Lindemans Cassis Lambic

] Pours a lightly cloudy rust-ruby color, topped by a ring of light pink foam that lasts throughout. Decent lacing. Interesting strong fruity aroma of currants, raspberry candy, and beet juice. The flavor is somewhat similar to the aroma, but a little more candied, with no beets. Medium body, adequate carbonation. Even though the underlying beer and lambic flavors are covered by tangy fruit and sweet fruit, this beer is tasty and enjoyable. Then again, I like fruit wines and melomels.

Pours maroon with a pink head of foam. This lambic had an intense bitter aroma and taste from some sort of berry.

It was a long time coming, but I finally had the opportunity to try the last unsampled Lindeman’s flavor of the four available in the Denver region: the Cassis Lambic. The last three, roughly cherry, raspberry and peach flavors, were easy to pinpoint and easier to relate to. All three are common flavors in American pastries and confectionaries. But black currant is a little bit rarer, and considered something more of an exotic treat from across the Atlantic. I doubt we’d find ourselves comfortable with black currant dum-dums or black currant muffins, but we do know about it because overpriced and overhyped patisseries use it as an official seal of sophistication to sell their delicious goods. I went into it thinking about blackberries and blueberries as the closest related flavor. The Cassis is a surprisingly dark beer, rivaling a fair number of stouts with its very, very dark maroon shroud. The head is more frivolous with its sugary sweet personality, taking on a rare yet majestic pink-purple cotton candy color. The head actually looks like cotton candy too, and for all I know a glob of the stuff on top of this might actually make for a good pairing – sort of like an even unhealthier root beer float, with more sugar and more alcohol. A tired wisp of cherry, blackberry and boysenberry reluctantly sighs as it approaches the nose, alongside an unwelcome bit of company that smells sort of like chlorine. I wonder if they had just done a bit of spring cleaning prior to brewing this batch. I wasn’t put off by it, but it definitely stood out as “The one that didn’t belong” alongside all the berries. Still, the aroma is unfittingly meek. It’s very gaseous, but empty compared to most beer aromas. There might also be a tad bit of acrid artificial vanilla to help screw up the nose a little bit more. A lot of tartness invades the tongue before any berries come through, so that by the time the initial raspberry and cherry appear I’m already reeling with sour pungency. These flavors are nice, mind you, but somewhat unfocused when my tongue is being laid waste to by concentrated tart. A rolling rapid of sudsiness further entrenches the chemical onslaught, whose appreciable efforts are foiled by a heroic charge of blueberry, blackberry and artificial watermelon flavoring. The aftertaste wraps things up with a blank bubbliness before whisking the entire foamy mass away. The combination of cheap sugared tastes and hyper-active texturing numbs the tongue like a bag of pop-rocks or really hot and spicy nacho cheese could, only at many times the price. Mostly I remember gourging on candy as a kid until I got sweaty, a bit dizzy and my vision warped in and out of focus. I had a similar sensation finishing off this Cassis Lambic, and between fits of I made up my mind that it was far too much sugar. I was hyperglycemic for sure. Sweet beers don’t always induce hysterical fits and strange dietary symptoms, so I think I’ll be sticking to their more moderate sugar mass, which delivers a more realistic and mannered experience.

Bottled. Deep red almost ruby coloured with a pinkish head. Black currant and fruity - notes of other black berries and grapes - maybe a hint of apples. Round and well balanced.

pommegranite red in color with a pinky foamy head. This one makes your mouth pucker! The Cherry flavoring is alright but the other berry fruits taste a tad artificial. A nice hint of acidic apples. It’s a complimentary beer with food. I’d suggest something spicy to get the full robustness out of this beer.

0.375 l bottle. Ruby color with pink head. Sweet, fruity, cidery and refreshing aroma with strong blackcurrant notes. Sweet flavor with lots of blackcurrant, some acidity and some leathery wild yeast character. Sugary and juicy finish. Too sweet but still quite tasty and refreshing.

Bottle. Pours a deep reddish purple with a large, light purple head. The aroma is loaded with currants and reminds me of early summer. Berries are also the dominant flavor. There is plenty of sweetness in this beer and at the same time a distinct tart flavor as well. Syrupy, cloying mouthfeel, which I think matches the character of this beer quite well. This is my first lambic, and I enjoyed it very much!

Beautiful red with big pink head. Aroma is unmistakably berry with just a whiff of sour. Whoo! This stuff is extremely sweet, perhaps even cloyingly so, but the berry component is solid. I am, however going to have to deduct points for the sickly sweet *aftertaste*, and the undeniable feeling that my teeth are rotting from contact with this beverage.