This is the special bottling of Kriek beer from the excellent Cantillon brewery. They use two year old lambic, to which is added 300g of cherries per litre of lambic. This was bottled in September 2006, so hasn’t really had much bottle age. We are told these beers can last forever, but I’ve never seen the point.
Cantillon Kriek ‘Lou Pepe’, 5%
This is a very deep red colour, looks like fresh cherry juice. The nose has a pleasing cherry character, and the slightly off flavours of lambic are there too. A taste… hell’s bells! Am I drinking vomit? No, no, the entry is really aggressive and very acidic, but once you get over the absolute horror of that there is some nice cherry fruit on the finish. OK, there is no real charm here, and perilously little that is nice, but it is really interesting and rather complex. No I don’t like it, but this is by no means ‘sub-interest’ and I will drink some more.
