Country of Origin: Belgium
Price comparison: About twice the price of beer.
Alcohol percentage by volume: 6%.
Cute bottle/label? 12.7 ounce green bottle, shaped like a smaller version of a wine bottle. Label printed to resemble crinkled parchment.
Appearance: Rosy red with a small ring of bubbles round the rim of the glass.
Scent: Okay. (Deep breath.) I need to preface this by saying that this was my first-ever encounter with a lambic. Is everyone clear on that? Good.
It smelled to me like cow poop.
I'm sorry. I can't think of a graceful way to describe the aroma. It's musty and unappetizing and just ... icky.
Flavor: The aroma was so offputting to me I was nearly unable to sample it, but I felt I had to. Lambics, apparently, are very sour. This one is cherry, but I really couldn't taste a lot of cherry. It tasted like a very dry red wine mixed with beer and vinegar. It had a very thin mouthfeel and a dry finish that made me strongly suspect the addition of tannins.
Impressions: As lambics go, particularly krieks, this one was recommended to me by the retailer as one of the more popular ones. But I guess we're going to have to face facts here. I had never had a lambic before and I wanted to see if I'd like them. Apparently, I do not.
I'm going to try to make this as unbiased as possible, so that, if you do like lambics, you can get an idea of what to look forward to here, and also because I feel bad rating a style of beer that I obviously am neither familiar enough with nor fond enough of to be really fair.
Um.
I think that, if you like very dry red wine, or if you like sour beers, then this would be something you would enjoy. It would probably go well with a strongly-flavored beef dish such as grilled steak.
If you are unused to drinking very sour beverages, I would hesitate to recommend this to you, because it is almost painfully sour and the aroma is overwhelming. The experience would take some getting used to. Which leads me to ...
Will I buy this beer again? I will not. This was the first time I not only didn't like a beer I was reviewing, but couldn't even bring myself to finish drinking it. I had to pour it out.
I have no intention of getting used to lambic. If I want dry red wine, I'll have a glass of merlot. If I want to smell cow poop, I'll go to a farm.
Rating:
5 out of 5 chalk marks. Chalking it up to experience.
Reviewed: February 14, 2004
