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.
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
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.