Devil's Cuvée Kriek
Double Mountain Brewery & Cidery in Hood River, Oregon, United States 🇺🇸
Flemish Red / Bruin Regular|
Score
7.45
|
|
Belgian Style Sour Ale with Cherries Aged in Oak Barrels
Holy shit this beer is good. Like, really fucking good. It really is the red wine drinker’s gateway beverage, and I mean that in the best of ways. It’s so oaky and tannic and complex that it really encourages you to sip and ponder everything that is going on in that glass. I especially love the color that the Devil’s picked up from the barrels, it’s so much darker than its straight-up counterpart. Remember, these beers take *over two years* to make, and they are absolutely worth the wait. I’m thrilled to have them on draft this year and already can’t wait to see how next year’s turns out.
Cuvée loosely means that it is a product of higher quality, much like wine makers use the term “reserve” to designate a special batch. This beer is indeed special. All of the 2017 Cuvée vintages sat on brand new oak, which is also a special thing. Most breweries don’t do this—in fact we’re the only brewery that Demptos (company that makes our barrels) has ever worked with. This also means that these beers are definitely oak-forward. Fortunately, the high alcohol and complexity of our sours means that they hold their own, balancing nicely with the oak character.
Yeast: Abbey, Kolsch, Brettanomyces lambicus, natural microbes from fruit
Hops: Sterling
Malt: Pilsner, Wheat, Crystal, Roast Barley
Holy shit this beer is good. Like, really fucking good. It really is the red wine drinker’s gateway beverage, and I mean that in the best of ways. It’s so oaky and tannic and complex that it really encourages you to sip and ponder everything that is going on in that glass. I especially love the color that the Devil’s picked up from the barrels, it’s so much darker than its straight-up counterpart. Remember, these beers take *over two years* to make, and they are absolutely worth the wait. I’m thrilled to have them on draft this year and already can’t wait to see how next year’s turns out.
Cuvée loosely means that it is a product of higher quality, much like wine makers use the term “reserve” to designate a special batch. This beer is indeed special. All of the 2017 Cuvée vintages sat on brand new oak, which is also a special thing. Most breweries don’t do this—in fact we’re the only brewery that Demptos (company that makes our barrels) has ever worked with. This also means that these beers are definitely oak-forward. Fortunately, the high alcohol and complexity of our sours means that they hold their own, balancing nicely with the oak character.
Yeast: Abbey, Kolsch, Brettanomyces lambicus, natural microbes from fruit
Hops: Sterling
Malt: Pilsner, Wheat, Crystal, Roast Barley
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9.2/10
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Appearance 10
Aroma 9
Flavor 9
Texture 10
Overall 9
375 mL bottle, waxed, purchased at the brewery. One of those bottles that I order to go without any idea on the cost, because it didn’t matter. Fun brewery to try, and an even more fun style to check out from these guys. Pours a dark, yet glowing red color with a thin head. Red winish, vinegar, and cherry like aroma. Flavor is red grapes, cherry, wine, oak, and a dozen other things. So much going on here. Overall a standout beer. Sourness 7/10. Excellent stuff.
Tried
from Bottle
on 24 Apr 2016
at 23:11
7.9/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 8
Flavor 7
Texture 8
Overall 8.5
375ml bottle. Pours out a dark maroon red topped with a pinkish sand head. nose is very sweet jammy raspberries cherries wine oak barrel. taste is more of the big cherries oak wine barrel. This is very nice.
Tried
from Bottle
on 22 Apr 2016
at 15:30