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Ginger Kriek

High Impakt

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Last week I was invited to the launch of a new beer at the Special Belge Taproom in De Pakt, Antwerp. The four guys running the bar also intend to open a brewery on the premises, which I understand will take quite a few more months,

De Ranke

In preparation for this, they have been honing their brewing skills by collaborating with one of Belgium’s best craft breweries, De Ranke. Located just over the border in Dottignies, Walonia, De Ranke beers are easily identified by their extra strong hoppy bitterness from brewing with whole hops. They are also specific about brewing natural beers at higher temperatures while using solar energy to reduce their carbon footprint. They use whole hopes instead of pellets and have specially designed fermentation tanks to increase the hop flavor during fermentation.

Franc Belge

The Special Belge team worked together with De Ranke to develop a strong amber, a style which they were not producing.

The result is a great amber beer with a particular hoppy flavour which can only mean one thing – De Ranke. Unfortunately, it was served on the cold side, but when you let it warm up a few degrees, you really are in for a pleasure as you savour the underlying ale and then the fuggle hops.

The aftertaste lingers for over an hour – depending on how much you drink. This is not surprising as they hop the Franc Belge with serious quantities of whole hops. If this is their first beer, then we can seriously look forward to when they actually start brewing at the Special Belge Taproom.

Ginger Kriek

Another reason for attending the launch was that they just started selling the 2018 Ginger Kriek. There are four different batches from this vintage and the Special Belge are selling the one which is least gingery with only a touch of sourness. Catch one while you can, the stock is limited.

Kobe & Kriek

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Spéciale Belge Taproom

Ginger BeerA few months ago, a friend of mine introduced me to an new area, not far from the Ginger Tipple brewery called De Pakt. Built out of some industrial buildings next to the old military hospital complex, it hosts a selection of restaurants, trendy shops and an organic rooftop garden. The old hospital is now a hub of modern apartments, businesses and a Michelin star restaurant, The Jane.

It also has a tremendous new beer bar, Spéciale Belge Taproom. Run by four friends, it offers about 13 craft beers on tap and many more in bottles. Selling craft beers from kegs is risky, because you have to finish off the keg quickly, preferably within a week, nevertheless, they have some great ales on draught.

I particularly enjoyed drinking Rye of Sun, a rye saison with a mouthful of funk nut less than a  sour and a lovely hops but less than an IPA with the added dimension of rye. The wonderful creation is a collaboration between Tanker in Estonia and Hedonis in Belgium. The there was the Petrus Sour with passion fruit from  and De Brabandere, where the passion fruit subtly underlies the 2 year old lambic.

Kobe & Kriek

Ginger BeerI have tried to convince them to make Ginger Tipple their gluten-free offering and delivered some of my bottles. They tasted the Ginger Tipple 4, but it was not what they were looking for; the regular Ginger Tipple and the soon to be launched Tipple Quad (11% ABV ginger donker aged with oak) are waiting in their fridge.

One of the partners, Kobe, was very skeptical about the kriek, how could I balance the contrasting ginger and morello cherry flavours? Then at 1:10 am on Wednesday morning he sent me an SMS that he loved it and I should be in contact with him.

He loved the kriek and ordered my last 22 bottles. What can I say? He has great taste! Every customer is important to me, but an order from a craft beer bar with such tremendous selection of excellent beers, made us feel proud.

Straight into the Fridge

Ginger BeerIt’s there in the fridge, only 22 bottles, so if you want one, you’ll have to be quick. Catch one if you can, otherwise you will have to wait until the end of the year when the 2018 vintage is ready.

 

Time to Kriek

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The Short Kriek Season

Regular cherries have quite a long season during the summer here in Belgium. However, noordkrieken, better known as sour morello cherries which are used to make Kriek have a much shorter season. You can only buy them for about two weeks each July.

Ginger Beer

Why they are special

The krieken are softer than regular cherries and are more sour. Because of this sourness, they are less prone to infiltration from worms, but they are sensitive to other infections and infestations.

The most prized krieken used for the best Lambic Kriek beers are Schaarbeeekse krieken which is a rare morello variety grown in Schaarbeek, a suburb of Brussels. Demand for them is now so high that some brewers, such as 3 Fontainen, have started to plant their own trees.

The cherries have a pleasant sourness which when fermented into an already more sour beer such as a lambic, oud bruin, or Ginger Tipple give the beverage a refreshing tartness. This is why they are sought after by brewers.

Don’t Rush Ginger Kriek

It takes us 6 months to create our Ginger Kriek. First we brew a Ginger Tipple for 4 weeks. Yesterday, we bought the krieken for the 2018 vintage. We checked each cherry before washing to remove the insecticides and adding to the Tipple to ferment.

After about 6 weeks, the cherries sink down in the vats to show that their sugars have fully fermented. Then we sieve the brew before bottling; we do not filter!

After bottling, the 3rd fermentation takes about 2 weeks, but the bottles need to sit for a further 3 months before we can release them onto the market.

Unique

Our Ginger Kriek is the only ginger and sour cherry alcoholic beverage in the world and the 2018 vintage is 90% pre-sold.

Perhaps in 2019 we will produce more.