Intense fresh cherry, mild funk

Sour ‘kriekenbier’ by this Norwegian farmhouse brewery interestingly specializing in spontaneous fermentation; from a ‘geuze’ bottle at BCBF. Pinkish-tinged off-white, mousy, open but largely stable head, hazy bright ruby red robe with deeper fuchsia tinge. Aroma of a truckload of sour cherries indeed (equally intense as in the average artisanal Belgian cherry lambic or even more), lime juice, raspberry vinegar, sour tomatoes, chervil, minerals, fried parsley, moist wood dust. Crisp, sour onset, quite acidic and lemony but not burning too much, lots of fleshiness from the cherries, spritzy minerally carbonation effects; supple bready wheat base consistently dried by overall fruit acidity and lactic tartness, leading to a dry yet crisp and only mildly yeasty-earthy, so generally quite clean finish, still packed with fleshy sour cherries and with a tannic twist from the wood and cherry pits. Bright, refreshing cherry sour, not quite as ‘profound’ as the cherry lambics from the best of ‘true’ lambic producers – though one could wonder how a product like this then needs to be called. I will not go into that discussion here: I enjoyed this fruit beer, whether it’s formally allowed to be called lambic or not, so deserving of a generous score.