Selins Grove The Phoenix Kriek

Brewed by Selins Grove Brewing Co.
Style: Fruit Beer
Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania USA

Growler via kramer17801. This beer is fantastic. The beer pours to a dark murky ruby/garnet body that has a nice glowing vibrancy. The head is peach colored. The flavor is cherry pits, cherry pie filling, tart cranberries, sweet sugars, acidic fruit, nutty characteristics like New Glarus Enigma has. Think Ferrero Rocher hazelnut candies. The palate is tart, really sweet, and full bodied. The aroma is tart cherry pie filling, strawberries, strawberry leaves, and hazelnut chocolate. Very, very complex. Like a brown ale, kriek, and some sort of chocolate beer (porter or stout) all rolled into one.

On draught at State College 8th Annual Festival. Nice sour cherry aroma, tart and a bit sweet like cherry cough drops or fresh sour cherry pie. Mild wheat notes. Medium amber, hazy with a tint of red. Medium bodied with medium-heavy carbonation, almost effervescent. Starts tart with huge cherry flavor. Puckeringly tart but also finishes sweet, like sugar was added. Sour cherry pie flavor without the watery aceticness that other sour fruit beers sometimes have. Clean fruity finish and light bitterness. After is clean and fruity. This is a really nice fruit beer, almost comparable to Liefmans.

Hand bottle from hellbilly’s howdown. Some cherry and sour plumb aroma. Murky red body with no head. Some sluge droped in the glass from bottom of bottle on pour. Decent fruity and sour flavor. Most notable was the sweet juicy sour plum which was good. Got a yeasty bread shot on the finish. Special thanks go out here to Paul, Josh and the Superdave family for the special delivery.

From growler, one hour old. Pours a clear dark ruby colored body under a tight creamy thin covering of head, off-white with a pink tinge. Aroma is tart and slightly acidic with a great sour cherry undercurrent. A good amount of malt backing it all up. Flavor is wonderfully tart and acidic with great natural sour cherry. Finishes very dry and tart. Mouthfeel is medium bodied with perfect soft active carbonation that cuts through the acidity and really livens things up. Overall, this is Selin’s Grove’s most interesting and best regular rotaion beer. Right up there with New Glarus Belgian Red in my book.

Growler shared at Columbus tasting 7 by Nolankowal! - Thanks John! - Pours ruby red with a short pinkish white head. Aromas of tart cherries. Very much smelled like a fresh baking cherry pie. Flavor is tart cherry, some bread, and yeast, Just a touch of acidity there to let you know it is a kriek. Wow this was good.. I was quite impressed with this one..

TITW Part Deux - 12oz handbottle couresty of kramer17801. Thanks, Jason! Cherry red color, slightly brown; medium carbonation. Slight aroma: hints of bing cherry, some oak. Huge, tart cherry mouthfeel: hints of toasty vanilla and barrel aging; very similar to the NG Belgian Red; nice complexity. Long, chewy cherry finish. 7.4.9.4.17=4.1

Resampled from growler, courtesy of mj. Better carbonated, dense tart cherries, mouthwatering acidity. Great stuff.

Growler sampled approximately 1 week after being filled, May 2007
Pours with an opaque, quite hazy, dark purple, yet still cherry red color. The pour from the growler easily summons forth a three-finger thick, pinkish, light tan colored head. The aroma is quite cherry driven; chewy-cherry skin notes lend a fullness to the dominant sweet cherry candy-like nose. The aroma really reminds me of the cherry character in a well made batch of cherry ice-cream. My guess is that these are not sour cherries, but they still smell fairly enticing in this beer.

The beer is lightly sweet up front, but thankfully not sticky or syrup-like in texture or sweetness. There is a nice level of tartness here, though not to the level of a Lambic. The chewy cherry skin character from the aroma is in the flavor, though not quite as prominent as in the nose. There seems to be a hint of plastic phenolics character that is lying just underneath the surface here; it is just barely noticeable though. This beer is very cherry focused, somewhat similar (perhaps even inspired by) to New Glarus Belgian Red, though I don’t think it is quite as sweet, nor as tannic & chewy as that beer. The beer is fairly well carbonated, which adds a touch of zesty prickly character. This helps to lighten the thick chewy character a bit. I do like that this beer is fairly thick & rich; it makes it sort of like a dessert, but not necessarily a sweet one.

This is quite a nice beer, I would love to see this fermented more towards the Lambic side of the spectrum, but that would ruin the hearty desert quality of this beer.

Bottle courtesy of Miver (handbottle): Poured a deep clear reddish color ale with some limited carbonation (due to the handbottling). Aroma of sour cheery with some light cough syrup notes. Taste is a nice mix between some sour cherry with some notes of oak and tart and some limited sweetness. I was slightly disappointed by the cough syrup notes that I could pick-up through the tasting. Nice body with no apparent alcohol. Well done but I could do without the cough syrup. Makes me want to take a road trip and taste the beer on site.