Cascade Kriek Ale

Brewed by Cascade Brewing @ Raccoon Lodge
Style: Sour Ale
Portland, Oregon USA

Bottle Pours out a mahogany/brown topped with a small head. Aroma of fruit and oak. Tast was of cherry and wine. It started to tast much better at it sat. Not bad as I took the last drink.

A dark and cloudy, reddish-chestnut colored body is crowned with a fleeting, foamy, tan colored head. Random, obtuse spots emerge from soapy sheeting to dry onto the glass. The aroma shows tons of fresh, new, American oak, the requisite toasty vanilla, sour cherries, lactose, and hints of balsamic vinegar. The flavor is aggressively oaked as well, the toasted wood lending a vanilla overtone to the lactic, sour cherries. There’s a hint of cola sweetness throughout, which lends balance. The substantial, well-carbonated palate starts out a bit syrupy, but finishes semi dry. This is an interesting, middle-of-the-pack sort of Flemish red.

Bottle: Murky pour is reddish brown with a smaller sandy head. Smells fruity and oaky. Cherry with barrel aged notes. Sweet and tart. Tastes fruity up front into a fermented fruit slash wine/vinegar finish. Dry... However, it did mellow out as it reached room temp.

750ml bottle from hannont....pours a dark muddy cranberry red with creamy and long withstanding light reddish brown head... soft cherry aroma and just a touch of lacto. lacking in assertivness. light cherry flavor but short lasting flavor. sweeter than anticipated and only slightly tart. could def be more sour to stimulate the taste buds more. soft soapy mouthfeel and light on the carbonation front. very drinkable but lacked some luster. 7/4/7/4/14

Bottle: Pours a ruby red color with a nice puffy head. The nose is yeasty and tart with a huge cherry note. The flavor has a nice tart acidic impact. A bit of barn cheese going on too. Aromatic and fruity with a yeasty funky goodness in the tail. Thanks Jeremy!

Bottle via ron the brewer at Cascade. We tried a very young version of next year’s kriek. I have a bottle of this years and will likely try next years in full maturity. Overall this was very well done and showed great promise for a fully evolved version of this brew.

2007 Bottle Vintage; Sampled June 2009
A very careful pour still has me ending up with a four finger thick head in my 25cl tulip glass. The head is a full tan colored head. The beer is a murky amber, red color that shows a hazed, deep red color. The aroma is quite cherry laden, with a sweet cherry pie aroma that is noticeable even though I haven’t yet focused on smelling the aroma. The aroma smells a bit thin in its cherry character, though this is clearly the biggest aromatic note. A touch of tannic cherry skin character comes through, but not nearly as richly as a proper sour-cherry varietal character should. There seems to be a touch of tobacco character here as well as a touch of bitter cocoa here as well somehow (though I’ll admit the latter doesn’t make much sense). There is a nice, even rich, slightly sweet cherry character here as well as a finish of spicy oak, and even a tannic woody character.

The beer is fairly light bodied, with a light tartness, and is not sweet at all. The cherry character is a bit weaker even than it is in the aroma. The beer is also not nearly as funky as it would need to be to make up for the lack of cherry character. The second sip is actually a bit richer than the first was with the lactic character being a touch more noticeable. There is a hint of spicy oak in the finish as well as a bit of tobacco and woodiness. My second pour has me noticing a hint of cocoa in the finish as well. This is definitely well carbonated, which tends to lighten this perception of this beer even more; I can’t say that this is really a good thing, as the beer seems a bit thin somehow, it is quaffable though and I wouldn’t quite call it watery.

This was a bit disappointing after the superb Apricot that I had the other night. Strangely I liked this one a lot better during the GABF, it does get a bit better & more integrated as it warms up though. It just seems to have fallen a little short and tastes a bit flat and more muted than I would really like. Still this is not a bad beer, it is even enjoyable, I just find myself thinking how much better this could be in so many different ways.

Sampled GABF 2008
7/3/7/4/16
total: 3.7

This beer has a murky brown color to it and is topped by a frothy, tan colored head. The aroma has a definite cherry note to it and leans toward the sour-cherry side of things. There is a yeast-like note here in the nose that is sort of nutty and there are other aromatics of sweaty cured leather, something like cocoa, grassy grain notes towards the finish, as well as a warm alcohol note. The cherry notes also lean towards sweet-cherry notes, though this is more contributed by the aromatic fruit than by sugar it seems.

The beer tastes of tart, dry cherries up front, but this is only one component of the flavor. There is also a lactic-acid driven lemon-like not up front that moves to a fleshy, full cherry skin flavor that couples with a tannic finish. The tannic note provides a light astringency in the finish, but I can’t quite help coming back to the fresh, complex even, cherry flavor that is not overly dominant, but is so aromatic tasting (if that makes any sense). This is a nice beer, it could be a touch more funky (it showed some promise of this in the aroma) as it is mostly sour, but it is certainly an enjoyable beer.

GABF 2008. Pours ruby with a small, fizzy, off-white head, somewhat lasting with fair lacing. Aroma is average malt (bread, hay, straw), average hops (flowers), average yeast (earth) with notes of cherries. Medium bodied, sticky texture, average carbonation, and a sour finish. Average duration, light sweetness, moderate acidity and sourness.