Eve bought me this bottle when she last went to Sainsbury’s for the weekly groceries.  Now she’s gone back to work we get Ocado deliveries, which means much nicer and interesting food choices, no bag-lugging and a much more entertaining beer selection.

(Come on, one of you supermarkets has to start sending me beer to review…especially you, Ocado.  Sainos and Tescos were all but deaf to my entreats for free beer…)

But that’s by the by and by.

Bacchus Kriek.  What a lovely, gothic-thriller of a beer.

In a glass, it’s deepest red like altar wine, or brooding, murderous dark carmine (can you sense the cadence yet?  I’ll get bored of it soon, don’t worry…)

On the nose it’s dark black (Scharbeek?) cherry, fresh tobacco, cedar wood and wedges of black forest gateau sans the cream. (See? I’ve stopped now.)

The taste is luxuriously sweet and sharp with cherries, cherries, cherries; all dark, beguiling and inviting, fresh cigar box and leathery bookishness.  Beautifully carbonated and without the thinness of body that lambic-based beers tend to have. 

The after-taste is that of lasting dark cherries, sweetness and sour, and just the faintest musty attic that these beers should have.

Simply beautiful and perfectly put together.  If ever there was an excuse to don a velvet smoking jacket and recline in a leather wing-back chair, this is it.

I cannot fault Bacchus Kriek.  Complex and eminently ponderable.  Get some in for Halloween.

Bacchus also do a Framboise (Raspberry), which is also great, too:  (https://yeastismybitch.com/2014/04/02/fine-framboise-bacchus-framboise/)