Sunday 25 August 2013

Allen's Sour Rush Jelly Beans

The partner to Nestle's new release from their subbrand Allen's is their Sour Rush Jelly Beans. A complete 180 from the other flavour Funfair Thrills, Sour Rush is, predictably, based on sour fruit flavours, and has nine varieties included just to make sure they hit all their bases.


While some of the flavours are more common, such as Lemon Lime, and Green Apple, there are some interesting flavours that have sneaked in for the sour party: Blackberry and Strawberry. They're the two I didn't really pick as top candidates for sour, but I guess we will see if Nestle have hit a home run.


Like with the Funfair Thrills release, the colours of the Sour Rush jelly beans are difficult to tell apart, both on the little guide on the back of the pack, and in the hand. The colours aren't especially inspired; you'd think for a product that uses artificial colours they would be a little more accurate.


The flavours are listed in the order of the beans in the picture: left to right, from the top row. However, I had to use process of elimination to identify each flavour, so I could very well be wrong.


Grapefruit (mauve)
Wow, this flavour is right on the ball! There is a bit of tang here that hits as soon as you bite into the bean. It's bold and juicy and tangy. I've never had a grapefruit before (only juice) but I would say this flavour is quite realistic. Alas, no sour tang.


Lemon lime (pale yellow)
Very tenuous connection to lemon or lime. There's definitely no sourness; the flavour is more like a syrup made with lemon juice and lots of sugar. Disappointing.

Blood Orange (dark pink)
I mistook this one for strawberry at first. This bean is quite warm and has some mild berry notes, but is missing any tang of depth that would make it really sing. It's a little bit like strawberry jam but with a quarter of the sugar. Only the end notes give away a mild tangy citrus flavour.

Blackberry (dark red)
There were a lot of these in my bag. These are very warm and jammy in flavour, mild in the sweetness factor but nice nonetheless.


Mandarin (orange)
It's quite floral in flavour, and I'm not sure if that's the bean itself or if it has picked that up from the other flavours in the packet. The citrus is hiding and barely noticeable, so the flavour heads more in an orange direction rather than mandarin.


Pineapple (medium yellow)
The flavour on these is rather interesting. It too is absolutely not sour, but the sweet flavour is almost like passionfruit. There is the tiniest hint of a tangy kick. It's quite nice, actually.

Peach (bright yellow)
I'm sensing a pattern here of these flavours being not at all connected to their namesake! This was sweet and sugary, with a bit of warmth that leaned in no particular direction to any sort of fruit.



Green Apple (green)
Very accurate in flavour, this bean is probably the closest to sour. It's very tart, almost more like a pear. The end notes are a little celery-like. I'm not a fan of green apples or pears so this flavour didn't do a lot for me personally.

Strawberry (light pink)
These were the hardest to pick and I only identified them through process of elimination. Not to mention the colour in-hand is about two shades different to Blood Orange! The flavour is rather tangy and a bit warm, and that's about all it's got going for it. There's no strawberry notes, not jam or anything else I'd expect from a strawberry-flavoured product.

Unfortunately the whole bag was a fail in the sour category. I tend to leave a period of time between taking photos and doing the actual review, so it's possible that somehow the sourness evaporated (or something), but that's no real excuse. The flavours were way off the mark too. They were nice, just not what was expected, given the flavour list on the back.

Score: 2 out of 5 stars

The Allen's Sour Rush Jelly Beans are made in Australia. They contain wheat,  malt and barley, and are made on equipment that processes products containing milk powder. A serving size is 20g.


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