2011 Vintage, rated 2017. Purplish colour. Thin head. Lots of raspberry on the nose, with a touch of vanilla sugar sweetness and a touch of wood. Some seedy nuttiness, lots of raspberry, touch of wood in the finish. Lots of raspberry comes through - very juicy. Good complexity, and it's also got great balance between the light sweetness and the rich tartness, and the dry, slightly tannic woody finish. No change to the score.

2004 Vintage, rated 2011. Murky reddish-brown colour. Thin head. Sweet raspberry aroma with cork, and light wood...kind of yoghurty. Very tart, grippy sourness. Lots of raspberry, wood, maybe light vanilla and faint brettanomyces funk. Clean, and while not really balanced, it has the sense of balance that a lambic lover appreciates. Same score.

2003 rating: Deep hazy raspberry colour. Rich wood, yoghurt notes. The raspberry comes off very fres. Deep tartness beautifully balances the fruit. Best framboise I’ve ever had. Thanks, Todd.

For a gueuze that didn't carbonate, it was pretty effervescent. Cloudy tan colour. Deep, sweaty notes, fresh manure (hey, I roll my windows DOWN when I drive out to the farms), old wood. Long, sour Cantillon signature. Enjoyably cheesy, good depth and some cobweb. Smooth and more approachable than the above description would indicate.

Bottle #52, year 1999
I'm completely lost! Difficult to evaluate this one… orange color, hazy; very strong nose, acid, fruity; in the beginning nearly smells, then I get used to it, appreciating more and more the fruits. Orange character in the final. Very strange.

2000 version sampled draught at Akkurat, Stockholm, Sweden.
Deep red. Acidic aroma rich on black cherries. Less sour and softer than their ordinary kriek. Very flavourful and tart where the Scharbeekse cherries bring vinous qualities, like tannines. It's remarkably complex and has a slightly woody finish. Mindblowingly fantastic brew!

(Cuvée J.F. Vonck) The problem with "loerik" is that it never stays completely "loerik". And it is neither unblended lambic, neither gueuze. "Loerik" (=lazy-bones) a blending of lambics, meant to become gueuze, but for some reason refusing to re-ferment. And thus remaining a blend of lambics. Sooner or later there is some refermentation. This one is rather aged, but still pretty flat. Completely clear-gold. Slim, yellowish head, immediately gone. Very slow pearling. Lumps of yeast pried loose at the end - ought to be poured all at once. Nose of green grapes, raisins, sulphur, decaying wood, mushrooms, lemon, lactic. A bit fleshy taste, lactic - but not in the mouthfeel - something remindful of malt, but changed into something else, cookie-ish. Very flat until the aftertaste, where it seems to liven up, acquiring an outspoken lemony character. Tumultuous mixture of organic acids, going into bitterish-tannine adstringency. It still retains its old lambic character, but gone into something more refined.

Rerate: Orange colour, almost no head, very cloudy. Quite lacing. Citrus aroma. A complex sour flavour, with fruit-sparkles. Quite long finish. Fizzy Carbonation. I just love this kind of gueuzes.

45-50 deg in a tumbler. Cork indicates a 1997 bottling, sampled May 2003. Identical appearance to the gueuze, cloudy yellow gold, with a better creamier head, with nice lacing too. Beer seeped through the cork, leaving some ugliness under the crown, although I don't believe the beer became contaminated or oxidized. Only a sourness, of course expected for style, could indicate contamination, but despite a surprising intensity, I don't believe its beyond normal levels. No cork flavors were in evidence. Mild aroma that only hints at raspberries. Some funkiness I found missing in the un-fruited gueuze, maybe from fruit or seed, or from wild yeast variability. Sweet and sour, and quite pungent on the palate. Raspberries evident, but quite restrained, providing some contrast to the pungent tartness and earthy funkiness. Pretty nice. Semi-dry finish, but the intense sweet and sours linger and carry over into the finish, or I would say its drier. Good carbonation keeps it moving. Still nearly cloying because its just so intense. Not as drinkable as the best, but still a top notch example of a style I'm getting more and more to enjoy.

45-50 deg in a tumbler. Cork indicates 2001 bottling, sampled May 2003. Light bit of yeast sediment provides a mild cloudiness in this golden yellow beer, with a small foamy white head of modest lacing. Pungent aroma of sour fruit (cherries mainly), some malt. Some light fruit (peach) but not very distinguished. Notably tart flavor, with some astringency in the finish and mild chest warming. Fruitiness less apparent in the mouth than in the nose. Could use a tad more carbonation, becomes borderline cloying, losing the refreshing edge this beer should have. Another nice lambic in my recent round of samplings of the style, but not as complex as the best ones I've found so far. Perhaps its relative youth hinders further complexity.

Very hig standard kriek. it has a red colour like blood. It has a cherry-aroma. The flavour is as the commercial description says very complex. At first it is a little bit sweet, a little bit sour. But it ends very sour. When you speak of a kriek-bier, you definitely have to speak about this Cantillon Kriek.