Straight Up Sour, Watermelon Edition, was one of the beers that my fantastic friends, Sam and Emma, brought back from Canada with them. It is brewed by Toronto based Radical Road. This series of sour beers appears to be one of the core offerings from the brewery with a whole variety of different fruit based sours on offer. I was very excited to dip into this 4.5% ABV watermelon flavoured beer, as that artificial flavouring is rather nostalgic for me. Lots of the the sweets in the Canary Islands have a wonderful, if nothing like real watermelon, flavouring to them.

On the pour the beer is clear gold, with the classic, rapidly dissipating head. The aroma is a pure wave of nostalgia as you are hit with the smell of those sour watermelon sweets. The initial sip is very tart and sharp which is a good thing for me personally. On the main body you get a slight faintness of watermelon but not too much. Light sour and bread-like finish to the brew.

A quick note on the can art: Straight Up Can Design. Says the words sour and is in the colours of a watermelon. Not much to say really.

On the whole this is a fine sour. From reading the label it appears they have used freshly pressed watermelon. I think perhaps that’s where they’ve gone wrong. With the fruit being mostly water and the flavour being so subtle anyway it sort of gets lost within the tartness of the beer. I would have personally gone for the classic artificial flavouring thats easily recognisable. Easy drinking beer however, just not mind blowing.

Score: 6.5/10

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Additional Information:

• Hops: Not Available
• Malt: Not Available
• IBU: Not Available
• ABV: 4.5%
• Gluten Free: No
• Vegan: No