Girardin Kriek

Brewed by Brouwerij Girardin
Style: Lambic - Fruit
Sint Ulriks-Kapelle, Belgium

Bottle, picked up in Antwerp and drank at the weekend with dad. Poured a hazy pale red with a decent sized head. Yeast, cherries and some nuttiness in the aroma the taste wasn’t as sour as I was expecting in fact it was quite refreshing and even my dad who’s not really a fan of this style drank it all. Good well balanced sweet and sour cherry taste that had a nice zingy sour finish, very good.

Hazy ruby with a big sticky off-white cap. Aroma goes all over, with touches of cedar, vanilla and angel food cake, lemon curd, leather funkiness, and nestled under that, dried cherries. Flavor has a strong mineral component, wooly, medicinal, strong but not startling sourness that seems part of the cherry flavor. Smells sweeter than it tastes.

Dark red with an off white head.Sweet aroma with vinegar and almond. A beguiling taste in which sweetness, sourness and bitterness blend in strands of varying intensity, combining and disentangling themselves in an extraordinary arabesque of contasting flavours. Runs the 3Fonteinen close.

750 ml bottle shared with several Quebecois and one other drunk American at tiggmtl’s going away party in Montreal, from a New Belgium glass. Perfect bright luminous red body with a smallish white fizzy, dying head....awesome sour cherry, barnyard funky nose, fairly typical I supposed but exquisitely balanced, the sweeter elements of the fruit showing up with more warmth, yeasty qualities muted....super-drinkable and just as balanced on the tongue despite what certainly ultra-sensitive palates might think, juicy and fruity....not terribly complex and lacking somewhat in the sour/tart bite that you’d find in 3Fonteinen or Cantillon but then this is much more drinkable, "sessionable" if you will I think....a bit dusty and dull at the very finish. Not an absolutely to-shelf fruit lambic but very delicious and in my book, plenty authentic....

Girardin has already earned much respect from me for their exceptional pair of gueuzes, so from there forward it’s all bonus points. There’s an elegance about Girardin’s balance that I genuinely appreciate and clearly emerges in this kriek as well, proving a consistency that I respect and pushing the brewery up in my top two favorites of the lambic world (Drie Fonteinen has them all beat, though). Poured, it seems darker than any kriek I’ve seen, blushing of a dense frosted Bordeaux hue and polished with an opulent faded pink cream. Whoa! My grand-mother’s clafoutis is more present than ever, the cherries shining through clearly but fused with a rich doughy sweetness and a profuse almond fragrance. White pepper, cork, grape juice, figs and brown sugar lend admirable complexity to the nose. With time, a deep richness evolves, reminding of plum and molasses to which the slightest touch of funk adheres in a combination of cranberries, goat cheese and Emmental. An avalanche of red fruit cascades upon the tongue melding cherries, raspberries, grape juice and wild strawberries. The sweetness upfront glides gradually to a dry sourness rich in brown sugar, biscuity malts and salient almonds. Full-flavored and not overly sour, this is an excellent kriek to which I can ascribe only one small flaw. The squalid Emmental and stale hops that work to great effect for Girardin’s gueuzes appear here in the aftertaste but does not match the cherries as well as I might have expected. An otherwise delicious effort, well worth seeking and drinking young.

750mL. Can’t figure out the date on the bottle, but they are from a recent importation by the Montreal crew. Consumed on 8/27/06.
Thoroughly carbonated at first, the bubbles rush about violently in the clear, filtered, medium-pink liquid with some auburn highlights. Off-white flecked pink head is about one-finger high initially, but rapidly fizzles to cover and then ring, lacing in very light patches, quite sporadically.
Soft, fleshy cherries are evident in the nose, though by no means is it bursting with fresh, tart, poignant, highly flavorful cherries. Spontaneous notes in the background definitely include light leather and very mild brett tartness. It tapers off in to a vegetal (rhubarb) and green apple mixture that clearly highlights this beers lack of traditional methods. Some light cheesiness and a hint of pale sugars. Noticeably lacking is the oak and wheat character. Still, it retains the pleasant qualities of a well-made lambic and dosent induce any thoughts of artificial sweeteners. Strength is on the weak side, though.
Simple cherry flesh, again, only faintly tart, builds up on the tongue, being cleared by a mildly tart brett and lacto mixture that just dosent seem to go the distance. You don’t get the pleasant lingering tart/oiliness that sits on the lips and teeth and can be licked to near-infinity, of the true examples of this style. Cherries give way to a light leathery/tannic paperiness, perhaps a hint of oak with some wheat dryness dulling things as well. The finish illustrates the filtration most, growing bland, vegetal again, and noticeably high in acetyldehyde. Finish is short-lived. Texture sags quickly, from the artificial carbonation, and it never has that chewy, yeasty mouthfeel and engaging, tight carbonation.
However, filtration, while an evil, is certainly a much lesser evil than artificial sweetener and diluted lambic, so it’s a big step up from the commercial Belgian lambics.

Bottled at Delirium, Gothenburg. Hazy, reddish, clear beer with a pale pink head. Yeasty aroma with some cherries and hints of caramel. Cherries in the flavor, along with both sweetness and sourness, and cellar. Tart, palate-cleansing, and with a sour and sweet finish. A bit commercial? (060824)

[Bottle at The Rover] Lots of cherry, oak, some yeast and acidity. Body less carbonated than expected, sour finish.