Cantillon Kriek dating?

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Michigan1

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I am not romantically involved with a Cantillon Kriek but I do hope we have some Cantillon label experts on this site. A friend of mine found this bottle in his cellar and was wondering how old it was. He can't remember when he bought it, but he's curious about some history.

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The cap and cork are covered by foil, so he can't peer at the cork. I noticed that this label doesn't have the red flower on it. Does this place it before 2003? Any help on this would be appreciated!
 
Interesting. I'm not exactly sure when they stopped putting the black foil on their standard offerings, but that could at least give a reference point to a minimum year. Or you could just peel the foil off and check the cork.
 
So the 05 had black foil but MordorMongo's '05 has the flower. I thought the flower was added in 03 with the release of the 100% organic Bio Gueuze.

From the Cantillon website:
This is why in 1999 the Cantillon Brewery decided to go back to its roots and to use organically grown cereals only. Since we need Lambic from three different years in order to make Gueuze, we had to wait until 2003 to present you with the first bottles labelled "ecolabel", certified by Ecocert. For the moment, the Organic Label doesn't apply to our fruit beers, because the quantities of organically grown cherries and raspberries are insufficient.
 
Here's a great resource for this kind of info, courtesy of callmemickey: https://picasaweb.google.com/107663535528566156705/LambicLabels?authkey=Gv1sRgCKKt3eOqx92ZUA

Yours is in there as "undated", so I guess it wasn't actually all that helpful.

Any label in there that is marked as undated means that the label itself contains no specific year marker.

Cantillon employs several different dating mechanisms.

(1) The cork will typically have the bottling year, but these can be wrong when at the end of the year they run out or at the beginning of the year they have left overs

(2) Some front or back labels will indicate a lot/year number i.e. "L 1.99" or "L 1/06" or something like that. These will occasionally be wrong when they have extra labels from a previous batch.

The first number indicates the variety and bottle size. Some that I know of:
1 = 750 gueuze
2 = 375 gueuze
3 = 750 kriek
4 = 375 kriek
5 = 750 gambrinus
6 = 375 gambrinus
7 = 750 vigneronne
8 = 375 vigneronne
12= 750 fou foune
13 = 750 st lam
14 = 375 st lam

(3) Recently Cantillon has been date stamping (the furthest back I have a 2004 LP Kriek bottled in 06 with a date stamp). These seem to be the most accurate when present.
 
Any label in there that is marked as undated means that the label itself contains no specific year marker.

Cantillon employs several different dating mechanisms.

(1) The cork will typically have the bottling year, but these can be wrong when at the end of the year they run out or at the beginning of the year they have left overs

(2) Some front or back labels will indicate a lot/year number i.e. "L 1.99" or "L 1/06" or something like that. These will occasionally be wrong when they have extra labels from a previous batch.

The first number indicates the variety and bottle size. Some that I know of:
1 = 750 gueuze
2 = 375 gueuze
3 = 750 kriek
4 = 375 kriek
5 = 750 gambrinus
6 = 375 gambrinus
7 = 750 vigneronne
8 = 375 vigneronne
12= 750 fou foune
13 = 750 st lam
14 = 375 st lam

(3) Recently Cantillon has been date stamping (the furthest back I have a 2004 LP Kriek bottled in 06 with a date stamp). These seem to be the most accurate when present.
Thanks!
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If you are drinking it then take the foil off and look at the cork. Take the foil off anyways because it looks shitty unless it's the wrap that FW does.
 
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