Belle-Vue Kriek

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

On draught in Antwerp. Pours a clear dark red color, slight white head and lace. Big cherry aroma and flavor, mostly sweet cherry flavor balance, slight late sourness.

Aroma: slightly lagery like a pilsener (that remained right through the drink) with generous amounts of medicinal cherry. Appearance: dark clear red with a slightly off white head. Flavour: none of the pilsener flavours but quite sweet/sour cherry flavours with a touch of nuttiness.

Pressão: tomada em Brugge, Bélgica, em novembro/2007. Coloração vermelha com creme rosa consistente e persistente. Notas agradáveis de cereja sem parecer artificial. Há um leve amargor que a diferencia de uma cidra. Características sutis de cerveja. Nota: 4,1. Garrafa: tomada em janeiro/2008, em Santos. Coloração vermelha, creme rosa. Tem um paladar salgado, diferente. Gostosa, mas nada de excepcional. Traz consigo algo de artificial. Nota: 3,2.

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.

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.

375 ml Bottle: I’m glad to see that I don’t hate lambics, I just hate Chapeau Exotic. The bottle is excellent with a cool cork top, and it pours great. Nice thick head with a ruby red body, very little visual carbonation. Aroma heavy in cherries, but quite pleasant. More carbonation in the taste, with heavy cherry flavour imparted with a very delicate lager-style backing. I’m actually quite impressed with this as far as the style goes, I’d have one again. Probably a good one during the summer heat, but perhaps not at the price.

Pra mim, faltou cerveja. Muita cereja, boa drinkability e bom aroma, mas falta personalidade de cerveja. Falta lúpulo... Mas ganha nota porque é realmente um bom líquido de ser tomado...

Pleasant aroma with some cherry in there, reddish amber in color. Syrupy sour cherry flavour. A touch of dryness although the sweetness is rather sugary. It started off ok but the more I had the less I liked it.