Kriekedebie
Brouwerij De Bie

Bottle: Poured a cloudy and hazy dark pink color ale with a big foamy pink head with perfect retention and good lacing. Aroma of sour cherry is dominating and quite interesting. Taste is an interesting mix between some Belgian malt with some sour cherry with some lingering notes of oak. Definitely no fake cherry syrup used in this one and this is all the better for it. Overall, a very nice fruit beer with some very refreshing characteristics.

ABV 4.5%. Bottled sept 04. Nice presentation redamberbrown beercolor and pinkwhite head. Nose is sourcherrie and litle bublegum but overal sourcherrie and lemonade like. Far from a geuze as listed. Nice sourness and good cherrietaste make it to me even enjoyable though absolutly not my style. Fine carbonisation and plesant sourness make mouthfeel overall very fresh and quiet good but missing lots of the beeringredients as hops and even malttaste is hard to find. Still enjoyable and certainly something worth seeking out if you are into beers as Liefmans etc.

Uh... what is this mess? Reddish brew with a sickly pink/tan head that fades as quickly as it fluffs up. There's certainly a big fake-ish cherry punch to the aroma, but I get as much yeast, bread, and cheap rum than anything else. Brown sugary -- sweet up front with a doughy blandness that mingles with maraschino cherry. Surprisingly dry through the finish for such a strange, sweet flavor (cherry mixed with nutrasweet?). The area where the date notches should have been was conveniently scratched off, so this may have been old. The only hint of that in the flavor was the amount of yeasty, musty blandness that crept in. Quaffable for sure, but not a real winner.

Appearance: cranberry/grape red, a bit hazy, a thin even layer of fine-beaded pink foam that slowly collapses into a narrow crown

Aroma: somewhere between Cherries Jubilee and cherry yoghurt, a bready note in the background somewhere, and a touch of soy sauce and nail polish

Flavor: an overlying cooked cherry flavor on a base of biscuit-malt maltiness, a bit tangy, a hint of herbal tea (chamomile?), vitamins, finish is dry with an aftertaste of malt and a residual organic bitterness

Mouthfeel: medium body, champagne-like carbonation, dry

Overall Impression: A kriekenbier that's slightly off the usual. Definitely a bit more rustic and "beery" than something like Liefmans. More natural and unsweetened tasting. Interestingly, the label says they use kriek extract. Now whether they mean cherry puree or some kind of processed syrup, I don't know. But by the flavor, I'd say it was cherry puree.