‘Pucker Plucker’ (say that 10 times fast!) is the next in Phillips’ Sour Note series, and is a cherry-infused kettle sour, via the lacto route.  To me, cherries are summer incarnate, especially (and only, really) the ones from the Okanagan!

This 650ml bottle pours a slightly hazy, pale copper amber colour, with two fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and rather fizzy off-white head, which leaves a tiny bit of remote islet lace around the glass as it quickly evaporates.

It smells of tart cherry and generic stone fruit, lightly soured cream, grainy pale malt, a touch of wayward son yeast, and fairly tame earthy, leafy, and weedy green hop bitters.  The taste is bready and doughy pale malt, a twinge of caramel sweetness, cherry cough drops plunked into cherry juice, gentle milky sour essences, a further mixed pome and citrus fruitiness, and more laid-back leafy, weedy, and somewhat floral hoppiness.  The bubbles are pretty tame in their thinned-out frothiness, the body a so-so middleweight, and mostly smooth, I suppose, the neutered fruitiness having the most sway here, it would appear.  It finishes off-dry, the mix of bready malt, easygoing lactic sourness, and muddled cherries the ongoing story.

Overall, a more or less pleasant sour cherry ale, all components representing, and none overdoing it or overstaying their welcome.  Simple, I guess, but easy enough to drink, without even a whisper from the 6.3 points of ABV.  Worth checking out if you’re a newbie sour-head wannabe, and I mean that in the nicest way possible.