Belle-Vue Sélection Lambic

Formerly brewed at Belle-Vue (InBev)
Style: Lambic - Gueuze
Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, Belgium

1999 Bottle shared by MrFacto on 12/16/06: Pours a bright golden bronze with a thin ring of white head. Aroma of tart, cheesy funkiness and drier complex notes. Body starts fairly full and tart with some funky earthy cheesy notes and a sticky tart finish. Complex, well-balanced and well-aged brew. Thanks for sharing, Matt!

1999 Vintage, shared by cquiroqa, thanks Chris! Pours a hazy amber with a thin off-white head. Body is very thin and fully attenuated. Aroma driven buy lemon aciity, but musty, barnyard, and vinegar aromas all take their place on stage. Flavor is perfectly delectable, citrusy and oaky with a beautiful boquet of funk and a lingering dry tart finish. The most complex and well balanced lambic I’ve had to date, and a very special one at that.

Much thanks to axilla for opening up this oldy but goodie. Bottle is from 1999 and is # 06660... Appears a hazy orange with tiny CO2 bubbles rising to the tip of the faded white cap. Minimal lacing is left around the glass but manages to slide back in to the collar. Smell is of sweaty sock, tart apples, barnyard funk, horseblanket, light oak, and brett. Taste is of the mentioned aromas with highlights of citrus, tart apple, funkadelic wildness that seems to fit nicely with what they were shooting for. Mouthfeel is sweaty, tart, salty, vinegar, brine, medium bodied. What a nice treat.

Cloudy orange colour with a small white head. Malty, tart aroma with a complex blend of yeast, dust and leather notes. Tart fruity and yeasty flavor with notes of leather. Dry, dusty and tart finish.

750ml bottle shared courtesy of Axilla (thanks!). 1999 vintage. Bottle # 06660. Poured a dark and cloudy golden color with a small sized white head. Aromas of caramel, brett, musty, leather, citrus, and wood. Tastes of green apples, citrus, wood, and sour lemons. Nice pucker factor. You have to love a beer that when you lick your lips a minute later, it still makes you pucker! This one was fantastic. Everything I would want in a Gueuze!

[1999] Poured a hazy orange amber color with a thin head of off white bubbles, that left very light lacing on the glass. Strong brett presence in the aroma, was musty, with barnyard, some char, citrus, light vanilla, and oak. Taste of citrus fruits, lemons, green apple, oak, and this cool resiny flavor. Lingering tart finish, full bodied.

The ideal setting for a gueuze of this calibre would be a country manor, possibly in France, where a liveried manservant would deliver it to a sun-washed table on your verandah and then retreat a discrete distance to await sir’s whim. You’d gaze over your manicured gardens to fields of corn rippling in the harvest breeze, sip your lambic, fantasize about sleeping with the scullery maid and all would be well in your charmed world. That would be the ideal setting. Back in the real world, six of us crowded into Aarleks’ inner-city apartment living room and tried to ignore the junkies shouting in the street below. For an eight-year-old lambic, this held up remarkably well without seeming... well... remarkable. Of course, expectations were huge. As big as the fantasy country manor where I won’t be sipping lambics any time soon. Lord knows where Duff conjures beers of this quality but his generosity upon return to the Australian homeland is highly appreciated. This lambic hit a crowded tasting table somewhere between the Mikkeller Black Hole and the Westveleterens. Far from perfect conditions, but these opportunities are rare. Belle-Vue Selection Lambic poured a misty orange with a grudging ring of bubbles. The acidic aroma jangled the senses and furrowed brows. A swirl of sour cider apples, faint ginger and horse-sweat. Acidic again on the tongue - tart Granny Smiths and bretty funk with a puckering finish that you can feel in the stomach lining. If I have a criticism, it’s that this seemed ’cleaner’ than expected - more like a hard cheese than a blue. Nonetheless, it was a privilege to sample. (1999 vintage courtesy of Duff - thanks a million for procuring and sharing this one, amigo)

Bottle. Hazy amber-orange colour. Vinegar, wood and citrus in the aroma. Nice very sour flavour with fruits and wood. TASTY!