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Lindemans Strawberry
Our Rating: 3.06 / 5
A sweet, jam-forward strawberry lambic with a gentle apple edge, soft carbonation, and light underlying funk. More fruit-driven than traditionally lambic in structure, but pleasant, approachable, and texturally smoother than expected. How well it lands mostly depends on your tolerance for strawberry taking the lead and fruited beers in general.
Beer Name: Lindemans Strawberry
Brewery: Brouwerij Lindemans
Beer Style: Fruit Lambic (Strawberry Lambic)
Alcohol: 3.5%
Taste notes: Strawberry jam, apple-like acidity, light funk, sweet, tart
Serving: Bottle
Serving Size: 250 ml (8.45 fl. oz.)
Strawberry at First Sight
When we open the Lindemans Strawberry, we reach for a glass shape that naturally concentrates aroma. With fruit-heavy beers, it makes sense to use something that narrows toward the top so the aromatics stay with us instead of drifting off. It’s a practical choice, and glassware for both cider and saison found its way to the table.
The pour immediately grabs our attention. The colour lands in this very particular red, strawberry for sure, but with a slight brownish tint that reminds us of fruit that’s been sliced and left out a moment too long. The head barely makes an appearance before fading into a very thin ring, focused around the edges of the glassware. The carbonation, on the other hand, looks lively: fine bubbles rising in a soft, constant stream that hints at a smoother mouthfeel rather than a sharp one. Clarity sits somewhere between clean and lightly muddy.
When we lift the glass, the aroma doesn’t play coy. Strawberry comes through fast and confidently, though it leans more toward a jammy character than fresh fruit. There’s also this clear apple-like touch underneath; it’s not aggressive, nor acidic, just a little lift that all of us notice right away. As the beer warms slightly, the aroma intensifies without switching personality.
Before taking the first sip, our collective take is simple: it smells fruity, pleasant, a bit nostalgic, and, if we’re being honest, a tiny bit like the “kids’ champagne” that finds its way to the table on New Year’s Eve for children, you know, the red sticky carbonated stuff. Not a judgment, just an honest observation in the moment.
Strawberry Calling the Shots
The first sip lines up almost perfectly with what the aroma suggested: strawberry, but in that “good jam” direction rather than fresh fruit. It’s sweet, but not in a cheap way, and it carries a little apple-cider echo that makes the whole thing feel oddly familiar. None of us gets hit with big lambic funk straight away. There is a touch of it, just enough yeast character to keep things from tasting like sparkling juice, but it stays polite.
Texture-wise, it’s doing two things at once. It feels thin in terms of body, yet somehow still sticky around the edges. We all clock that immediately.
The carbonation helps soften that impression; those tiny bubbles give it a velvety feel, which is a weirdly nice contrast to the sweetness. The slight murkiness we noticed in the glass actually works in its favour; the extremely fine sediment adds just enough texture to keep it from feeling watery.
Flavour-wise, the strawberry holds the spotlight, with that lingering apple note running underneath. The finish brings back the jammy character plus a bit of oxidised-apple sweetness, followed by a faint, pleasant tartness that one of us, Jesper, specifically points out. As it warms, it leans sweeter and stickier, and a slightly synthetic edge creeps in, not “fake flavouring” synthetic, just that sense of fruit that isn’t fresh nor cooked. More rhubarb-compote-adjacent than anything else. Nothing dramatic.
From a BJCP perspective, it sits on the softer, sweeter end of fruit lambic. The acidity and funk are light, the fruit addition dominates, and the base lambic is more of a structural rumour than a backbone. But honestly, we don’t mind that. If it tastes good, it tastes good.
What does raise an eyebrow is Untappd. The bottle is clearly 3.5%, but the scan leads to the 4.2% version. The 3.5% entry barely has ratings. Whether that means a recent change or a data muddle, who knows, but it makes comparisons useless.
And then there’s the ingredient list: 15% strawberry juice, plus apple concentrate and elderberry juice. When there’s more strawberry than barley, it’s no surprise the beer drinks like a strawberry-and-apple fruited beverage that struggles to stay in the category of beer or barley-based beverage, and some of us are looking for more of that lambic wearing strawberry than vice versa. None of us consider that a flaw, just an honest reflection of what’s in the bottle.
Scores land everywhere: Jesper is the most positive, highlighting tartness and fruit forwardness, Viktor and Laurits sit are the most critical in this instance, due to it being more fruit than beer and Viktor’s notorious dislike for strawberry in general (weird fellow), Casper lands somewhere in between. A spread like that usually means one thing: the beer is doing exactly what it wants to do, and whether you love it depends more on your relationship with strawberry and general fruited beers than anything technical.
Our scores for this beer are as follows:
Jesper’s Score: 3.75 / 5
Viktor’s Score: 2.75 / 5
Laurits’ Score: 2.75 / 5
Casper’s Score: 3.00 / 5
Average Rating: 3.06 / 5
