Belle-Vue Kriek

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

Re rate: still sweet like i remember, i’d like to taste more sourness, nice fruit flavour (Cherry), but to sweet like i said . Original ratings: way too sweet and not enough sour, definitely not up there with the best lambic beers.

37.5 cl bottle Dark red with brownish shine; huge, fine bubbled pink head with fine lilac lace. Wet dog, woody and faint fruity nose, getting more fruity and syrupy with time. Restrained fruity taste. Sweet, but not too overtly artificial. Woody notes, and again this "wet dog" - this time flavourwise. It IS a bit meaty-estery. Cherrydrops finish. Medium bodied, slight slickness, finishes a bit cloying and fizzy, giving it a metallic compound. A few of the "artisans" brew much worse. It has no Brett character, no sourness, no lively fresh fruit. It is sweet, but not exaggeratedly so, it is not synthetic. It’s just lame. And the kriekenlambics from the pipes at Henegouwenkaai were so good, once...

Bottled, 330 ml. Dark chestnut to purple, pinkish head. Sour cherry straight in from the start with a sweet sucrosy background. Heavy on the tongue with a cardboardy fizzed CO2 note. Not for me.

Sweet, artificial, thin.

Bottle: Reddish amber coloured, huge reddish-white head, lasting; sourish-fruity (cherries, no doubt, almonds) nose, only very little "horse-blanket", or "wet-dog" (?) in the background; cherry-dominated beginning, light sourish flavour, moderate fruity aftertaste, short lasting. Not too sweet, quaffable, but nothing worth a detour.......

Bottled at the Danish Beerfestival 2003: Dark red couled. Perfumed nose. Cherry and vinegar. Loads of cherry in the flavour. Vague sourness. Reminds me a little of "hubba bubba" chewing gum. Not bad at all.

Rich ruby red colour with an interesting pink head. The beer itself is crystal clear. Fairly prominent yeastly smelling with lots of sweet cherry fruit. There are obvious notes of cinnamon and allspice. Plenty of cherry flavour that has a nice spicy finish. Although the beer is quite sweet, the finish was dry enough to prevent it from seeming cloying. Nice.