Hanssens Oude Gueuze

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

Skunky barnyard aroma with rotting fruity, tart / sour acids, smells like an easter show! Hazy amber with lasting white head. Sweet start followed by a skunky mid with tart acidic sour finish. Nice stuff.

Very tasty Gueze, helped make up my mind on the whether or not this is a style for me or not. I now think it is. My first experience with cantillion was terrible, and i now believe it was a bad bottle, it was especially hard to tell after reading other ratings where they described the beer as near exact to what i was tasting, without being good. But this beer was definitly fantastic. Nice apple/fruit aroma and taste. Sour to a near perfect point, and actually funky. Wasnt sure what that meant until I was fully indulged in this brew. Same thing goes for cobwebs, basement, barnyard, and leather all notes previously mentioned that nearly turned me off to this beer. But actually its all there and makes for a hell of a beer. Definitly a style i will look foward to trying more of in the future

Bottle at Delirium Cafe, Brussels. Gueuze orange (luminous), with a long-lasting, short, fluffy head. Ooh! I’m getting the hang of this Gueuze thang - and this is really nice stuff. Sour yes, especially on the finish, but has a weighty citric power throughout. Heady brew - slightly sticky, but superb.

Hazy orange with a white head. Aroma of lemon and earth. Feel is on the light side, and is heavily carbonated (as expected). Flavor is very tart, with lime in the finish. Not very complex. Finish is not as dry as in most gueuzes.

Copenhagen beer marathon 2004. Golden color, heavy SOUR funky aroma and taste, ful body, sour finish.

Horse-blanket, leather, musty, cheese-like aromas with an almost sweet undertone. Murky and opaque orange-tan coloured body with small white head that diminishes to ring. Fruit, malt, and floral tones play off each other nicely in the aroma with an omnipresent tartness. Dry in the mouth and puckering on the edges of the tongue. Bottle enjoyed with beerbuzzmontreal, MartinT, Rastacouere and a gang of bierophoux. Fresh batch received from Bièropholie in late summer 2006 approaches perfection especially at or near room temperature. Original score 9-3-8-4-17=4.1.

Cloudy golden-orange. Gentle white ring. Gueuzes scent can be smelled from far. Probably the most expressive cheese aromas I’ve experienced. Incredibly funky, horsey, sweaty, leathery, plastic-like even. Cider, basement, cobwebs notes etc. Superb yeast development. Fairly adequate malt base reminds of honey hence it’s not all about sourness. Truly a top echelon gueuze that does everything right and more. One I’d keep a stash of, this and cuvée rené. Dry oaky palate with loads of yeast complexities. Cider like dryness develops toward the acidic funky finish. FUNKY. I love it. Medium to full body, low-medium carbonation. How can you not admire a product that presents all those flavors that would be considered of in basically almost any other style with such gracious eccentricity and agility is something I can’t understand. Underated.

I’ve come to realize that this is one very irregular lambic. Where some bottles have been the funkiest gueuze examples I’ve had, others seem middle of the pack, so I have to reconsider my previous stamement, but I’m leaving the score of my first experiences. Let’s say this scores 4.5 on a great day, 4.1 on average and 3.6 on a particularly bad day.

Aroma of oak and fruit. Winey. Rubber in the nose. But when smelling from the glass instead of the bottle rubber seems gone. Slightly hazy, golden-orange coloured with a large whithe, frothy, lasting head. Taste is sweet, sour/tart. Tartness evolves towards the finish. Winey, fruity (citrus, grapes). oak. Some honey notes who make this beer quite pleasant. Still I have this feeling there is something missing. I guess it is lacking some complexness. Balance is good. Dry palate, just a little sticky.