Cantillon Rosé De Gambrinus

Brewed by Cantillon
Style: Lambic - Fruit
Brussels, Belgium

There is raspberry in the aroma but it is overpowered by bathroom, lactic bacteria, wild yeast, and acid. The appearance is raspberry red with a small head. The flavor is like the aroma. The palate is thin. There is nothing in it to save it.

I like nice fruity lambic, but this just too way to sour for me to fully enjoy, the aroma is nice with some nice spring raspberries. The acidity of the beer is wild and intense, expect to pucker.

My first lambic . . . WOW. This is a whole new universe of flavor. I didn’t know beer could taste like this. Acid reflux-inducingly sour and acid - this really took me by surprise, but after a while I warmed up to it. Took me a long time to finish this, but it was still enjoyable once I wrapped my palate around it.

I have often started a few things in my life with the wrong foot and having this as the first lambic certainly belongs to that category. The scent is nothing that I would call fruity, all I got was metal and sourness with maybe a hint of raspberry if I am forced to make that judgement. The taste follows suit, the sourness overpowers the taste and there is not that much to taste aside from that besides the sweetness. Reminds me of a bad, one dimensional wine, this certainly didn’t convert me to a lambic drinker.

Bottle, 2007. Relatively mild aroma for Cantillon with raspberries and just a hint of horseblanket. Flavor raspberries, cherries, apricots, maybe some other fruits, extremely sour, and beyond that, EXTREMELY acidic. I loved the beer, but it took me over 2 1/2 hours to get through 375 ml. Not that it’s a bad thing to take it slow, but my goodness, I wanted to drink it but sometimes just couldn’t. Still, I couldn’t bare to give this treat anything less than a 4.

750 mL bottle, bottled in 2007. Pours a nice deep red with a small ring of light pink head. Aroma of sweet, tart raspberries. Some funk but mostly tartness/sweetness. Flavor is extremely tart and sour with a sweet raspberry finish. This is quite good, but it absolutely destroys your palate! Lots of lactobacillus and super acidic. Drinking this in small quantities is best. I enjoyed my first glass of this but it was very hard to drink and really wore on me by the end.

Pours a pale pink tending to orange. Aromas are dominated by raspberry vinegar with a touch of mustiness, leather perhaps. Palate is uncomplicated, bright sweet/sour raspberries present before trademark lambic tartness comes to the fore. Its good, but i much prefer the complexity of a gueze. No doubt with a bit of patience, this will develop greater complexity.

I really wanted to like this--"lambic for the big boys" is how the bottle shop owner put it--but just couldn’t. Too sour, more like a dry red wine than a beer. I like to be adventurous with my beer tasting, but this one was just a little too far out there for me.