Chapeau Gueuze

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

I made the mistake of thinking I was getting a "De Troch Gueuze" when I accepted Chapeau. It was not a good mistake ... this beer was off-color with syrupy aromas and the odor (and flavor) of grape-based apple-cider with a dark syrup added for flavor. Not an enjoyable experience. Oh yeah ... its color was very odd ... greenish murky maple syrup is the only way to describe it ... maybe it was the light. And was that worcestershire sauce in the background? I wanted an AMERICAN Budweiser after having this.

Best before date is a combination of Oct/Nov-95’ or 96’, notches are in the middle of each. Transparent golden with no head, but is slightly carbonated. Aroma is dominated by musty wood, cork, and vinegar. Silky smooth body. Initial flavir is sweet candy sugar like, fades to cork and wood pulp. Sticky sugary aftertaste.

(Bottled, 0.375l) Quite clear brandy color with a very small head. Slightly yeasty and moldy cellar aroma with sourish malt and sugar. Sugary-sweet, quite artificial flavor with figs and woody notes. Light to medium-bodied, sticky-sugary palate with lemonadey carbonation. A dull, over-sweetened, lemonadey brew. Only a gueuze by name.

(Bottle 25 cl) De Troch is best known for it’s range of overly sweet fruit beers, but they also do make beers that come closer to the real thing - without hitting bulls eye though. Dark amber, almost no head. Vinegary nose, and the tartness really dominates all the way through. But it’s a harsh tartness very far from the sophisticated, earthty notes that characterizes the best classical gueuzes. Solid dose of candi sugars cannot save this, and it ends quite unbalanced. 230599

Very dark for style with a horrible nose of baby diaper and sugar. Total digrace to Gueuze.

Very slightly veiled amber, with faint greenish tinge; very dense, 1 cm head, yellow-amberish. Acetic acid and caramel syrup, green apples, solvent, horseblanket and dark candi sugar in the nose. Vaguely fruity taste, as from watered-down pure grape juice. Little, bit watery rendering of lactic and citric acid. And candi or caramel syrup. Balance between acids and syrup is such that there just isn’t any cloying. But still a long, sweet, sticky aftertaste. The tastes clash, there is a balance that isn’t one. Foremost, this beer is the living sample of what F. Boon claims: this today’s gueuze is yesteryears’ poor mans’ faro: sour, harsh and thin lambic (Mertse) with liberal doses of candi syrup.

Pours suprisingly dark amber with a short lasted small white head. Balsamic vinegar, brown sugar and dry white grape aroma. Horrible sweet brown sugar flavour, with biscuit notes. Weird, not good.

Bottle from Beer Tempel in Brussels. Bottle neck broke on opening as with the faro. Horrible vinegar aroma. Flavour is oversweet yet also with some unrefined sourness and quite syrupy. Horrible wannabe gueuze.