“Is there a better pairing than rich dark chocolate and juicy cherries? Sure sure, a famous chocolate bar may have worked the original magic but we took it to a whole new level by fermenting it and putting it in a can. The Ripe Cherries recipe is built around the Bounty Hunter profile, featuring choc black and veloria malts as well as malted oats from the Riverina, giving this beer a great smooth feel and a chocolate finish.”

Glassware: English Pint.

Appearance: Almost a jet black complexion with a slight gradient at the foot of the glass. It only manages a finger of finely beaded brown foam before gradually peeling off. Beautiful cascading lace is strewn down the glass as we go.

Aroma: Hot damn the cherry ripe is large on this one. The intensity of the cherries is amazing…kinda sweet but rich and medicinal at the same time. The chocolate and coconut add thick layers of sweet, savoury, nutty and vanilla-esque complexity while the subtle roasted malts fill it out even further. Definitely getting rich caramel/toffee from it too. Superb.

Flavour: Well it definitely doesn’t lack natural cherry flavour. Sheesh, it almost tastes a bit like cough syrup. The chocolate, mild roasty notes and classic Dark Ale nutty-ness is here but unfortunately the coconut doesn’t appear until late in the piece. We could say the same about the caramel/toffee and creamy vanilla as well…they’re MIA which sucks coz that’s what made the aroma so good.

Mouthfeel: Slick but a little too lean. Mild-medium body, low-ish Co2. The 5.2% ABV is neither here nor there.

Overall: What started off with extreme promise ended pretty poorly. Just not fans of the cherry cough medicine flavours which is dialled up to 11 here. It worked on the nose because it had enough behind it to balance it out but it went downhill from there. Shame.