WILD CHERRY: FOUNDERS “CERISE”

I had to check the record, but for a California guy, I’ve done pretty well in tasting the Michigan-based beers of FOUNDERS BREWING over the past couple of years. These guys are nothing but rock-solid, with a couple of really big winners in the HBJ beer taste-off sweepstakes:

Dirty Bastard (Scotch Ale) – 8.5/10
Red’s Rye (Rye Beer) – 8/10
Devil Dancer (Triple IPA) – 7.5/10
Double Trouble (Double IPA) – 6/10

All of these, as well as the one I’m about to yak at you about, arrived in my mailbox via beer trading. FOUNDERS CERISE came to us from Jez, the sole proprietor at FRESH BEER EVERY FRIDAY blog. I explicitly asked him for this one, as I’d heard it was something special. I have to say, it’s good. but it’s explicitly not worth calling in a beer-trading chit for. CERISE is a mildly sour, fizzy and tingling fruit beer, the sort that a Belgian brewer might make, not the kind that Anheuser-Busch might make. Light, crisp and clean. As it warms, it tastes sweeter and like a cherry cobbler and less like a non-ripened batch of cherries; interesting that the temperature could have such a profound impact on taste. In general, it is tart and not too sweet, but I didn’t care for that juicy juicy juice feel of the thing just the same. And I’m a guy who’ll defend fruit beers to the end of the earth. Solid again, if less than life-affirming. 6.5/10.