Cantillon Bruocsella 1900 Grand Cru

Brewed by Cantillon
Style: Lambic - Unblended
Brussels, Belgium

No head. Very few (if any) bubbles. Body is golden (darkish) and a little bit cloudy (it was lying in my cellar but I just couldn't let it stand for long...). Mild aroma; a little sweet, tart, grape, lambrusco!?! Flat and gentle taste; tart, grape, apple juice?, oak. Complex and fascinating.

Pours flat and hazy. Big stinky funky woody sour aroma. Has some fruity notes also, maybe some cherry and pear. Also a bit of breadiness. Very clear and strong in smell. Passes fast to the throat in a fleeting manner, taking all vestiges of the previous meal with it. Repetition captures the flavor. Musky and tart with something of an acidic burn in the finish. The really interesting part of this beer is the retronasal aroma. It has some juniper and dried apricot that is very appealing but quickly lost. Somewhat creamy body with a moderately dry finish. Really an exceptional beer.

75cl bottle Grand Cru Bruocsella Lambic Bio 2002. Massive thans to Phil L for this. Hazy gold, no head. Wonderful lambic aroma. Lemoney and horse blanket. Actually quite lovely in mouth not too sharp or acidic, but there is that cidery lemon fruit flavour. One of the smoothest lambics I’ve had. Plenty of sourness but balanced by a fullness in mouth and syrupy intense lemon curd fruit. Gorgeous. Refined. Acidic on end, but there is a bit of sweetness there. One of the best unblended lambics I’ve had. 4.2/5 2006 Re-rate at St Albans BF 2009. Best thing I had over the 2 days here and well worth the £7.50 it cost. Good dirnkability and totally immersive beer without the huge acidity that some Cantillon beers have. This is funky and good. Just a little more age perhaps would help. 4.3/5

A Mes rate: 75cl bottle from Dranken Geers
Shared at home with Sim and Terry Tibbs. Bottle is from 2003 and although it is only 4 years old at this point it is clearly starting to age quite nicely in comparison to the other bottles I have had of this. Excellent looking for an unblended. Very slight carbonation that is undetectable in the mouth but clear in the appearance. Especially after a swill. Dry, earthy aroma with serious barnyardy funk.Lovely citric notes and plenty of Cantillon barrel in there too. Incredibly dry in the mouth. Utterly excellent lambic. Heavily citric and sour. So very refreshing and drinkable. Almost wine like qualities. Palate cleaning attributes are nothing but superb. Prickle at the back of the throat leaves you wanting more. So bloody good.

Bonus bottle from Mgumby10. What a bonus, thanks Mike! Been a while since I’ve had this one and I wish I had more. Pours a deep golden color with absolutely no head. Hardly any carbonation either. Nose is barnyard, oak, lemons. Flavor is incredibly smooth for a lambic but at the same time very sour, acidic, and damn tasty. I drank this faster than any lambic I’ve had in the past. I wish this was still locally available to me. Paired great with Stroopie cookies from Holland.

On tap at the Stumbling Monk in Seattle.

Pours a light yellow-orange, slightly cloudy with a nice white head. A gorgeous lemon juice and oak aroma comes through marvellously, little harshness or vinegar, just a eep rich lambic goodness. The flavor is a beautiful dry sourness, plenty of complex wood-and-lambic but not ostentatiously so; the sourness is uncompromising but ot the least bit aggressive or stinging. Crisip, delightful palate.

Truly a wonderful beer.

This is the first lambic I’ve ever tried when I wasn’t already lit, so I decided to pull out all the stops and serve it to myself in a "clean" juice glass while watching Black Dog on AMC. It combines the woody, wine like aroma of Black Dog’s Patrick Swayze with the crisp and surprisingly refreshing sourness of Black Dog’s Meat Loaf. That makes it a winner in my book.

2005 bottle, aged 4 years. Each pour yields a body that is progressively more cloudy than the last, medium golden-amber in color, with a fleeting, off-white head of bubbles. There’s virtually no lacing left behind. The nose is nothing short of stunning, tart apricot showing as the dominant fruit component, with lemon essence, barnyard air, well-used oak, and hints of a dusty old house. There are hints of nectarine sweetness in there to keep the citric acidity in check, but as refined as it is, there’s still no mistaking this as one sour mother of a beer. Flavors mirror the aroma, tart apricot and zesty lemon calmed ever so slightly by sweet nectarine and hints of juicy peach. The brief respite from the sourness that the nectarine provides is quickly quashed as brash acidity attacks the throat on the swallow. Funky oak imparts hints of vanilla and musty wood flavors. This stuff is so refreshing and drinkable, thanks in great part to the lightly carbonated, semi-dry acidity that comes through on the moderate palate. There simply has to be a good amount of this exact strain in the Cantillon Cuvée des Champions, as the similarities are striking. Fantastic lambic.