Dekoninck Gueuze

Brewed by Brouwerij F. Boon
Style: Lambic - Gueuze
Lembeek, Belgium

Golden with a lasting white head. Funky aroma dominated by grapefruit and leather. Dry and medium tart funky flavour with lots of oak and tannins

Bottled. Hazy deep golden coloured with a rather small fizzy head. Very nicely balanced with notes of barnyard, citrus and vinegar. Kinda smooth.

75cl bottle @ Delirium Cafe, Brussels. Pours clear golden with a fine creamy egg white head. Nose and taste is tart, crisp, wood, mouldy, cellar/matured. Smooth mouthfeel. Very nice!

Clear golden with medium white creamy notes. Sour aroma with woody and grapefruit notes. Sour flavour with woody, citric and brett notes. Finished sour. Creamy mouthfeel for a gueuze.

Bottled. Hazy pale amber coloured. Lots of citrus in the aroma. Nice barnyard notes. Not very sour, but refreshingly acidic. Light and fresh with some complexity.

Bottle at Delirium Café, Brussels. Pours reddish golden with a small dense egg white head. Aromas of bread, musty basement, citrus fruits and wood. Tart flavour with notes of wood, citrus, earth and spice. Dry and crisp. Very delicious!

A fine, refreshing and accessible gueuze that’s more classy than funky. 75 cL bottle pours a semi-hazy muddy orange color, decent off-white. Nose is lemony, with notes of must and herbs. Not that barny to me. Taste is moderately tart and lemony with a light, reasonably acidic bitterness and musty, earthy backdrop. Light, spritzy and dry. Looked handsome in a champagne flute and made a nice aperitif paired with some goat cheese.

Pale gold, coppery shine. Enormous head, collapsing, but more or less maintained by champenoise bubbling. Tart, "horseblanketty" nose, quite citrussy, lemony. Taste is tart at first, but with immediate background of cloying sweetness-malty flavour. This is NOT an "oude" gueuze, i.e. it contains a high percentage of top-fermenting ale. The beer wants to flare up, only to be flattened by the malt sugar. Some acidity, rather lemony, but suppressed. For a normal beer, this would be an exceptional flavour. For a gueuze, it's disappointing. Dekoninck (Gebrs., Dworp, nothing to see with the Antwerpen family brewers) were independent gueuzeblenders until the mid-eighties. Then, as so many, they reverted to sell beer, keeping their gueuze/kriek as a namesake, but contracting it out. First at Girardin, now at Fr. Boon - as so many again. Claiming whether this is the same as Boon geuze (not the "oude" or "Mariage Parfait"!) is impossible as with gueuze, 'tweaking' the blending is even easier as with ordinary ale. it reminds me of the "Sainsbury traditional Belgian ale" from the same source.