Sounds Gay, I'm In
Shades Brewing

another fun sour from these guys, prickly pear this time, funky rainbow labels, im assuming a pride thing, tasty suds contained within, cleaner than a lot of their other sours to me, both in terms of how it looks and also how it feels. clearer, still not clear, but not gross and thick with sediment either like many of theirs are, its just a lightly pinkish tinted softly cloudy brew with a great head on it from the can, nice retention too. the aroma is sort of candied and sweet to me, even though the malt side is minimal, like maybe the prickly pear isnt real fruit but some kind of other additive, to me i smell white smarties candy and they bring me back a few decades, not sure those were ever intended to be prickly pear flavored, but thats what i get. maybe some orange hard candy too, a little pale wheat in the base maybe, and a more tidy ferment than i am used to from these guys. the flavor is the same, the prickly pear element seems a bit unnatural to me again and its white life smarties i cant get past, which i like, but maybe dont love in a beer? maybe a hint of lime to this too, wrapped up in the moderate acidity of the souring, which also seems objectively better than it sometimes does with their beer. i always critique shades for sloppy overall quality when i like their flavors so much, so i am flipping the script this time around, commending the overall quality while i am not personally wild about the flavor in this instance. there are better prickly pear sours out there, but this still shows some growth for shades in my opinion...