Belle-Vue Kriek

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

(bottle) Dark red colour with frothy pink medium head. Strong sourish cherry aroma. Sweety taste with heavy cherry flavour with dry, sour and a little smoky finish. A bit perfumed. One of the better mainstream Krieks.

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.

Amber red. Tart fresh tinge. Ok balance, not so sweet as other easy drinkable kriek. Watery finish

Yeah, it doesn’t look like a beer, but taking the style into consideration, I have rated it accordingly. The rich cherry body with a pink cream head is an appealing change of pace. The aroma smells deliciously full bodied of cherries with a sour vinegar note discernable at times. Unfortunately, the taste becomes more disagreeable as the experience continues. Cherry soda/cherry sparkling flavors give way to a twinge of saltiness to an unpleasant salty cherry that becomes sickening. Far too unbalanced.

2001 VERSION: High carbonation. Not as fruit-filled (tasted against 5 other krieks). Somewhat bland, even in the nose. bottom of the 5 tasted. There are better krieks (see my other ratings).

Aroma of cheap sweets and cherry. Sweet and just a bit sour taste with cherry juice. Certainly drinkable, but it has nothing to do with a real kriek.

The aroma is sweet and powerful of cherries. The color is red and it has an OK but disappearing head. The flavor is sweet with notes of cherries, and a dry woody finish. It is way too sweet for me.

Very nice rich and clear dark red color, couldn’t ask for a better color from a kriek, though I prefer to see them a little cloudy. Aroma is some creamy sweet candy cherry notes, flavor is similar, but light overall... the palate is slightly peppy, soda-like, and thinner than prefered. OK at best, basically I wanted more depth than just a one-dimensional cherry candy flavor.