Belle-Vue Kriek

Brewed by Belle-Vue (InBev)
Style: Lambic - Fruit
Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, Belgium

Serve in Flute, Tumbler

Cherry/Raspberry rock-candy aroma, pours lurid red with a pink foamy head that leaves nice lacing. Flavour is a hoot, sour cherry all the way with a slight tapering at the end to a slight sweetness Nice, but certainly not a sessional beer.

Tap. Deep ruby color with a pink toned lacing foam. Sour cherry, vanilla, bubblegum, cherry, white grape in the fruity aroma. Sweet, slightly tarty taste in the medium body. Highly carbonated, which brings out a hint of metallic, sour aftertaste. Good!

Bottled. A deep red beer with a creamy beige head. Strong aroma of cherries. Taste is sweet and sour. Dry and woody finish. Too sweet

Bottle (375ml). Poured blood red with a good size pink head which was mostly lasting. Aroma was of glazed cherries, strawberries, strawberry topping and some cherry sherbet. Flavor was of tart cherries with a light bitterness, some sweet raspberries and cherry sherbet. Light to medium bodied with spritzy carbonation, syrupy texture and a ok finish.

UPDATED: OCT 13, 2007 Long ago, before yuppy culture had fully matured, there existed an “alternate beverage”. It was called Hannsen’s Sodas, and it was good. Rebels against the entrenched carbonated classics could find solace in marginal transparent fruit flavored concoctions – dedicated antipodes to Coca-Cola and Pepsi. As time passed, more and more people, myself included, realized Hannsens’ was a most vile drink. David Brooks’ so called Bobos needed something to fill the vacuous space in their cold, cold hearts to replace the traditional values of family and self-contentment, moving onto newer, healthier and inexplicable ecological beverages like Sobe or Pomme. I never made this switch because I was poor and found little in the new wave of consumerism. Instead I fell back on Big K Pineapple soda which was like pounding a mixture of concentrated sulfuric acid and yellow food coloring. We forgot classics like water, tea and root beer in our zealous reach for new and uncanny drinks. Just the other day I had a terrible flashback to Hansenn’s, caused by an unwitting madeleine. It was the Belle-Vue Kriek; a beer with a startling likeness to Cherry Hansenn’s, both beverages most wicked. It poured a dark purple-red, topped with a wafer thin head that blossomed in a lavender-rose color. The smell was clear; maybe too clear, featuring soda water, processed cherries and sour candies. It smelled a lot like the candy aisle at Wal-Greens, maybe with a hint of strawberry ice cream. Sudsy and sweet, it hits the tongue with a pang of light cherry flavor, and then fades like a bewildering dream. There’s a phantom of wheatiness here that doesn’t fit in at all, and the whole experience makes this nothing more than a meek and weak kriek. It is a circular return to the proximal beverage of my youth: a rasping, wheezing attempt at cherry soda, better left to the judgment of history than a reincarnation in beer.

While not specifically unpleasant this is far too Vick's Cough Syrup-like to be overly pleasant. Some sweet cherry aromas lead to a syrupy cherry taste. Mild sour and bitter touches to the cherry as it moves to the finish line. Really the ruby red appearance is the best thing about the beer.

Moderate tan head. Rich brown/reddish color. Not overpoweringly cherry flavored, which is nice. The oak comes through rather nicely.

Bottle from Morrisons. Purple with pink head. You can actually identify some lambic-ness from the aroma - theres wood and apple and cobweb along with the cherry. Mouthfeel syrupy and flavour just way too sweet. Sad.