Chapeau Cuvée

Brewed by Brouwerij De Troch
Style: Lambic - Gueuze
Ternat-Wambeek, Belgium

Clear yellow coloured, light carbonation, average but diminishing white head. Complexe sour aroma, hints of wooden cask, cork, light fruity. Medium to full body, sprankling in the palate. Finish is combination of sour and astringent bitter. Complex, difficult beer.

Clear golden body, huge foamy fast disappearing head. Strong yeasty aroma, together with citrus (lemon). Very acidic and sour flavour.

This gueuze makes me mad, because it shows that De Troch actually can make good beer. But instead of making it widely available they pour sugar, fruit syrup and other stuff in it to ruin in and make it drinkable for people who doesn’t like lambic. What a waste.
Slightly hazy light golden colored, fizzy white head. Really nice aroma of wild fermentation with a well balanced grapefruity sourness and a tone of barnyard. Actually very nice, had it been a little more powerfull, would it have gotten a higher score. Excellent and actually very tart flavor with penetrating lemon notes that gives a nice freshness plus a dry woodyness that makes the balance almost perfect. Biding and sharp, wow I’m really surprised by this!! It might not be the greatest gueuze I have had, but it is up there among the top ones. DE TROCH, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING? (can’t wait to taste my rabbit in gueuze tonight that got the rest of the bottle :-)

Cloudy golden-blonde body with a long lasting enormous white head. Biggest head I’ve ever seen, a bitch to pour. Aroma is green apples in a barnyard. The taste is extreme. Compare to this a standard gueuze (Cantillon, 3F, etc) is really smooth and mellow. Extreme acidity and almost as much sourness, to a point where you can barely taste any flavours. Lemon and extreme tartness. You wanna have big sips but you physically can’t. Very aggressive carbonation. Its sweetness would be a problem with standard gueuzes but here it is a welcomed softener addition. I liked it a lot more than I should have but I stand by it. Very cold on a hot after-noon this is a pure pleasure of masochistic proportion. Did I get a special bottle? I don’t know and I don’t care, that was great. And if you don’t like it remember that it’s illegal to pour down the drain something that acidic. It’s has to be recycled with your walkman batteries.

Bottle (from Bitter Virtue, BB Sep 2010). Tart lemon aromas give an indication of what to expect in the mouth which is initially lots of tart citric acid, but this isnt the refined refeshing acidity of cantillon its just thin and acidic. Some woody musty aromas become apparent once adjusted to the citrus and despite the thin body this has some hints of moderate sweetness. Not too bad but just a little unbalanced towards the citrus.

(bottle, provided by pivnizub) Hazy and cloudy yellow colour with a non-persistent frothy white layer. Slightly sour and musty aroma with apple fruitiness. Sour flavour, medium to light body, smooth carbonation. Fruity and slightly musty horseblanket-like taste; dry and sour-fruity, slightly woody finish with a moderately tart aftertaste.

Bottle: Yellow coloured, unstable white foamy layer; horseblanket in the musty aroma, some sourish fruitiness in the background; sourish tart flavour; sourish finish with a tart touch of horseblanket. A pleasant, traditional Gueuze !

Bottle. Cloudy golden colour, small white head. Nice, sour, earthy aroma. The flavour is also sour, but not much, and earthy. Could have been a bit more refreshing. Gets a bit watery after a while, when the flavour seems to vanish.