3 Fonteinen Oude Kriek

Description

3 Fonteinen Oude Kriek is a traditional kriek lambic released annually in several batches by the brewery. It is produced by macerating cherries, including the pits, in young lambic. After bottling, it is stored in a warm room for at least four months to help with secondary fermentation in the bottle.^[1] Oude Kriek is released in 375ml and 750ml bottles and was previously labeled as 6% ABV, though older labels show that it was once listed at 5% ABV. Currently, the ABV varies from blend to blend. In 2021, a 1.5L magnum bottling was released for the first time.

History / Other Notes

The brewery has been bottling their Oude Kriek since at least the 1990s, with a variety of labels documented below. After the Thermostat Incident, which essentially cooked over 80,000 bottles of lambic causing some of them to explode, an unspecified number of Oude Kriek bottles survived. These were bottled on March 31, 2009, and became known as "Hot Cherry" bottles when they began to circulate in the beer community. A special bottling of Oude Kriek called Oude Kriek Toast is listed here as a variant of the Oude Kriek and at the request of the brewery.

Label Log

Old neck label for kriek
Back of kriek neck label
European label, 37,5cl, pre-screen printing
U.S. label, pre-screen printing
U.S. label, pre-screen printing
Oude Kriek Toast label
New paper label, non-screen printed.

Bottle Log

Bottle Date (mm/dd/yyyy)	Bottle Size	Label / Notes	Image Link
12/17/1994		Neck ring label - 5% ABV	-
01/30/1996	750ml	Neck ring label - 5% ABV
12/06/1996	750ml	Capped and corked, cream label
03/27/1998	750ml	Cream label	-
03/12/1999	750ml	Cream label
03/14/1999	750ml	Cream label
01/06/2002	375ml	Cream label	-
02/26/2005	750ml	Upside down Shelton label, Dutch date	-
11/28/2006	750ml	12.7oz U.S. label on 750ml bottle, synthetic cork
12/19/2006	375ml	Paper label, synthetic cork
12/14/2007	375ml	Paper label	-
03/31/2009	375ml	"Hot Cherry" bottles that survived thermostat incident	-
04/01/2011	375ml	Paper label
01/27/2012	375ml	Paper label
06/03/2013	375ml	Paper label
06/06/2013	375ml	Paper label	-
06/11/2013	375ml	Paper label	-
04/14/2014	375ml	Paper label
05/22/2014	375ml	Paper label
01/18/2015	375ml	Paper label	-
01/19/2015	750ml	Paper label	-
01/29/2015	375ml	Paper label
07/14/2015	375ml	Paper label
02/06/2016	750ml	Paper label
05/02/2016	375ml	Paper label	-
10/24/2016	750ml	3rd blend of the 2016-2017 season, screen printed label	-
11/02/2016	750ml	Paper label
11/02/2016	750ml	4th blend of the 2016-2017 season, screen printed bottle	-
11/03/2016	750ml	5th blend of the 2016-2017 season, screen printed bottle	-
04/20/2017	375ml	31st blend of the 2016-2017 season, screen printed bottle	-
06/14/2017		33rd blend of the 2016-2017 season, screen printed bottle. This particular Oude Kriek has macerated for 6.5 months. 5.70% ABV	-
09/05/2017	750ml	44th blend of the 2016-2017 season, screen printed bottle. 1,240 bottles	-
09/05/2017	750ml	45th blend of the 2016-2017 season, screen printed bottle. 1,266 bottles	-
12/15/2017	375ml	8th blend of the 2017-2018 season, screen printed bottle. This particular Oude Kriek has macerated for 5 months. 5.6% ABV	-
01/17/2018	750ml	Listed as Oude Kriek Toast. 14th blend of the 2017-2018 season, screen printed bottle. This blend was macerated in a freshly toasted 1,000L barrel. 1,150 bottles 6.4% ABV.
05/17/2018	375ml	58th blend of the 2017-2018 season, screen printed bottle. This particular Oude Kriek has macerated for almost 6 months. The final fruit intensity is 370 grams of sour cherries per liter of Oude Kriek (37%). During blending, local honey was added.	-
07/26/2018	375ml	71st blend of the 2017-2018 season, screen printed bottle. This particular Oude Kriek has macerated for 6 months and 10 days. The lambics in this blend originate from 5 different barrels and 4 different brews.
08/02/2018	375ml	72nd blend of the 2017-2018 season, screen printed bottle. This specific Oude Kriek was macerated on fruit for 6 months and 15 days. The final fruit concentration is 350 grams of kriek per liter of lambic. The lambics in this blend originate from 3 different barrels and 3 different brews.
10/04/2018	375ml	82nd blend of the 2017-2018 season, screen printed bottle. This specific Oude Kriek has spend 6 months macerating on fruit in a 4,000 liter foeder. The lambic in this blend cams from 2 differnet barrels and 2 different brews. 100% 3 Fonteinen.
10/10/2018	375ml	83rd blend of the 2017-2018 season, screen printed bottle. This particular Oude Kriek has macerated for almost 5 months. The lambics in this blend originate from 4 different barrels and 5 different brews. 100% 3 Fonteinen.
01/23/2019	375ml	32nd blend of the 2018-2019 season, screen printed bottle. This specific Oude Kriek has more than 6 months maceration on fruit. The lambic in this blend comes from 5 different barrels originating from 5 different blends. The final fruit intensity is 382 grams of cherries per liter.
04/18/2019	375ml	66th blend of the 2018-2019 season. This specific Oude Kriek macerated for 6 months in a wooden foeder. The lambic in this blend comes from 7 different barrels and 7 different brews. The final fruit intensity amounts to 356 grams of cherries per liter of Oude Kriek.
06/06/2019	750ml	78th blend of the 2018-2019 season. This specific Oude Kriek macerated for 7 months. The lambic used in this maceration came from one barrel and two different brews. The lambic for backblending came again from a single vat and two different brews. 100% 3 Fonteinen
06/06/2019	750ml	78th blend of the 2018-2019 season. This specific Oude Kriek macerated for 7 months. The lambic used in this maceration came from one barrel and two different brews. The lambic for backblending came again from a single vat and two different brews. 100% 3 Fonteinen
06/27/2019	375ml	85th blend of the 2018-2019 season. This specific Oude Kriek macerated on fruit for just over 6 months. The lambic in this blend comes from 4 different barrels and 11 different brews. 100% 3 Fonteinen.
07/03/2019	375ml	86th blend of the 2018-2019 season. This particular Oude Kriek has macerated for over 7 months. The lambics in this blend origination from 3 different barrels and 5 different brewes, of which 62% brewed by 3 Fonteinen and 38% by Brouwerij Boon. FInal fruit intensity of 350 grams of sour cherries per liter of Oude Kriek.
10/23/2019	750ml	120th blend of the 2018-2019 season. This particular Oude KRiek has more than 7 months of maceration. The lambic used for this macertaion comes from two barrels and three brews and has a final fruit intensity of 340 grams of cherry per litre of finished Oude Kriek. 100% 3 Fonteinen.
12/17/2019	1.5L	New paper label, 13th blend of the 2018-2019 season. For this Oude Kriek, we macerated whole sour cherries on one- and almost-two-year old lambik in stainless steel. The maceration lasted 5.5 months. The lambikken that we used for macerating and blending originate from three different barrels and four different brews. The final fruit intensity is 346 grams of sour cherries per liter of Oude Kriek. 100% 3 Fonteinen.
01/08/2020	750ml	New paper label, 16th blend of the 2019-2020 season. For this specific Oude Kriek, we macerated sour cherries for seven months on stainless steel. The lambikken that were used originate from five different barrels and give different brews. The final fruit intensity is 334 grams of sour cherries per liter of oak. 100% 3 Fonteinen.
02/05/2020	375ml	New paper label, 35th blend of the 2019-2020 season. For this specific Oude Kriek, we macerated sour cherries with jonge lambikken from three different brews and from one and the same barrel, during six months on stainless steel. We blended with another jonge lambik to a final fruit intensity of 353 grams of sour cherries per litre of Oude Kriek. We kept this bottle for almost 18months in our own cellars before releasing this Oude Kriek.
750ml	New paper label, 46th blend of the 2019-2020 season. This Oude Kriek is typified by a long maceration of six and a half months on oak barrels. While most of the sour cherries were macerated on toasted oak, we decided to blend these to an Oude Kriek rather than a Robijn as we deemed the toast characteristics more subtle. We used five different lambikken from seven different brews. We let this Oude Kriek, wit ha 32% fruit intensity, settle for well over a year before releasing it. This way, the weighted average of this bottle is well over 30 months when released.