Lee Kriek Réserve: Cacao & Vanilla Cuvée
de Garde Brewing

750ml bottle at share. Hazy straw color with faint pink hues, bubbly head. Aroma and taste are sweet cherry, hard candy, vanilla and light cacao. The expected de Garde funk is ever present.

Decided to break a bottle of this out for some good times in Milwaukee. May 2022. That trip. The backyard, yeah bouy.

Pours a red color that competes with pink and wins. Lighter pink in color head, 1/5" its kind of thin. The aroma smells very nice, those sexy bright, tart cherries. Light vanilla influence here. Its different than when E40 says "fuggin' they nose like this," this ain't doing that, its a gentle nose massage. Like this.

The taste is quite the reliable banger. Heavy cherry influence, big sourness, light woodiness, vanilla. Cocoa? Its weird, I really couldn't tell if my mind was playin' tricks on me making me perceive it, or if I was just power of suggestion-ing it the whole time. A relatively high abv was easily absorbed.

I think the trend of bigger acidity and bigger alcohol continues with de garde, the vanilla and cacao seem to be brought in as a tip of the hat to that reality. Shitty thing is, it works and yet again, results in a damn good beer, but like a previous reviewer chimed, I kind of want to try this without vanilla and cacao now, but hey, dial it back to like 5% among other things please and you won't need the crutch. Not everything is shared 8 ways, sometimes we out here doming on the slopes, softball fields and beaches.

Bottle from the source.

A clear dark reddish mahogany with a rapidly receding white head. The nose is a gorgeous cherry pie character with an added cacao and vanilla complexity, with the vanilla being particularly well integrated. A deeply earthy, leathery, musty, funky base is present, and is a great foil for the bright, tart cherries. The palate opens tart and bright with a lovely sour cherry character, with a nice blend of pit-derived almond and cinnamon notes, and fleshy, tart fruit. This is followed by an earthy funk with wood and vanillin where the cacao and vanilla come into play. Drying, fruity, bright and acidic on the finish. Lovely mouthfeel, reserved acidity, I really wonder what the blend of funk and fruit would have been like without the cacao and vanilla.

Dark reddish with a pink head. The adjuncts are reasonable in that they really help blunt the acidity of the base and adds distinct flavors without turning it into a completely different beer. Cherry funk with a dab of vanilla and chocolate. Lemon, wood.