Lindemans Kriek Cuvée René

Brewed by Brouwerij Lindemans
Style: Lambic - Fruit
St Pieters Leeuw-Vlezenbeek, Belgium

750 ml bottle, 2006 vintage (#01195) bought at Dranken Geers. BBE 21 December 2012. Hazy red/pink appearance - sort of Strawberry Mivvi ice lolly colour. Pours intensely effervescent but settles down soon enough. However, that effervescence later manifests itself as a slightly carbonic edge in the aroma and a somewhat fizzy mouthfeel. Reasonable amount of fruit and a touch of farmyard in the aroma but doesn’t have the depth of fruit displayed by the major players such as Hanssens and 3 Fonteinen. Cherry flavour is present but relatively understated. There is also a quite insistent lemony tartness. Obviously a step up from the usual sweet stuff that Lindemans make but not quite in the top rank.

Red in color with a thin lacy head. Aromas are sour, musty, funky, barnyard, and fruit. Taste is sour, cherry, and acidic. Medium body with a dry finish.

750ml bottle @ Oud Arsenal, 2006 vintage

Pours a hazy rich ruby red with a pink head. Nose of dusty minerals and cherries and sugar, moderately rich, very dry and tart and prickly sour on the tongue... lactic over the back of the palate. Tartness is creamy and soda-like but the sourness is there (medium levels), but the whole funky feet/cheese side of things is missing. Fruit-wise it’s slightly on the candy/sugar side of things, not really showing any sort of real tannic cherry pit character. When warmer there’s some soft cream/funk, a little more than before but still not a great amount. Aggressive and flavorful but not that deep or complex overall.

750ml bottle (Pikkulintu, Helsinki)
Orangy red, almost no head. Sour and woody aroma, packed with phenols from old barrels and esters from the beer. Very sharp sour taste, quite puckering. Cherry taste is subtle, but there’s a slight funky sweaty crotch going down. Also a bit of detergent, which hangs around for a while. Fruitiness comes through too, but is very subtle. So much better than their sweet muck - this a good sour kriek.

Last week from bottle, 75 cl. @ home with Jerre, Leen, Marc) Red coloured , with a pink head. Cherry, woody, gueuzemalts, aroma Taste little sweet, sourness, cherry and fruity, Like it.

Bottle. Kool-Aid cherry red with a thin ring of bubbles and an island of patchy bubbles. Nose-fruit, sour, tart, light berry, unsweet grape, light horse, light acid. Taste-high acid/tart, surprisingly light berry, light horse/brett, very light wet dog on the backend, light turpentine, unfinished wood, light rubbing alcohol, white pepper, light cherry. Overall good dose of acid/tart and a little lean on the horse/funk that I enjoy.

December 2006 Bottle Vintage, Sampled May 2008
Pours with a pink tinged, light tan colored, frothy, initially three-finger thick, fairly quickly disappearing head that shrinks to a persistent, 1-mm of crowning foam. The beer is a bright, red color that shows a stunningly, brilliantly clear, red hue when held up to the light. The aroma smells more of funk than it does of cherry, but it definitely smells of both. Light cherry syrup notes dance around underneath aromatic notes of musty, sweaty horse-blanket, woody mushroom notes, and an only light tartness. There are also notes of lightly toasted oak and toasted, breakfast-cereal like grain here towards the finish. Not the funkiest of Lambics, and the lack of tartness in the nose is a bit unusual; still this is funky enough to be interesting & I like that the cherry aromas play a supporting role. As the beer warms up the sourness becomes much more noticeable in the nose.

Much more sour than the aroma would have suggest; it is even a bit bracing in its acidity. The carbonation is quite pleasing in its frothy texture, though it is not overly carbonated (on the high side for a standard American Beer). This is almost bone dry, so much so that the cherry flavors are actually fairly muted. Lactic acid notes dominate, both there does seem to be just a touch of some sharper acids here. Sour cherry fruit notes, with some tannic cherry skin flavors and a hint of juicy cherry pulp join the more traditional Lambic sour-grapefruit-like fruit flavors. A touch of grassy, crushed-wheat like grain character just kisses the taste buds towards the finish. This predominantly leans towards sourness in its funkiness, but there are some musty, damp earth flavors, some light and some almost clean, barnyard notes. There is also a nice foundation of wood character here that contributes a tannic-influenced heft to the mouthfeel, some toasty, woody-oak flavors, with just a touch of spiciness in the finish.

A fresh pour from my 750ml bottle really accents an aromatic note of funky, woody, earthy mushroom note that even leans a bit towards toe-cheese (that wonderful, funky gunk found in between your toes after a long, hard working, sweaty day in shoes). This doesn’t seem to manifest itself in the flavor though.

While the cherry character is fairly soft here, this is much more traditional tasting than I was expecting. I think it is even more traditional than recent examples of the Gueuze Cuvée René. Really, I think the fact that this is bone dry has really helped this along; it doesn’t really have much of a funkiness to it, but the fact that it does not have any sweetness (sweet being the antitheses of a decent Lambic), makes this all the more palatable. Even the nose is not overly funky, it just was a bit more noticeable at first because of the slight cherry influence and minimal sourness at first. My biases are definitely showing, but this is definitely an enjoyable beer to be drinking right now.

Yesterday from bottle, 75 cl. (With Paul, Leen, Marc) Deep red color, with a pink head. Aroma fruits, cherry, gueuzemalts, bit woods. Medium body. Taste little sweet, sourness, cherry and fruity, woods @ finish. Nice kriek for beginners. GOOD.