Beer Dollar Bill Candy Paint

Candy Paint is the second Dollar Bill release to come bearing the dragon-wrapped dollar sign of their trophy-winning Learning To Breathe and another that's been some time in the making. Technically, it's a two year barrel-aged pseudo lambic rested on sour cherries, but in the flesh it's rather more flamboyant than those words suggest.

For a start, there's the vibrant crimson colour – one as bold as any you'll have encountered in a beer – and then there's the character: this is liquid alive with cherries and lambic, oaky funk on the nose. Structurally delightful with a finely judged balance between fruit, acid, sour lolly sweetness and quenching dryness, it's the sort of thing to be sipped and savoured with friends around a table. Or, in my case, spilt down your leg by a roaring winter's fire (thankfully, it was a big bottle and I wasn't sharing with anyone...).

James Smith