Mad Belgians...

Recently we have been dabbling in some fantastic bottled Belgian beer. One style that really stood out was the spontaneously fermented lambic beers. Right, first some history on these beers! Lambic beers have been brewed for as long as 400 years. To produce such a brew the malted, wheated and hopped beer is stored in unlined oak casks and stored from anywhere between 18 months to 6 years. During this time wild yeasts attack the beer, making it ferment.

The beers we have been able to buy are Gueuzes, these are a blend of old and new lambic in bottled form. These beers aren't for the faint hearted, they present musty and cheesy noses with huge sour and cidery tastes.

Another style of these beers include fruit in the fermentation process, the most popular, called Kriek, is made with cherries.

Here are some tasting notes of a few Gueuzes we have tasted recently. The first two were bought in our local beer shop, Bitter Virtue.

Girardin Gueuze 1882 Black Label (unfiltered):

We tasted this beer in a large red wine glass. A Burnished orange colour, almost marmalade, with a thick cream head and significant lacing. The nose was hugely complex with baked sour apples, varnished wood, lime cordial, sulphur, minerality like a fine white wine, strong cream cheese and vague hints of pepper and asparagus. The palate was full of deep sour apples, with a hint of oakyness and vinous fruits. All topped off with a deep dry uncompromisingly sour finish - akin to sucking a lemon!

Cantillon Gueuze 100% Lambic Bio:

A thick orange colour with a thin dusty head that dissipated quickly with minimal lacing. The nose presented an intense amount of must with rich orange rind and lime cordial aromas. The palate was intensely sour, the lemony spritz dances on the tongue and is followed by granny smith apples, hints of oak and vintage cider. A long lingering musty finished with a lemon/lime sourness.

Lindeman's Gueuze:

I manged to pick this up in france, haven't seen it in the UK yet, however we do get an awful lot of Lindeman's Kriek in the supermarkets.

A dark orange colour with light copper hints, a full thick dense head that clung to the glass. Sweet caramelised apples on the nose with tart lime cordial and musty smooth vanilla oak. The palate is full of the classic sour apples but followed by soft fleshed fruits. Other tastes of note were raisins and a figgy brown sugar sweetness. This gueuze tasted slightly artificial and was far too sweet!