Hanssens Oudbeitje

Brewed by Hanssens Artisanaal
Style: Lambic - Fruit
Dworp, Belgium

Bottle poured a clear copper with a red tint and a very minimal off white head. Aromas of apple, vinegar and a hint of strawberry. Palate was light bodied and tart. Flavors of tart citrus, straw, light strawberry and a hint of barnyard with a crisp lingering tart finish.

Honey gold color with a faint white head. Tart cherry and strawberry in the head with some faint muskiness. Sour head withe ripe strawberry followed by a barnyard finish.

Pours a fairly clear pilsner like golden with a minimal white head. Slight hints of tart cherry with a hint fo strawberry like sweetness, as well as a good dose of horse blanket, barnyard, and a heavy dose of an apricot like sweetness. Great sour edge with a nice dose of ripe fruit and an abundance of grassy like earthiness. A wonderful lambic that has a tad bit too much leather and horse blanket and not enough tart fruit.

Bottle, 37,5 cl. Golden colour with almost no head. Fuity aroma, not that funky. Sour fruity flavour, and yes, I can feel the strawberries.

Bottle, 37,5 cl. Amber colour, small white head. Sour yeast aroma. Flavour = little sweet strawberry. Sourness taste is just perfect. A great beer.

2000: Clear straw yello with a little bit of orange. Very sour aroma with a bit of strawberry. Taste is very sour up front. Has just a bit of syrupy sweetness to it. Very good, but not great.

“Not with a bang but a whimper” – T.S. Eliot. It’s a regrettable quote to attach to a corked beer, but it happened nonetheless. I pulled the cork out of the bottle with relative ease, and heard not a satisfying pop, but a pathetic wheeze. I paused for a moment to consider whether this was an ill-omen, a guarantee of a tainted beer, or whether it might be the strange intent of the brewery. It could have been the diligent decision of a master craftsman peering into his vats of brew, or it may have been an unfortunate turtle on a road that caused a truck carrying beer shipments to jump a bit too much. The appearance, at least, seemed unharmed. There were no patches of bacterial colonies or fungal islands floating about - just a nice hazy amber color refracting a comforting orange glow. Anxiety returned swiftly when I smelled pure and abundant sourness, unaccompanied and unrestrained. My nose suffered the duress of the besieging acerbity, at last developing enough of an immunity to detect a little bit of sweet-tart in the aroma. Then it succumbed to the dominant generic sourness once more. The tongue was next to suffer the assault, wailing with the same complaint of barbaric, screeching sourness. It’s a kind of tang that doesn’t belong to any fruit, or any other flavor I can think of. Beseeching the vast corners of my mind I scoured for something to associate with the sourness, but found nothing. It is a gray, lifeless sourness, decorated slightly with the sugary sweet sensation of fruit lollipops. An artificial cherry and watermelon blend give the flavor profile the only character, dousing itself in an ironic twist of blandness and unrelenting pain. Giving it some time to vent some of its acidic fury, and a little more time to come down to the room’s natural climate helps to tame it a bit, but all it does is convert some of the industrial, bland sourness to a sweet vinegar flavor which is many times better but still not satisfying by itself. It was a disappointing experience, but I suspect that the woody top and its quick surrender may be the source of this beer’s woe and misfortune. A re-tasting will be in order.

Light brown colour, small white bubbly head. Aroma of strawberries and sour yeast. Sweet strawberry flavour, but not the oversugared palate as found in most fruit beers. Interesting mix of strawberry and sourness! 7 year old version: Strong yeasty initial aroma. Only very light strawberry aroma. Orange colour, no head. Small floating particles. Thick flavour, quite sugary, light spices, strawberry, hints of geuze yeast in the finish. Nice and easy to drink flavour, but lost some of its strength. Ar 8 / Ap 3 / Fl 8 / Pa 3 / Ov 14 / Tot 3.6