Liefmans
Commercial Brewery
in
Oudenaarde,
East Flanders,
Belgium 🇧🇪
Owned by
Duvel Moortgat
Established in 1679
Contact
Description
The history of the brewery dates back to 1679. At the end of the eighteenth century, Jacobus Liefmans settled in Oudenaarde and gave the brewery its name. It was around 1900 that Liefmans started filling maturation tanks with black cherries, on a small scale. Local farmers brought their excess crops of black cherries to Liefmans and swapped them for beer. One individual who played a key part in this was Rosa Merckx. She was closely involved in the brewery’s operations over several decades. Thanks to her encouragement, the cherry beer evolved into a real success story.
7.6/10
—
Appearance 6
Aroma 8
Flavor 8.5
Texture 8
Overall 7
Bottle from 2005, opened in 2026, for an afternoon of delicious food (assumed; still in the oven right now, but I know the chef), and cake (already out of the oven, rhubarb, might be tasty). Brown ale colour, raspberry but not the artificial one, raspberry fruit sorbet, intense. Wow, this has aged lovely. A tangy aftertaste, nearly no carbonation, fruity raspberry, but not sweet, followed by creamy warm. Yes.
Tried
from Bottle
on 14 May 2026
at 16:37
3/10
Tried
from Bottle
on 18 Apr 2026
at 17:30
8/10
Tried
from Bottle
on 12 Apr 2026
at 15:09
4.5/10
Tried
from Bottle
on 10 Mar 2026
at 18:35
3.4/10
—
Appearance 6
Aroma 3
Flavor 2.5
Texture 3
Overall 3.5
The follow-up to Yell'Oh, an already abominable product under the once proud and noble Liefmans brand, namely a light fruit beer (pineapple-, apple- and lime-flavoured if I remember well, but who cares) meant to be drunk 'on the rocks' in summer, like a Jack and Coke. This one appeals to the peach lovers and has an ingredients list that reads like a nightmare to any serious beer lover, including antioxidant, ascorbic acid, so-called 'natural' flavours and acesulfame-K as a non-caloric sweetening agent... Not drunk 'on the rocks' but put to the test in a tasting glass without chilling, like I serve all my beers if it is for rating purposes. Medium thick, nicely membrane-like lacing, egg-white, fine-mesh and stable head on a clear pale orange-hued apricot blonde robe with visible sparkling. Aroma almost uniquely of the kind of industrial peach coulis you will find on factory-made rice pudding, industrial peach jam, vague soggy white bread, white sugar, apple juice, bubblegum, yellow lemonade or Fanta Peach, faint plastic, wet clay and rainwater hints in the background. Extremely sweet onset as expected, sticky and sugary, with this cheap and soapy industrial peach flavouring penetrating every nook and cranny of the product - leaving practically no room for anything else, besides this annoying lemonade flavour (the ascorbic acid of course) carrying the peach aromas - which feel anything but natural, if that was not already clear by now - to a finish which is not a real finish, but a continuation of that one-dimensional peach flavouring. A certain cerealliness can be felt underneath it all, but you really need to dig deep for it - through a lovely thick layer of industrial peach aroma, antioxidant and acesulfame-K... Anyone who ever had this iconic Belgian brand's old time fruit beers, like their once famous Kriekbier in its original form, can only condemn current owner Moortgat for so brutally abusing the name. This product has no respect for that great, historical name - in fact it respects nothing, it serves nothing and it means nothing, it even lacks the conceptual originality of the Yell'Oh. But I know it is intended as a kind of alcoholic lemonade and not intended to taste like actual beer so I am probably not judging it correctly here: maybe I should try it in a cocktail or something.
Tried
on 27 Feb 2026
at 23:03
8/10
Tried
from Bottle
on 26 Feb 2026
at 10:29
7.5/10
—
Appearance 7
Aroma 7.5
Flavor 7.5
Texture 8
Overall 7.5
Gushing to rusty red-brown beer, clear, under a huge, dirty pink whipped eggwhite-like head, leaving shards of lace. Sweet cherries, cherrystones. Sweet, but smelling natural. Sweet-sourish. Again real fruit, but in the end a bit too sweet for its own good. Brown candi sugar. Very slick to oily MF. Good (too) good carbonation. Still a classic - but nothing will ever equal the draught Liefmans Kriek as poured @ Kulminator in days of yore.
Tried
from Bottle
from
ALBO Drinks
on 15 Feb 2026
at 10:51
8.5/10
Heavy vinegar aroma, the flavor doesn’t match. Cherries are a little muted, there’s a bit of a boozy sugar cane/rum finish. Pretty complex.
Tried
from Bottle
on 12 Feb 2026
at 23:54
9.4/10
—
Appearance 10
Aroma 9.5
Flavor 9.5
Texture 9
Overall 9
Vintage 2013. 75oml bottle. Blue paper-wrapped with label on the bottle. Big suprise for me. (Bottle from dionizos in late 2015). 8 letnie, ok 6 lat trzymania/starzenia w piwnicy. ta belgijska burgundzka perelka jest super, nawet wydaje mi sie lepsza od wersji z 2004r. sporo ciala, czerwone owoce, slodowosc winna, kwaskowosc i taniczna wytrawnosc, lekko cierpkie ale milej gronowosci nie brakuje, pieknie rubinowo-czerwona barwa z waniliowa piana srednia, malo trwala, pachnie ziemistoscia wisniami, czerwonym winem. genialne, pyszniutkie, az co chwila chce sie oblizywac wargi, korek grzybek wypuscil dymek, spory huk, zapachnialo w calymm pokuju szlachetna flamandzka burgunidia. Drink in red wine glass in 2021, Shared with ungrateful and toxic person
Tried
from Bottle
from
Dionizos
on 19 Jan 2026
at 16:16
10/10
Tried
from Bottle
on 28 Dec 2025
at 18:41