Poured from a 375 ml, 2019 vintage bottle. Aroma is fairly cherry forward with lighter notes of lemon and hints of under ripe stone fruit. Light cracker malt and wheat notes. Light herbal, earthy funk and hints of oak. Pours a hazy, dull, golden orange with a small, thin, white head that recedes quickly to the edges where it lingers for a bit before disappearing. Flavor is somewhat acidic with hints of sweet cracker malt and wheat notes. Low bitterness and hints of alcohol. Moderate cherry notes with hints of lemon and other stone fruit. Light herbal, earthy phenolic notes with hints of oak. Mouthfeel is medium bodied with a low carbonation. Low astringency and low alcohol warmth. Overall, a decent beer with solid cherry notes and not too much acidity. Lots of the base De Troch lambic character.

Bottle. Hazy golden color with white head. Aroma is funky barn, nice leather, good Lambic. Taste is earthy, leathery, not so much cherries. Oily mouthfeel, almost flat. Solid Lambic!

Hapu, mõrkjas, mingi veider popcorn, tsitrus, kuivus. Ok.

Tu sa jakies wisnie? Cos owocowego w smaku, aromat to wlasciwie pustawa mineralnosc... takie nic zlego nic dobrego, nuda panie

Another new OWA lambic, consisting of young De Troch lambic infused with some or other Japanese ingredient – in this case, as per the very sketchy description on the label (‘Japanse kriek’) and the drawing on the front label, seemingly with Japanese cherries (‘sakura’) and thus a mere repetition of the Sakura Lambic they already made in 2012; in reality, however, ‘sakurambo’ was used, which is not cherries but Japanese black tea flavoured with Japanese cherries. A very big difference, so let this be a warning to those expecting an ‘oude kriek’ of sorts (like me before opening the bottle)! Bubbly, irregular, snow white, bit mousy but thin head with a disrupted waferthin veil in the middle, dissolving into as good as nothing over a misty deep ‘old gold’ beer with warm apricot hue, turning more clouded with sediment. Aroma of old dry grapefruit, bitter and tannin-rich black tea, furniture wax (maybe somehow related to the tea as well) and freshly polished wood, lemon zest, grass silage, crabapple, unripe green plum, wry grape skin, bitter garden weeds (dandelion, sow thistle), bread crumbs, dry cider – and no ‘real’ cherries. Estery onset, sour apples, unripe stonefruit, grape skin, soft in carbonation, slick and bit resinous mouthfeel; lactic tartness runs through the whole with a dry effect, but the ‘fruity’ acidity remains fairly soft in this one. Dry-bready base, strongly dried by tannins from the wood of the lambic barrels, but much more so by the tannins from the black tea, adding wryness, bitterness and quite some background complexity, as well as a ‘dark green’ herbal quality, almost like tree leaves. Straw bale-, white pepper- and old dry grapefruit peel-like impressions further adorn the finish, but again cherries as such remain all but absent. I’m curious to see how many more beer people will react to this one with confusion and incomprehension, expecting a cherry lambic… I personally would have presented this experiment differently with much less emphasis on the cherries – and much more on the black tea, which is not even mentioned on the label. Anyway, judged for what this really is – yet another weird and exotic OWA interpretation of our lambic heritage – I must say that I did like it, it has this ‘dark green’ bitter herbalness and very heavily tannic quality to it which is anything but easy (so this most certainly is not a beginners’ lambic!), but I was left with a feeling that I just ingested something beneficial to my health… An interesting one for sure, challenging and a bit bizarre as most of these OWA lambics are (especially the ones containing other ingredients than fruit).