De Boomgaard Kriek
Brouwerij Liefmans

 

2007 vintage for $1.99, hard to pass up : /

Pours a murky dark crimson, frothy pink foam, with some delicate lacing decorating the tulip glass. Scant wisps of skim across the surface.., looks the part of a kriek.

Sugary sweet candy. Smells like a cherry Ludens cough drop, but not just any old cough drop... one that's gotten warm and sticky a few times, sitting in someone's pocket for way too long. Brings to mind the end scene from Ferris Bueller.

Taste has some light cherry tartness, though there's plenty of residual sugar in there too. Cherry tastes fairly authentic with some lightly tannic dryness in the aftertaste. Reminds me of cherry lemonade. It's not terrible, and time has been kind, though it's still a wine cooler of a Kriek. Probably a good thing this line is retired, Cuvee Brut is far better though it's not great either. Maybe one day Liefmans will stop over-sweetening their product.

 

 

I had a twelve ounce draft of this at the Amsterdam Ale House on Manhattan's Upper West Side. I was quite pleased with it. Almost like a gueze, reminded me of a Cantilon.

Appearance is a redish copper, with a lot of carbonation.

Aroma combined the yeast with the cherry for a very inviting essence.

Flavor was quite refreshing, with flavor of cherries and the sourness of the yeast combining perfectly.

Overall a very good beer with a low enough ABV that can be enjoyed over and over.

12 oz green corked and caged bottle. 2007 vintage.

Pours into my pokal a nice clear, deep rose red with a white head that leaves gobs of lacing.

It smells like a lot of other Krieks, with a cherry explosion and not much else. There is no funk or sourness in the smell.

The taste is pure cherry, perhaps a bit sweet an watery. It is what it is, a refreshing beer that you can enjoy in summer.

Not a bad fruit beer but not outstanding.

A: Pours a 1 finger pink lacy head, I'm not sure if I should drink it or take it out on a date first. The big bubbled head fades semi quickly. It's very clear despite having a dark cranberry red color.

N: Cherries dominate the nose. Sweet Maraschino cherries. A slight Belgian yeast effervescence comes through behind that. A slight sour cherry aroma also comes through, but not quite as much. Some Belgian malts add a touch of malty sweetness.

T: Again very sweet, with lots of fresh cherry flavor. It has a slight spicy yeast characteristic like a nice saison would have. The biggest offset though is the sweetness. Lots of cherry juice even dominates the taste. A very slight Belgian malt comes through on the back end. A slight syrupy sweet flavor comes through as well.

M: Slightly syrupy, but very juicy and very light on the carbonation, esp for being bottle conditioned.

F: Still a little sweet but it dries off quite a bit. The cherry juice sweet flavor doesn't fade however, as it seems to dwell on the tongue. A slight bitterness never comes, as I wait for it. Just the cherry juice and sweetness. I can hardly call this a beer more than a fermented cherry juice. The very low abv also doesn't help.

Appears a semi-transparent pink with a small white head that slowly fades into a bubbly cap that floats on top of the brewed liquid. Spotty bits of lacing are left around the glass.
Smell is of Luden's Cherry Throat Drops...wtf! Hmmm. This here is cherry juice, sugar, with a touch of medicinal cough syrup.
Taste is of the mentioned aromas with some medicinal qualities peaking to the front of this cherry nonsense.
Mouthfeel is medium bodied, sweet, sugary, caramel malts trying to break through...not exactly brewed to "kriek" standards but then again, not exactly a good beer without a category to define it.

375ml bottle shared thanks to weare138.

Poured a medium reddish-pinkish color with a smaller sized pink tinged head. Aromas of cherry cough syrup and hard candy (those Luden's cough medicine ones). I swear I was getting some plastic as well. Tastes of the same artificial cherry medicine. Syrupy body. I didn't care for ths one at all.

Got this one on sale! Yeah, discount shelf!

Pours a beautiful deep red color, faint pinkish head fades out pretty quickly and leaves some nice patches of lacing on the glass. Honestly, the smell really reminds me of cough syrup, but not in an entirely unpleasant way. There's a richness to the aroma that's missing from 'Tussin, but either way, the cherry smell is pretty powerful. Taste is really nice here, cherry flavor comes through, but not overly sweet, some tartness around the edges, there's a "purple grape juice" thing happening here, and the whole thing is just very reminiscent of melted popsicles....but the good kind, with real fruit. On the heavy end of medium-bodied, puckering at times, tartness has a drying effect on the mouth. This is tasty. Definitely not something I could have more than one of in a night, but there's a lot going on here, and I plan on picking up some more of these in the future.

375ml bottle poured into a snifter.

A = Deep garnet with a cherry-pink small head. Light lacing.

S = Strong scents of fresh cherries with a slight underlying smell of sea water and uncooked bread dough.

T & D = Good flavors of cherry show through and the typical sourness is there, but this is a little too watery in the taste to get better than average. It is okay, but there are a lot of lambics I would pick first.

M = Medium to medium-light, fair mouthcoating, good carbonation level

My first time drinking a cherry beer, and I have to admit it was less subtle than I had hoped. It actually tastes much more like a wine cooler than a beer - almost no beer taste at all, and as long as you're OK with that, you'll like this. Similar mouthfeel as a wine cooler, or a New Year's Eve fruit punch with Sprite - lots of fizz (but not too much). Very sweet - couldn't drink more than one, and this would be a great dessert beer.

I found some notes from Turkey Day of '06.

This beer pours a concord grape purple and fades to pale strawberry along the edges of my glass. The head is a frothy pink/purple.

Smells of dark cherry with a dry pasty flour faded in.

tastes of Jolly Rancher cherry and a ton fo concord grapes with a nice green leafy celery int eh background. Tastes a bit like sprite too with a little citrus sting and some pretty big bubbles.

Feels thin with a touch of syrup but with some huge frothy bubbles that sting a bit.

Meh.

Cherry jam with a cherry bomb explosion on the opposite side of the glass in the form of the rising sun. The head is an unexpected three fingers in size and is an expected frou-frou pink in color. The foam has a wonderfully rumpled look and deposits an attractive array of lace. This is pretty much how a cherry beer ought to look.

I like the nose as well. It isn't as aggressively cherry-like as some similar offerings, but it's aggressive enough. I also like the fact that it has an earthy, dried cherry aroma rather than smelling like cherry candy. If it isn't gaggingly sweet, this might be pretty good beer.

Amazingly, it isn't incredibly sweet, but then I've only had a few sips so far. Kriek is far from the most complex fruit beer in the world, and it will probably cause the vast majority of beer geeks to sneer in distain, but for what it is, it's pretty good. If anyone buys this stuff thinking they're getting anything other than sweet, cherry juicy beer, they deserve to be disappointed.

In the same way that dried cherries or cherry 'fruit leather' tastes different than fresh sweet cherries, this beer tastes different than a simple cherry juice-added ale. It must be the 'spices' referred to on the label, although I have no idea what those might be. I'd love to drink all my favorite krieks side-by-side. I think this one might be at or near the top of the heap.

Given all the sugar, it's no surprise that the mouthfeel is full and borderline syrupy. It stops short of cherry pancake syrup, though, and feels pretty much like it should, considering the style. There are just enough bubbles to give the beer a pleasant animation on the tongue.

I almost always knock drinkability back a half point when beer is this sticky sweet. I like what I'm drinking, but my body can't handle that much sugar that fast, so I end up nursing the bottle for an extended period of time. Like the other de Boomgaard beers that I've had so far, Kriek would be fantastic with the appropriate dessert.

I tried this beer with a bunch of fiends when we got together to do a sour beer tasting. This was just one of the offerings there.

The beer poured a noticeable light garnet color with very little head. The aroma was clean and intensely cherry with a slightly syrupy balance. Once you take a sip, the aroma and the flavor thing all together give you the distinct impression of a Ludens cough drop.

Though the flavor is totally syrupy and artificial, it finishes rather clean and refreshing with a minimal syrupy sweetness to coat the throat.

This was a nice experience, but is something that I doubt I would drink again on purpose.

The beer poured into the chalice clear deep garnet with a pink frothy and tall head.

The aroma was strong, make that very strong, cherries as if sticking your nose into a box of Luden's cough drops. The the strong cherry aroma was a very slight tartness and a more pronounced bready nature.

The flavor was cherry, must less subdued than in the aroma. The flavor was oddly bready as was suggested by the aroma. The flavor was lightly tart and had some very slight spice character. As the beer warmed the tartness seemed to come out of it's shell and coupled with a breadiness made for an interesting flavor.

The finish was almost dry with a lasting impression of cherries and a bready character into the aftertaste. The body was just below medium with a moderate carbonation level. The pink head was a bit odd, the Luden's cough drop was a bit odd, but the flavor and mouthfeel were pretty good and the beer had a good drinkability.

12.7 ounce corked and bailed bottle. 2005 on cork, label says brewed with spices and cherry juice.

Presentation: 375ml (12.7 fl.oz.) green glass flask dimpled based bottle sealed with a thumbed cork, cage and steel cap. Cork is dated 2.005 whilst the red steel cap seems to have a sate of Sept 2007 on it, surely a Best Before Date. Listed on the main label as “de Boomgaard Kriek” a “Belgian beer brewed with spices and cherry juice”. Listed at 4.1% Alc. By Vol.

Appearance: Bloody red body which has a perfectly clear sheen. Flamingo pink creamy head starts at 1” thick and settles to a more accommodating ½” thick uniform cap. Little to no sign of any carbonation but great looks nonetheless.

Nose: Intense cherry juice, not so much fruity, but fruit-ed. Has a pungent Raspberry sorbet like tartness that is artificial. Lots of cherry…..

Taste: Immensely thick perfumed cherry juice which has a sherbet character. The cherry dominates, sweet with a feint sour tartness but the sugary cherry sticks to the teeth and plays the trump card throughout.

Mouthfeel: One-dimensional with a strange sweet candy-floss after-taste that is a little “too much” after about half the bottle. Hard work at times.

Drinkability: It took me a while to work my way through this one.

Overall: Overwhelmingly sweet with a forceful nature, cherry essence and a cherry juice dominate this to remind me of so many cherry flavored products; like candy drops, Jam, cough syrup, etc, etc.….but not beer, funnily enough. Just as expected.

Appearence - Right on for what I expected, a nice ruby red with a pretty fair head that laces up after a minute or 2.

Smell - I want to say cherry lifesavers, like cherry candy, Smelled pretty good for what my sniffer picked up.

Taste - Didnt blow me away, very cherry flavor. Cherry lifesavers, cherry jam are things that come to mind.

Mouthfeel - A bit over the top sweet and syrupy, felt like i was drinking candy rather than a beer.

Drinkability - I couldnt have more than 1, nor would I try. I may try it again if I am in the mood for something super sweet thats still technically a beer.

375ml bottle 2005. Dark red, almost blood coloured ale, with a large frothy pink head. aroma is very wild /black cherry like. Sweet cherry flavour, syrupy,sour after taste. Mouthfeel is not too cloying. I found this pretty drinkable, a nice change up in hot weather though one 375ml is probably enough for me.

Packaged in a fancy 13-ish ounce champagne-style bottle. Pours a nice dark red color (not amber, but a deep cherry red) with a minimal pink head that goes to lacing quickly. The aroma is strong sweet cherries with just the slightest hint of malt. Tastes like... cherries. Thick and sweet with a very present carbonation. To be honest, if this was given to me in a blind taste test, very well may call it a thick cherry soda. Still, there's a little more complexity to this kriek. The sweet thick cherry flavor is punctuated by a mild tartness and a little bit of musty malt flavor on the back end.

My first experience with a Belgian kriek, so I can't claim much experience, but this does taste fairly good. It's not as complex or challenging as what I expected from the style, and it's far too sweet to be more than a single-glass dessert beer.