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Every year, I like to try something at the State Fair that doesn’t sound very tasty to me, just for the challenge of it. Last year, for example, I tried Big Sky Country’s deep-fried bull testicles – which tasted, no joke, a lot like chicken. 

This year, I went with "beersicles" from the new PBR Park. The Locally-owned Pete’s Pops crafted them, and although I am usually a fan of their products, I wasn’t sold on the concept of mixing brews with frosty snacks. I immediately liked, however, that frozen pops are naturally on a stick as opposed to so many other Fair foods that are forced on a stick.

"Slim McGinn and his wife, Jane Fox, contacted me about doing the pops after Jane had the idea," says Peter Cooney, owner of Pete’s Pops. "Then we worked together on the flavors and recipes. We still have a few more flavors in our back pocket for next year."

The beersicles cost $4.25 and come in two flavors: Pabst Blue Raspberry and Citrus Shandy. According to Cooney, there is 1.5 ounces of beer in each pop.

We expected the raspberry pop to be blue, but it wasn’t. Instead, it was a very natural deep red color. The first lick or two, I could taste a hint of the beer, but after a while, the strong raspberry flavor over-powered it, which was fine with me. The shandy pop was the opposite, the more I ate, the more I tasted the beer. Thankfully, neither were too beer-y.

Both were extremely refreshing, especially considering it was such a hot day, and I would definitely eat another PBRaspberry, which I favored over the shandy. It would be weird, however, to decline my kid a taste of my popsicle.