Sample, thanks oh6gdx! Clear purple, small head. Aroma of dark cherries with a hint of marzipan, Sweet with light body and rounded mouthfeel. Dark cherries and with almondym starchy notes, some dextrose. Soft drink like, but retaining some level of malt. Wouldn't say I like it, but considering the letdown regular Kasteel Rouge is to the normal Kasteel (which blew my away in the mid 90's) I had much lower expectations.

Arguably the most popular 'rouge' on the Belgian market today connecting with that other hype flooding the present market: the NABLAB hype. Hopes are evidently very low, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, I guess... Bottle from an Albert Heijn supermarket. Thickly moussey, regular, pale pinkish, rocky, foamy, plaster-lacing head sitting stable atop a clear, deep wine red robe with bright ruby hue and masses of small bubbles running everywhere. Aroma of red Haribo candy (the expected 'poepegatjes'), grenadine, Fanta Strawberry, molten raspberry ice cream, granulated sugar, hints of marzipan, wet clay, liquorice, panna cotta, moist gravel. Unsurprisingly sugary sweet onset, very sticky, lots of granulated sugar in a 'red' environment of grenadine and red candy, artificial aromas of strawberry, cherry and raspberry but nothing naturally fruity at all (not expected anyway) - the sourish aspect running under all that cloying sweetness is ascorbic acid as in red lemonade; active fizz but fine-bubbled, quite rounded body for a NABLAB - but most of it consists of sugars, with only the faintest hint of cerealliness buried deep underneath. Artificial red fruit aromas, sugar and red lemonade, forming one sticky-sweet whole, dominate till the very end, where only that ascorbic acidity pops up again - in a very non-beery way. There is indeed nothing beery about this product: this is foam-adorned sticky red lemonade for kids and not something any serious beerlover can enjoy. That said, it does convey the full rouge feeling (as in, of course, their own Kasteel Rouge) in quite a fulfilling manner, and does not feel non-alcoholic for some reason; indeed, a consumer who genuinely likes rouge but prefers to skip on the (often quite heavy) alcohol in that genre, will find full satisfaction here. In that perverted kind of way, this thing delivers what it promises - nobody sampling this will expect a complex, high quality, 'serious' beer of course, in fact there is nothing beer-like to it at all. I must honestly admit that Van Honsebrouck pulled off what they set out to do with this, so as far as brewer's intentions go, this is actually quite well done - never thought I would say this about a non-alcoholic rouge, but of course this is all in context, and that context has nothing to do with beer at any acceptable level.