Grimbergen Rouge

Robijnrood bier met weinig schuim. Smaak is wat flets maar voor een fruitbier niet onaardig. Komt in elk geval niet chemisch over. Is licht zoet met iets van framboos en aardbei. Blijft lastig een echt goed fruitbier te vinden.

Bottle from a Delhaize supermarket - apparently new Grimbergens are first launched in France nowadays and only then in Belgium, which comes as no surprise given that they are developed at Kronenbourg now by Carlsberg and therefore first tested on the French market. This one belongs to the category of ’heavier’ sweet red fruit beers which have been popular in northern France (and French-speaking Belgium) for years except for the fact that it is a lager, and honestly I suspect the same from Leffe Ruby, which this is clearly an epigone of. Off-pinkish, medium thick head, leaving a complex pattern of both patches in the middle of the liquid’s surface and in its intricate lacing on the edge of the glass, crowning a clear, deep ruby red beer with vermillion hue. Aroma of artificial strawberry and elderberry extract of course, somewhat less cranberry, on an equal level with a heavy pasteurization smell (cooked Brussels sprouts); apart from these two, I get a ton of refined sugar, molten rubber, overripe sweet tomato or even ketchup, plastic foil, dry breakfast cereals, ’Roosvicée’, industrial red fruit jam, old cupcakes. Very sweet onset but admittedly a tad less cloying than I had feared, still very sugary, with a strong but artificial strawberry flavor (as in industrial strawberry jam), darker forest fruits including my late grandmother’s elderberry syrup but again completely artificial, cranberry is ’imaginable’ with some soft and lemonade-ish, underlying sourishness, medium carbo, slick and still somewhat sticky mouthfeel over a cereally sweetish and somewhat metallic middle; finish adds literally nothing, so the simple track of underlying graininess buried under artificial red berry flavors with that sharpish but simple sourish edge together with sugary sweetness remains. This is a bland and very artificial macro lager in its core, with layers of artificial (I cannot repeat this word enough) red fruit flavors piled on top of it, so as to drown its basic flaws, as it were; the very concept of such a beer cannot but repel the craft beer lover, but if there is one positive note, this is far less cloyingly sweet than I had feared. It does not stick to the teeth or throat in the same way Leffe Ruby and other ’heavy sweet kriek’ beers do, making this a bit more quaffable I guess. I still, however, loathe the obtrusively industrial character of it; this is trying to surf on Leffe Ruby’s success and at the same time trying to be different by, for once, not applying cherry flavors but other red fruits, but it firmly remains stuck in the same league of industrial crap which I sincerely hope no Belgian consumer will fall for anymore. Shame on Delhaize for even advertizing this abomination, though I’m willing to admit that they have been making efforts to promote smaller Belgian breweries lately (even BBP has shown up on their shelves lately - I never thought I’d live to see that). As for this one: to hell with it, along with any other present-day Grimbergen as far as I’m concerned.

On tap at Carlsens Kvarter. Red with a small white head. Aroma of strawberry, caramel and alcohol. Sweet fruity flavour with caramel and brown sugar, and a little alcohol.