Verhaeghe Echte Kriekenbier

Brewed by Verhaeghe
Style: Sour Ale
Vichte, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium

Totally good beer, the taste, the aroma, the look, the foam, the aftertaste, everything was good. Cannot complain.

6/19/2008: Echt Kriekenbier has an aroma containing cherry and very slight Balsamic vinegar. The beer is a red-brown color and has a thin but frothy pinkish head. Tart cherry and some slightly sour-sweet vinegar comprise most of the flavor. There are hints of chocolate in this medium-light beer as well. It is airy which helps to really open up the flavors and aromas. This is a very good kriek.

0.33 l bottle (13-10-06; 6% Alc./Vol.). Rating #388 for this beer.

Bottle. Deep red color with good lacing. Strong cherry aroma along with leather, lactic acid, acetic acid, distant alcohol and chocolate. Powerful sweetish flavor well balaced by acidity. Clear cherry and leather flavor with hints of cinnamon and ginger. Sweet and sour finish with cherry and wood. Delicious and balanced.

Seein’ it: Rosy red is the color, mainly clear, with a proud, fizzy, pinkish head that collapses assuredly, but slowly... Smellin’ it: big time cherry, massive sour notes, very vibrant and arousing. Tastin’ it: Oooo, wince, pucker, grimace, shudder, ...ahhhh!!! Very tasty, when you enjoy that sensation. Lip smackin’, with a recurring fruity flavor. Brilliantly bitter. Medium bodied, long, fruity, sour finish. Thoroughly spanks the palate, slapping cherry-whips on the tongue. Just delicious.

I would have sworn I had rated this. Then I found a bottle floating around in the back of the beer fridge. Still thought I had rated it, but was in the mood for a desert type of beer, so opened it anyway. Decided part of the way through to check my previous rating to see if my impressions were the same. Then discovered that I had never rated this. I’m getting daft. In any case, clear red with a brown tinge, ring of head. Aroma largely of cherries with a hint of wood. Bite of carbonation on the palate. Woody flavor gives way to some sour cherries and the faintest hint of funk. Light bodied and fizzy. Interesting, but just not my thing.

08.03.05 330ml bottle, dated 10.31.05 Red body looks like a glass of cranberry juice. Pink head but not much of it. Vinegar and cherries on the nose. Socks. Oak. Cig ash(?). Very sweet and mild, fruit forward. Decent, dry, sweet, tingly. Still seems young, like more time in the wood might be beneficial. Enjoyable in all of the ways I dig on flemmish sours.

Clear, rosy hue and a pink, sudsy head. Tart and sweet cherry nose with some woody barnyard character. Strong cherry flavor with some fruit peel quality and a tart, puckering finish. Too sweet and lacking in depth. Like a cherry-laden horse that runs for the pink team.

Deep red body, thin off-white head. Fruit skin aroma, very woody and musty, with a sulfuric twang that smells like artificial fart spray (ugh). The sulfuric character is also notable in the flavor and lends a strange funk to the sour, thin, woody body. There’s a bit of cherry tartness but overall this feels watered-down. I don’t like this one as well as I liked the Vichtenaar Flemish Ale.