Waterbridge Gourmet Jelly Beans: Sour

Today we’re revisiting Irish confectionery Waterbridge, which debuted on this site last season. I really enjoyed their flagship collection of flavors, which rated highly enough to tie the previous champion, Trader Joe’s.

This time around, we’ll be trying Waterbridge’s collection of sour flavors! It’s the first in a triptych of sour packages, so if you’re a sour fan, keep your eyes peeled for the next two reviews, as well!

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Looking back on my previous assessment of the physical characteristics of Waterbridge jelly beans, they all apply equally to these sour-flavored beans. For convenience, I will simply quote from the previous review here.

Size and shape

Waterbridge Gourmet Jelly Beans have a laudable consistency in both size and shape! There are absolutely zero small or large outliers, nor are there any malformed beans. At about a third larger than a Jelly Belly bean, their size is perfect.

The only knock against them in this category is that the shape is not as bean-like as others who dare to claim that their jelly beans are “gourmet”, but it’s not bad, by any means. I’m glad that they at least make a solid attempt at the dimple, but it mostly results in a bean that is rounded everywhere except for one flatter side.

4 out of 5 beans

Chewability

These beans chew very well. In both this category and the next, they remind me a lot of Just Born Jelly Beans. There’s enough heft that a single bean sticks around long enough to be an enjoyable chew by itself, without wearing out your jaw. Teeth sticking is minimal.

5 out of 5 beans

Texture

While they do not have quite as nice a shell as the aforementioned Just Borns, this is still a strong category. The smoothness of the shell is similar, and when broken up it is not gritty, but its thinness is a slight disappointment. It goes right to fine crystals, rather than breaking into nice hunks.

The insides are also pleasantly smooth, like the Just Borns.

4 out of 5 beans

Taste and flavor

Compared to the 36 flavors of the previous Waterbridge package, these nine flavors are a much more manageable assortment. Most of the flavors are either direct carryovers from the flagship package or are the same base flavor with (maybe) an additional sour kick added: Sour Lemon, Apple, Pink Grapefruit, Grape, Cranberry & Apple, Lemon Lime, and Cola all were part of the potential 36 flavors previously.

Truth be told, in some of those cases, I’m not sure if the flavor has actually been modified, or if they just included the same beans and tacked “sour” onto the name printed on the package. Unfortunately, I have no more of the originals with which to compare.

Let’s run down the list:

• Sour Apple is a very faithful representation of a Granny Smith, which has a nice tartness up front and finishes sweeter, just like the apple.
• Grapefruit is one of my favorite jelly bean flavors, and this Sour Pink Grapefruit does it well, though it doesn’t seem any more sour than a standard pink grapefruit bean should be.
• Sour Grape reminds me of those little prepackaged cups of communion juice. It’s probably my least favorite flavor in the package.
• Sour Lemon is as great as it previously was. Reminds me of the curd in a lemon meringue pie.
• I don’t feel like there is much sourness to the Sour Cranberry & Apple bean, but the base flavor is very good.
• Sour Blueberry is one of the two totally new flavors here, and it is delicious, really capturing that blue raspberry Icee flavor that I have previously extolled.
• Sour Orange is the other new one. It’s good, but unremarkable.
• Sour Cola is the most fun flavor in the bag! It seems inspired by Haribo’s classic Fizzy Cola gummis.
• Finally, Sour Lemon Lime captures the two component flavors well, but is not nearly as sour as it should be.

Taken as a whole, I wish this collection of flavors was more sour overall. Waterbridge again does a great job with the core flavors, but in a package dedicated to sour flavors, I just want more of that mouth-puckering acidity!

7 out of 10 beans

The one-of-each test

Perhaps the ultimate test of a bag of jelly beans is how enjoyable it is to take one of each flavor and eat them all at the same time.¹

With the previous Waterbridge collection of three dozen flavors, I had to take a subset of beans for this test, but in this case, all nine beans is a reasonable task to undertake, and all flavors are relatively compatible.

The physical effort is not too bad, given these beans’ average size and good chewability. It’s hard to keep track of all of the flavors for long, though, and the cola flavor seems to come to the forefront and dominate the midpalate. Toward the end, it starts to resemble something like a bottled lemon iced tea. Overall, a pleasant but not amazing experience.

7 out of 10 beans

Conclusion

While not as impressive as the 36-flavor flagship package, this is another great selection of jelly beans from Waterbridge, which is only knocked down a couple pegs due to not being as intense as I think a collection of sour flavors deserves. We’ll soon see how the next couple sour packages perform in that respect!