Two of your five a day

Just in time for the summer, such as it was, two spin-offs from Stiegl's ever-popular Grapefruit Radler arrived on these shores. Both are 2% ABV and may be acquired for a very reasonable €2.50 per half-litre can.

I wouldn't have put raspberry down as a suitable candidate fruit for radler, but here anyway is Stiegl Radler Himbeere. It's a lurid shade of red, topped with a shock of electric pink foam. It looks like it's going to be dense, sweet and not very refreshing. The aroma too is rather sticky and sickly, smelling like jam, with the sugar up front and a bite of woody raspberry seed towards the end. And while it is sweet it's not sticky, managing to be acceptably light-bodied. The flavour doesn't live up to the realistic aroma, being very syrupy, like ice cream sauce. It's not laid on excessively thickly but at the same time there are no other complexities or points of interest. Overall this is a bit dull and misses out on being properly refreshing, a basic competency for a radler. There's a reason these are normally made using citrus fruits.

That means I should score a better result from Stiegl Radler Zitrone, the lemon one. It smells gorgeous: bright and fresh and cool, like an ice pop or sorbet. The flavour is no more real-tasting than the raspberry version, but is much more enjoyable, and packed with zest. Rather than actual lemons I get high-end lemonade, meringue pie filling, curd and a bitterer squeeze of Jif. This one also carries a decently full body but manages to be properly thirst-quenching and reviving too. The half-litre slipped back with ease.

Stupidly I didn't have a Grapefruit to hand so I could do a real-time ranking, but I think the original remains the best of the series. Zitrone isn't far behind, however, and compares very favourably with the Heineken and Amstel radlers I guzzle with gusto when in the Netherlands. I'll definitely be drinking more of it.