3 Fonteinen J & J Oude Geuze Roze

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

(bottle, big thanks to Skyview for sharing this rare beer at the Sourfest!) Pours clear gold with a medium white head. The aroma is a little toned down on the funk compared to the Blauw, but it’s still present. There’s also a good deal of fruit scents with unripe peach and pineapple in the mix. The taste is quite briny, lightly sour with lemon peel, and some oak is there. The finish is quite peppery and not bone dry like the Blauw. The mouthfeel is medium, and this is a very fine gueuze indeed.

Many thanks to Skyview for sharing this gem. An immensely funky and sour aroma with gouda cheese cutting through the lambic sourness. A sour body that was a little watery compared to the Blauw. Excellent.

Bottle Fin brought to our "Welcome Home Frank" tasting. Nice one! With Fin, Loz and Traci. Honey color with a small layer of white bubbles. Spicy orange aroma, tide pool, and distinctive tobacco: big pungent musky tobacco leaves, still with a bit of green to them. Apricot, lemon, and a woody chalk flavor. Good round oaky sourness, wooly dry finish. Stunny nose that the flavor doesn’t quite live up to, but this is a noteworthy beer just by merit of the aroma.

Had this at the Austin Tastin and Cleveland get together as well. Hazy golden, orange. Decent white head. Peppery aroma with yeast and fruit as well. Much more subtle than the Blauw. Flavor is restrained too. A bit earthy. A good beer, but not great.

Another huge thinks to Skyview for this one. Good label. Not as cloudy, and less carbonated as the Blauw, but still a great beer. Mild barnyard aroma with yeast. Sour, but again, not as sour as the othe J & J. Still dry, quite sour, and a less full, but all smoother palate. Sour aftertaste. I am surprised the Lindeman’s lambic produced a more sour beer than this one with boon.

Thanks to Skyview! Hazy gold color with a thin head. Light spicy aroma. Mint stands out. Quite a floral taste. Light underlying wheat body. Very light on the sourness. Seems less complex than the Blauw, but still tasty.

Poured from a 750 ml bottle. Thanks Bob! Hazy, golden orange, full of mist. A tight cheese and mineral and tropical fruit aroma; whiffs of nectarine, pineapple, and tangerine, but rind-heavy and musty; the fruit and and herbal qualities are for the most part prominent, and the horse and animal wafts are soft, never wildly obvious.

Flavor is juicy and somewhat sharp; heavily acidic, but also quite dry in an unusual kind of dark spiciness; brown spices mainly on citrus and white fruits. The gravelly, cheese-rind and mineral characters are more forward, solidifying its sophisticated, non-confrontational dryness. Likewise, the fruitiness is pressed into a champagne vinegar sourness, and the beer has an all around serious and refreshing white wine character; eventually it becomes somewhat stuffy, in parching horseblanket and autumnal spicing, and acerbic pithy bitterness.

Sprightly, brisk medium body; when it draws out at the finish, it’s full and dry, if someone plain; potpourri, and kleenex more than cheese and funk. A good and different cool-weather geuze.

Bottle into tulip. Crazy-ass lambic tasting in our hotel room, GABF 2007. What a treat to taste this. The Blauw is my favorite beer, so I was looking forward to it; thanks to whoever brought it (might have been cquiroga, but it could also have been one of the other 3-4 guys there; sorry I don’t remember). Smell is much more restrained than the Blauw, not as explosively expansive, not as bretty or sour. Instead, it’s nicely warm with fruit and wood, vaguely cedarish, with dirty dusty blue cheese aspects (though not cheesy). Acid hits the sides of the tongue first, very restrained and balanced against the bright strawberry and oakey vanilla on top of the tongue. Amazing roundness of fruits, but still much more subtle than the Blauw. The brightness of the fruits balances perfectly with the early, dusty, woodsy qualities. If there were a shrine to Drie Fonteinen, I would bow to it five times a day chanting long, drawn out incantations of "dope." Dope.