Felix Kriek

Brewed by Verhaeghe
Style: Sour Ale/Wild Ale
Vichte, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium

Serve in Snifter, Tulip, Tumbler

UPDATED: JUN 18, 2005 Small bottle, 3.5%: Red with a pink head. Cherry styrup aroma. Glazed cherry flavour with some sugary notes. Sweet yet suprisingly not cloying. Not bad. 6/3/6/3/12. Re-Rate: This is the original beer, at least 4 years old. Dark cloudy red-brown. Sweet cherrys throughout. A slight oxidised finish, but very tasty beer.

Little Bottle. At 3.5% ABV I think this may be a different beer from the original product. The bottle looks old, but it might have been a recent contract brewed bottle. Pours red with a thin pink head. The aroma is of slightly artifical cherry, but still nice. Flavour is sweet and extremely fruit but balanced. Compared to legions of commercial fruit beers nowadays this is a really quite nice balanced cherry beer, quite comparable to New Glarus Belgian Red. Wonderful and approachable.

[Vintage 1992 - sampled 2004] A deep red beer with no head. The aroma is very powerful of cherries, but also with notes of alcohol and fermented fruit. The flavor is very sweet - with lots of cherries, almost artificial, but also notes of dust, but for a kriek not sour enough. I think it is over the top.

This is STILL brewed somewhere FOR Clarysse Fluffy cyclamen head leaving little frilly lace; deep dark ruby beer, hazy. Terribly artificial sweet cherries nose, as some kersenbollen, cherrysweets I used to know when young. It smells sweet even for a long drink or cocktail - let alone a beer... Taste is definitely better. Light but unmistakably sourish edge wedges itself into the syrupy cherry-perfumed mass. Fruity in every aspect. Medium bodied, slick, not unlike cherry-kernel oils. For the sweet teeths amongst us, provided they don’t inhale too much. At the end of its genuine Oudenaarde life, Felix kriek wasn’t any better at Clarysse, but until the early eihties, it was a giant amongst flemish fruitbeers. Sadly, even my cellar’s depleted of the real thing, today. Kulminator,....

UPDATED: MAR 14, 2007 Vintage 1975@Kulminator. Leathery aroma, sweet, light berries. Golden red, small floaties. Still quite fruity - cherries in spirits, leathery, nutty. Plenty of sweetness left. Smooth mouthfeel. Light horseblanket exhaling. Wonderfull. (rating from the older bottle) Bottled, vintage 1992 @ Akkurat Quite a bit cherry, citus,wood, a hint of blue cheese. Quite sweet, sugar and fruit Full oily body Sweet exit Bordaux color, no head.

Vintage bottle ????.
Pours a foamy light tan head on a hazy amber body with an orange glow. Mostly sweet fruity aroma with some sourness behind the sweetness. Lots of cherry and some grapefruit tones. Fresh and well balanced. Quite full and heavy flavor. Malt, cherry, peach, grapefruit and slightly woody. Good sourness but not tart. A nice example of a Flemish Sour Ale. I wish I knew the age!?

Cherry/brown colour. Pours quite flat, with no head. Sweet & sour aroma witha gentle lactic note and sweet cherries. Palate is very sweet with cherries, faint almond accent and a sugary finish.

Bottle (Clarysse, does not state "best before" or "bottled" date). Red with small head. Sweet, fruity, cherry (essence?), low sourness, soft palate. Pleasent.