Belle-Vue Kriek

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

Serve in Flute, Tumbler

375 ml bottle. Cyprus @ All about beer. My first Lambic. Better than I thought it would be. Nice reddish brown color. Intense cherry aroma and taste. Didn’t actually taste like a beer but I liked it.

Pours a dark brownish red witha nice head and great lace. Aroma of sour and sweet cherries, very pleasant. Flavour initially rather sour - more like a Flemish Sour Ale - then tapering to a nice dark cherry/yeasty aftertaste. Some bitter notes which don’t quite seem to fit... are they hops, or off-flavours? Thin, puckered body with a warming aftertaste. This is a compelling beer, but the bittering hops seem to clash with the cherries. Very drinkable, but easily improved upon.

I don’t mind fruit beers, especially those that have been brewed specifically as one as opposed to has fruit added to mask a crap beer. A good fruit beer must in essence be a good base beer, before any fruit is added. Cherries works for me and this would be my first choice of fruit beers.

UPDATED: MAY 12, 2011 I’ve had this a million times and never rated it, and then had it thinking it was the Larnaca brewpub house kriek because they label it as such. So this is my rating from that one. Draft. Deep, opaque color of crushed cherries with a tight pink head. Candied cherry aroma is inviting. Sticky palate. Sweet-tart in fair balance. Tastes like canned cherry pie filling. It’s actually nice even though it is candy-like. It was good not knowing what it was, as if it was a blind tasting. Thinking it was a Cypriot brewpub beer made me impressed. If I knew what it was at the time I would have been harder on it.

Kriek from a can! Shared by Todd at the Carolina gathering. Clear red pour. Smells like a Luden’s cough drop and tastes the same, only sweeter. Candy beer.

[On tap at Copa of Reading] Dirty mauve-red with a large pink head. Black forest gateaux, a little almond and a fair hit of maraschino cherries. Some sourness and a woody taste behind. Dry, woody finish. Not altogether convinced - felt vaguely queasy afterwards.

pours with no head and a dark ruby colour. deep cherry aroma. taste packs a punch with alot of tart/sour cherries. i’ve always enjoyed this beer once in a LONG while.

On keg in Riga. Pours a red colour with a fair pink head. Aroma of cherry and a little lemon. Similar flavours with a lemon sherbert quality which lingers nicely. Quite one dimensional and a little sweet. I prefer sour krieks.