Brewery: Brouwerij van Honsebrouck (Belgium)
Beer: St. Louis Kriek, 4.0% ABV, 250ml bottle
Listed Ingredients: Sugar, Barley Malt, Wheat, Cherries (15%)
Style: Lambic (Kriek)
Rating: 3/5
Probably Vegan Friendly

St. Louis Kriek

Appearance
Dark ruby red, almost brown.

Aroma
Sweet spices, cherries, almond pits

Taste
Sweet, maybe too much so. The gueuze base gives the beer a sour kick though, but it is rather well covered by the cherries and the sweetness. Good for someone who doesn’t like the pure lambic taste so much, but wants an authentic kriek. I do like the amaretto-like, almond pit flavour, although it’s more distinctive in the aroma.

Overall
I haven’t been drinking many lambics recently, but it is a type of beer that I quite like. Lambic style beers are made with spontaneous fermentation, i.e. there is no added yeast but rather just the fermentation that occurs naturally with wild yeast and bacteria when the container is left open. This gives the beer a rather sour natural taste, more like a dry cider than a beer on the face of it. However, beers such the kriek are in fact refermented, and this particular kriek is made by maturing morello cherry pulp for at least six months in the gueuze base, which itself a blend of matured lambics. You can get lambics with a range of fruity flavours, such as rasberries and peaches. Personally I prefer gueuze or other lambics without fruit, but the kriek is a classic, and quite fitting for winter time. I’ve had this one before in fact, and I to expect excessive sweetness. Sadly my favourite lambics, including my favourite kriek, which come from Cantillon, are not quite so readily available, although you can buy them at a couple of pubs in Finland.