3 Fonteinen Hommage

Brewed by 3 Fonteinen
Style: Lambic - Fruit
Beersel, Belgium

750mL Bottle. 02.14.2007. Flickr(http://www.flickr.com/photos/26049401@N0 Nose is absolutely strong. Tart, dry, funky, and dried cranberries. The merging of fruit and weirdness produces a unique emergence of red currents and vinous black cherries. Flinty. Pours a well clouded dark red and a rosey rim. Flavor is intense. Chewy ghost-like red fruit character. A blood of oranges, fresh cranberries, red currant jelly, plout juice, and some tangy very, very faint acetic nip. Cottony barrel, a bit of white grape juice and some long legs in port-like character. The acids are much, much softer than say a Gueze. Not a huge finish. Pretty quickly heading in to fruit lambic history. But, amazingly delicious with a light nip of almond in the backend.

Bottled. Muddy red colour with small head. Aroma is raspberries, sourness and slight mild acidicness. Flavour is really sour and dry raspberries. Already quite promising, so it would be nice to see what a bottle will be in some years.

Courtesy dsnowden. Thanks for sharing this rare gem Dan!! Pours a deep red, with not much of a head. Big raspberry and cherry notes fill the nostrils mixed in with some tart sourness, but not overwhelming at all. The fruit has a big presence here. The flavor was quite divine. The fruits and sourness almost blended together perfectly. Not too sour or acidic, but not too fruity either. The raspberries really show up right up front, and the sourness lingers in the finish and the aftertaste. Another excellent offering from these guys!

A Mes rate: 75cl bottle at home with Sim.<brCloudy and dark blood red colour with a pinkish rim around the edges. The colour is typical 3 Fonteinen. Very fruity aroma with plenty of raspberry obviously but there is also strawberry and cherry and just a lick of 3F sourness. It’s both earthy and fresh at the same time. Flavour is even more special. Wonderfully tart with amazing complex fruity sourness. So many different fruit flavours emerge it is hard to do it justice. Strong citric notes, lemon, orange, kiwi, lime, then completely flooded by strawberry, cherry and a punch of puckering raspberries. It’s like eating a whole pack of Jolly Ranchers at once and it just keeps going and going right the way through to an amazingly lengthy finish. Beautiful sweetness of the likes rarely witnessed but held perfectly in balance by the sourness. I could go on for days. Palate is certainly one of the best I have experienced. On top of all this, it still feels young. 100% certainty to be a future classic.

Bottle (750ml). Shared with blankboy and garthicus, my bottle thanks to the amazing generosity of Glouglouburp!. Cloudy deep ruby pour with an average-sized frothy head and thick strands of lacing (I drooled looking at it, that’s a 5!). Yummy aroma - look, I don’t have the words to adequately describe this beer, so: sour-lemon-heavy yeast-burnt rubber-sour green fruit .... you know; GOOD! The taste followed right on - more fruit, more funk, dry, pungent, sour - I wanted to just drink it all myself, such a great Lambic. Thick bodied, hugely acidic but still the fruit character held its own - one of the best fruit sours I’ve ever had. Thanks again, Dany!

75 cl bottle, bottled 14/02/2007. Pours deep red with orange notes and has a modest pinkish head. Immediately upon pouring raspberries scents hit the nose, but sour cherries, wood, lemony lambik are more prominent even though raspberries remain. Hint of marcipan. Sour cherry fruit, almonds, moderate woodiness towards the finish, overall nicely balanced. A masterpiece.

Bottle from JoeinUccle. Thanks Joe! Shared with my friend Leah upon her return from Cali. She appreciates good lambics and I appreciate her for that. I was really excited when I heard this beer was being made (assuming it would be the same as the framboos last bottled in 1999). After finding out it was a totally different beer, I was a little upset, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t dying to try it. After all, it is a fruit lambic (one of my favorite styles) and its made by 3 Fonteinen. Well, I wasn’t disappointed. Pours a deep pinkish red with some wispy white lace. Nose is funky, but not over the top acidic, with some fruity aspects of the raspberries and cherries within. Also smelled some oak. Flavor is smooth and very nice. Adequate tartness throughout, not over-the-top sour like some vintage cantillons, but a very nice fruity tartness that is just a pleasure to drink. Like the doesjel, this stuff is so incredibly drinkable I think my parents might even like it. I always use to think that the more sour a lambic was, the more complex it was (or the more I would enjoy it), but that’s not always the case. Sometimes you’re in the mood for something more mellow. Would be interested to see if this grows more sour and funky over time, but I’m glad I had a taste of this now.

Courtesy dsnowden. Pink-purple color with floes of white soapy head. Grapeskins, raspberries on the aroma and a surprisingly low amount of sour or acetic aromas, but there is a nice bedrock of funk that the fruity aromas are lying on top of. Taste is smooth, elegant, and vinous. The fruit is well apparent and even with the sourness rather than bowled over by its intensity. The finish is dry and moderately sour, and leaves the fruit and remnants of the yeasty funk behind on the palate. A fantastic, well-balanced fruit lambic.