3 Fonteinen J & J Oude Geuze Blauw

Formerly brewed at 3 Fonteinen
Style: Lambic - Gueuze
Beersel, Belgium

sampled at "An evening with Pantanap #2". 750ml bottle. big thanks to fonefan for this one. pours dense orange with bubbly white head. nose is extremely musty/dusty, earthy, citrusy, funky, very oaky. flavor is heaven. not heavenly, heaven. extremely oaky, acidic and sour but refined. so oaky and earthy, wow! slight citrusy finish. long lively tantlizing finish. wonderful. easily the best queuze i’ve had. extremely oaky and brillant i wasn’t even expecting it to be this good. amazing.

Pours hazy golden with large short lasting head. Sour tarty aroma with hay, wood and horse blanket notes. Flavor is a symphony of sour grapefruit, barnyard and apples. Enormous complexity and perfect balance.

Bottle from Theis. I don’t even know where to start with this. What a fantastic beer. This really was everything I hoped it’d be.

Cork ejects with a huge pop, which makes the huge, beautiful and firm head on the pour no surprise. Typically orange lambic color disperses all light coming through. Deftly and dangerously sour aroma would scare off all but the most hardened sour beer fans. Unripe plum, green grape, and a load of acid.

The flavor is a whole other game entirely. Not as roughly sour as the aroma, but still powerful. Elegant and balanced, very welcoming. When cold and unbreathed, the beer has a bit of a rough finish, but that all fades as it warms. Incredibly nice going down, with a soft carbonation and sourness. Nutty and oaky up front, this beer remains awesome all the way through. A near perfect beer, a near perfect lambic, it’s hard to imagine much better than this. I just can’t give it a 5 because the experience was not quite up there with my other 4.7s. Still, it’d be hard not to count this amongst the best beers ever made.

Blind tasting: Amber gold. Ornate tiny-bubbled white head is rocky and extremely persistent. Mesmerizing nose of peaches and lactobacillus. Equally proportionate hints of clay, iron, horseblanket and musty minerals and oak. Vigorous swirls unveil an astonishingly lustrous fruitiness as well as some band-aid phenols. Fine carbonation massages the palate. Slickly bodied. Tongue-buckling acidity slowly yields to an explosively juicy, flavorsome and bright peach-fuzz acidity. Unbelievably polished from the get-go. Harsh phenols take a backseat to the supple fruitiness. Oak is clean and artfully restrained, allowing the dizzying array of nuances to fully bloom. Oak tugs on the palate and dries things out, beautifully contrasting with the fruity esters which coat and gently embrace the tongue. Fusion of oak and hay-like malt is in perfect harmony as are the seamlessly interwoven slick fruitiness and cleansing dryness. Finishes with a gorgeous flash of acetic acid which is adorned with clean oak and bouncy notes of nutty and hay-like malt. World-class stuff all the way. Easily one of the most well-rounded and extravagant beers I’ve ever experienced. Thanks for sharing, cquiroga!

750 ml bottle - Columbus X tasting

I never expected to get to try either of these much less both in the same night. Thanks again to moejuck for opening one of the best examples of gueuze on the planet. This too should hold up quite well for years to come so if you happen to ever run across it and have the money to spare order a bottle. Consider it a once-in-a-lifetime experience that is money well spent. Just be sure to have some friends on hand to finish the bottle; 750 mls of this might just overwhelm even the strongest stomach.

Aroma / Appearance - The hazy straw colored body was a little lighter than the Roze but not by much. Lacing stuck to the sides of my glass as if this final sample refused to be written off lightly. The vinous notes competed with blueberries to form a unique combination. Once again it was intensely sour and funky. I can almost remember the aroma in my head as I type these notes.

Flavor / Palate - Lemon juice mixed 50/50 with white grape juice filled my mouth. The finish of dry champagne was just what I expected. It was dry enough to suck every drop of moisture out of my mouth for almost fifteen minutes afterwards. The tartness and sourness made it a nice finish to the evening’s tasting. In many ways it reminded me of Bellevue Selection which is perhaps the only one that I would want to try again more than this.

C-bus 10, compliments of henrikb. Lightly sour aroma, slightly earthy. Simple but elegant aroma. Murky golden brown color with a large head. Perfect carbonation on this--which I love. Medium sourness in the flavor--which surprised me a bit at first. Citrus flavors for sure with a funky mix and definite yeast component. Didn’t get the peppery, dryness that I detected in the Roze--which made this one more enjoyable and smoother.

C-Bus 10: Bottle shared by moejuck with a big thanks to henrikb for the trade: Pours a hazy gold with an off white head, more lively than the roze: Aroma, funky, with some tartness, lemons, sour. Flavor, lemons, a good bit of funk, yeast, other light fruits, sour, tart. Nice and balanced, some good acidity. So nice to get a chance to try this.

2007 PP SAF Bottle brought by JohnC, many thanks! : Cloudy golden hue with a fluffy head and spotty lace. The aroma is wonderfully funky and herbal with sour apple and tangerine esters, catty and oaky vapours as well.

The taste displays tart fruit, chewy yeast, earthy herbal pungent notes with woody and light spice finish. The mouth feel is sprite, lively and quite refreshing with a dry finish. A ROCKING BREW that is not overpowering like some other guezes. Surprisingly "balanced" and even Tomme dug it! Thanks again John!!