Cantillon Gueuze (Classic/Organic/Bio)

Brewed by Cantillon
Style: Lambic - Gueuze
Brussels, Belgium

This is absolutely my favorite beer on the planet. I find one now and then in my travels. I haven’t been to Europe much lately (that pesky devalued dollar and all) but found this one in April of 2007 in a grocery store in the Yokohama Japan train station. That little bottle had quite a ride until it got to my belly in a home on a dirt road in North Florida. This is an incredibly well balanced guezue with palate that is quite dry but not offensively so. Smell is so subjective. Either you love or it reminds you of a sheep pen. I love but then I kind of like the smells of a barnyard so take that at what it’s worth. It poured a beautiful amber with a very tiny and quickly evaporating head. It’s an amazing beer. I was a little worried about how this bottle had fared on it’s long journey. Fear not, pilgrim. It was just as tasty as it was when I drank a bottle in Antwerp a few years ago that had had a much shorter trip. This bottle came with the makenpis statue on the label and a Japanese label (with barcode) pasted on the back. If you have a chance to try this beer, you owe it to yourself, even if you don’t think you like lambic’s.

Served as a 100% Guezue Bio at La Gueze in Paris, France. Pours with a small, foamy, white head covering an opaque yellow body. the head has decent retention and pretty good lacing. Aroma is a pretty mild lambic funk with what seems like a large amount of honey and some fruit. Nice citrus-sour taste, much cleaner and less funky than Curvee Rene. Pretty clean (for a lambic) mouthfeel with soft bubbles.

2-24-08 bottle (2006) shared at tasting.
Thinly clouded orange yellow. Funky urine vinegar sour smell. Nice bitter, sour flavor. Nice but quite thin and seems to be missing something. Easy to drink but not very flavorful or big bodied. Overall, not horrible. Sour and a hint funky - I would be interested in trying it again in a couple years.

Tap @ Monk’s Cafe, Philadelphia. WOW....pours a cloudy golden color with a minimal head. Aroma can only be described as sour and funky, though it was amazingly enticing. Taste is fruit up front with the sourness and effervescence taking over to almost a champagne-like taste. This is my first Cantillon lambic, and it won’t be the last.

Bottle into a wide mouth Trappist glass. Boy, I can smell the funk as soon as I yank that cork out. It’s very strong, with powerful ripe barley; I’m actually a little intimidated by this one. It smells pretty ripe. The liquid falls into the glass forming a cloudy light orange body and only a whispy head. After breathing for only a minute, it has calmed down quite a bit. The sourness is still pronounced, but now much fruitier and wooden in nature, more like something naturally sour rather than overripe. The flavor is actually more tame. Yes, it’s dry and sour, but delicately sweet and cheesy at the same time. There is some pleasing citrus/lime quality, a thinly veiled oakiness, sharp cheese, and a shy vinous backdrop (think champagne). This is really well done in its subtlety.

2006 bottle, labeled as a classic gueuze. pours a cloudy honey color with a thin white head that quickly bubbles away, but manages to remain as a film and a lip around the edge. the first smell is everything i love about gueuze, cantillon style. sharp, acidic lemon and orange notes, as well as some lambic funk--bits of barnyard, hay, grass, must, fermenting vegetables, that sort of thing--some vinegar, some oak, maybe a bit of peach or watermelon, all backed up by a light honey malt. taste is similar, though not as complex, and dominated by the sour acidity (in a good way!), and also a bit more vegetally (also in a good way). good puckering sour finish, with a very lightly sweet balance, rather dry. a bit watery on the mouthfeel; there’s not enough carbonation for it to feel like a real gueuze. it feels quite a bit closer to an unblended lambic. fairly light body. very solid stuff. if one looks at my ratings, it’s fairly clear that i recently became addicted to lambics. this is a solid one. very good, representative of the style, quite sour and acidic, and you’ve got to love what the cantillon yeast do to a beer. mmm.

I’m glad I tried it, but I don’t think this is my style. It has a champagne-like taste to it, and it is very sour at the end. I may have to revisit this at a later time.

Slightly cloudy orange-straw color with a mediocre head leaving little lacing behind. Strong horseblanket aroma and dirty, musty sour scents on the nose. Bright sour tart fruitiness (hard to pick out actual individual fruit) with a funky drying finish. Moderate-heavy carbonation. Intense geuze.