- Product Reviewed: Oud Beersel Kriek
- Brewed By: Brouwerij Oud Beersel, Beersel, Belgium
- Form Reviewed: 750ml bottle purchased at Bierkoning, Amsterdam, NL
- Date Reviewed: July, 2003
- Style: Kriek Lambic (Artisinal)
- Added to the Tasting Notebook: July 29, 2003
Initial Impressions:
The first, and unfortunately only time I visited the Bierhuis Oud Beersel was in December 1998. Once I moved to Holland, I naturally assumed that there would be plenty of time to make a return journey to Beersel and hang out once again at the charming old school biercafe attached to the brewery. The brewery and attached cafe closed in November, 2002. While rumors have since persisted about a possible buyer for the brewery and premises, it looks now to be over. When I visited Beersel in 1998, it made for a fabulous lambic-specific pub crawl. First there was the Drie Bronnen, which in addition to selling a nice range of lambic also blended their own kriek. This cafe closed in 2001. Then it was a 1km walk off to Oud Beersel, and a return to Drie Fonteinen. Now only the latter remains. There is a petition being circulated by a Flemish beer consumer group that can be found here. Sign it, though I'm not sure what good it can do at this late stage in the game.
I'll not bore you with too many stories of my visit to Bierhuis Oud Beersel. If you consider two equivalent to "many", then skip this paragraph. When my two traveling companions and I first sat down in the cafe, the waiter asked (in Dutch of course) what we would like. At the time I knew not a word of the language, and while my two companions were fluent in French, they knew enough about the history of Flanders to deploy that language. However, context is your best friend when working with an unfamiliar (or semi-familiar) language, and we asked for "bier". The waiter's face brightened, marking us for buitenlanders (foreigners), and explained "ah, pils!". No, not pils, but how about that jonge lambic you serve for the equivalent of 90 US cents per glass? We started with a few glasses of this, then moved on to the gueuze and kriek. We remained there for about three hours, wondering about the economic viability of such a large space populated by eight patrons. Most of the room was dark and closed off. At least, until the tour bus filled with geriatric Flemish or Dutch (I couldn't tell the difference in accent at the time) pulled up. Our first warning was that the closed off section was opened up and illuminated. Then the bus empties itself of its occupants, the music starts, and a serious Flemish blue-hair hoe-down ensues. It was worth a few more glasses of beer just to take in the spectacle.
So it is with a bit of a heavy heart that I offer this review of Oud Beersel Kriek. With any milestone in this intermittent beer review project I've been working on since 1994, I have tried to review a special beer. I awarded my first humble five-star rating to Tabernash Weiss (Denver, Colorado) in 1994 for the 25th full review. The following year, I reviewed a special aged barleywine by the Napa Valley Brewery in Calistoga, California for the 50th review. Review 75 was a 33 year old bottle of Ballantine Burton Ale (Newark, New Jersey), published in 1999. For review #100, it is this bottle of Kriek from one of the last remaining traditional lambic breweries, now closed.
The beer pours a dark pink in color, with a slight haze. The head is white, with excellent head retention.
Nose:
The nose is dominated by a definite brett characteristic (horsy etc.), with a sharp acidic fruitiness also present.
Flavor:
This beer is highly carbonated, as is natural for the style. It has a thin body. The flavor opens with a nice maltiness that is quickly overshadowed by horsy characteristics. Acid then dominates in waves: first a sharp acetic flavor, then fruity acid from the cherries, and finally a lingering lactic finish that is sweeter than the previous acids. The initial maltiness softens the blow on the palate, yet acid remains on the tongue long after drinking.
Final Analysis:
This is, quite simply, an excellent beer. If you like lambic. If you don't like lambic, or only like sweetened lambics (e.g. Mort Subite, De Troch, Lindemans) then avoid. The flavor is highly nuanced, but the acid is there and doesn't go away. The only way this beer loses out is when compared to Drie Fonteinen's kriek, which is ever so slightly more sophisticated. Nevertheless, this is an excellent beer, and a tragic loss.
Both Frank Boon and Drie Fonteinen have reportedly puchased the remaining stock of Oud Beersel lambics from the brewery, according to a few Dutch-language articles I have read. Considering that describing my Dutch as mediocre is being generous, don't take this information to the bank. Or anywhere else, for that matter
Rating:
(Excellent, bordering on World Class, according to my pretentious 5-star scale)
