To whet your appetite for summer sour cherry season, we recommend Kasteel Rouge Sour Cherry Beer, a great spring/summer ale. Brewed by adding sour cherries to a base of brown ale, it is barrel-aged for six months. If you’ve had kriek beers before, you’ll be surprised at the deep, dark red color and prominent cherry flavor of this beer. Kriek beers are made with a sour lambic beer base, which makes them more tart. Kasteel’s brown ale base gives it a richer, sweeter flavor – almost more like a sour cherry cocktail than a beer.

Of course if you’re looking for a true sour cherry cocktail to tide you over until July, we’ve got jarred sour cherries and Cherry Heering, an all-natural sour cherry liqueur. Try the Heering in a Cherry Blossom or Gilroy cocktail. And hang in there, summer’s closer than you think!