beers out there.

A quick note on the can art: I love the designs on this series. The gorgeous illustrations, of what looks like velociraptors, has been done by Hannah Horn. Check her other work out here!

While the viscosity of both Souropod beers I’ve had have been different, they share a lot of similarities. As I mentioned in the previous post on the other beer, there can be arguments made that this isn’t a beer. However, it contains all the components of a beer, just with a shed load of fruit added too. Importantly though, I think it is delicious and I could see myself having it in place of an orange juice at breakfast! That said, I think the other named flavours are really lacking in prominence. The apricot went missing entirely for me and the star anise was too subdued. It’s a strong flavour and one that I think would have worked fantastically in the beer if it had been bolder. Cracking beer but missing the mark on the descriptions slightly.

Score: 7.5/10

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Additional Information:

• Hops: Not Available
• Malt: Not Available
• IBU: Not Available
• ABV: 6.4%
• Gluten Free: No
• Vegan: Yes!
• Purchase Location: Arch Rivals