Van Honsebrouck's St. Louis Kriek

     I've really wanted to try a kriek (cherry lambic) ever since I first read about them, but given the budget I'm currently on, I've never been able to bring myself to buy one.  I finally broke down a picked up Van Honsebrouck's St. Louis Kriek the other night from Beer Mongers in Portland, OR.  It's a brewery in Ingelmunster, West Flanders, Belgium that dates back to 1900.
      The first thing I noticed when I poured this is that it is extremely well-carbonated.  It produced a huge red head and continued to fizz for as long as I was drinking it.  I can see a little bit of sediment in it, but for the most part it's farily clear.  It's sorta of an orangeish-brown with a very dark red hue.  The bubbles produced were very weak and drained back into the liquid in almost no time.  This really reminded me of champagne in more than one way.
     My first impression of the aroma was a very, very sweet ripeness.  There is, obviously, some cherry in there, but I wouldn't pinpoint this ripeness to just one fruit in general.  I'm talking sweet; it's like smelling candy.  You can smell the alcohol, and it's just a little bit acidic as well.  The aroma is incredibly strong; I could smell it from across the room.
     Upon first sip, this thing is sweet, sweet, sweet.  I really can't emphasize this enough.  The tip of my tongue tingled for a bit after each drink and it was like drinking a Jolly Rancher.  There is some sourness here, but it definitely lingers in the back of the mouth.  A mild taste of alcohol also helped to accentuate the sourness.  It is quite lively in the mouth as the result of being so carbonated, and the body is incredibly thin.
     From what I understand, many krieks allow the cherries to be a natural sweetener and the final product ends up being on the dry side, but there are plenty of breweries out there who add extra sugar after fermentation for an incredibly sweet beverage.  This was just too sweet for me to really be able to enjoy, and definitely wasn't what I was expecting at all.  I still have great hope for this style, though.  To me, the idea of a sour cherry beer sounds fantastic, but that's definitely not what I got here.