Lambic, A topic of discussion…

Reads 15045 • Replies 101 • Started Monday, May 15, 2006 12:07:31 PM CT

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Message ClarkVV P beers 13457 º places 111 º 14:30 Wed 5/17/2006 I guess my biggest objection to SilkTork’s line of reasoning is that when you start to allow unrestricted development upon lambic, kriek, IPA, or whatever, you begin to lose sight of what it was initially about. If a candy-sweet alco-pop can be considered lambic, then why can’t a dark malted, spiced, heavily sweetened, highly bittering hopped beer be called a lambic? At some point it just gets silly. I think I’m just starting to repeat what Oakes is saying. But I guess what I think is really at heart of it, is that without some measure of control, and passion for "keeping with tradition" you begin to lose that style, as was seen with cask ale before CAMRA began its revival. I don’t think my argument is really panning out where I would have liked it to have, but let me ask you this, SilkTork: Do you think that just allowing beer to develop and evolve without Reinheitsgebots and CAMRAS is satisfactory? I certainly can see the point of view that Consumers will dictate what beers are produced and classifications are just secondary. BUT, without hard controls like "Appelation controlee" and reinheitsgebots and what not, styles that are appreciated by only a few would seem to disappear, because they would get driven out of the market by the preference of the masses. For example, does Lambic have enough support, currently, to survive in a capitalistic society, without help from appelation controlee laws? The small proportion of people that enjoy it and support it just may not have enough capital to support an expensive and low-profit industry that is lambic brewing. Obviously I’ve gone from theoretical to practical, but I think in the end, arguments must pertain to actual situations/economics, etc.
Message Joeh beers 2049 º places 49 º 15:01 Wed 5/17/2006 Originally posted by SilkTork What a final! Wow! Can Arsenal hold on now? Lol
Message ryan beers 3185 º places 13 º 15:39 Wed 5/17/2006 Originally posted by ClarkVV ... but I do think that beers that are not 100% should not be allowed to be called lambic. I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere. I have to disagree with this. If this was ever to be put into a legal definition of the style Lambic, how would you define spontaneous? If I take a barrel from Cantillon and put my beer into it, is that spontaneous? If I take a culture of the bacteria in Cantillon’s beers and spread it throughout my brewery and allow that bacteria to inoculate my wort, is that spontaneous? Is that really any different than what occurs "spontaneously" at Cantillon? What if the natural mix of bacteria present in these breweries was to change and they had to artificially make adjustments? If they added a pure culture of Brettanomyces Lambicus to one of their barrels, would they lose their Lambic status permanently? I worry more about a pasteurized, sweetened, alco-pop being called Lambic, than a brewer adding a pure culture from White Labs to aid Mother Nature. It is possible that using a very strict definition of Lambic, that one day no beer will be able to wear the name. It’s nice to see Lambic getting all of this attention

Message BuckNaked beers 1230 º places 28 º 15:41 Wed 5/17/2006 Originally posted by SilkTork My comments initially were about Shelton’s historical research, but I’ve been drawn into the wider discussion on the nature of lambic. I’m thinking here, but I’m still missing the essential point of the objection. Wow I haven’t checked into this thread in a day or so and it explodes. My initial objection (which you might not be referencing since that was many pages ago) was your almost immediate dismissal of his ideas, and then later calling his writing nonsense. I hear what you’re saying - he makes a claim and doesn’t provide the best factual backing. But that doesn’t mean that he is making excited, spittle spraying claims, writing nonsense, or not a beer historian, as you say. It’s these insulting comments that bother me, NOT a post disagreeing with Dan Shelton. It may not be necessarily clear whether he’s objecting to the NTY article, discussing his opinion on what makes good lambics, or attempting to define and defend the term "traditional lambic". I took it to be the first in a series of articles ("part one" in the title clued me in) that will discuss lambics with the goal being to define and defend the term "traditional lambic". Yes it is an artificial, made-up term. I wanted to point out that making use of a term like that was no different than talking about what constitutes a true "scottish ale" or "IPA". I understand that every brewer in Scotland did not go to a brewers conference and decide "ok guys, here’s what we’re brewing for the next couple hundred years". Calling a style "scottish ale" is not necessarily historically or geographically correct but it allows us to have discussions about beer and know what the other guy is talking about. Otherwise we’re stuck discusing specific breweries, locales, methods, history, and technology without getting anywhere. I want to hear his case for "traditional lambic" and then see if this term is worth using in a similar fasion.
Message SilkTork P beers 7752 º places 111 º 15:54 Wed 5/17/2006 Originally posted by ClarkVV let me ask you this, SilkTork: Do you think that just allowing beer to develop and evolve without Reinheitsgebots and CAMRAS is satisfactory? More than satisfactory. I think it is essential. I see no benefit from restrictive controls, other than observing the imaginative ways that brewers will use to get around the controls.
Message mdi beers 573 º places 15 º 17:35 Wed 5/17/2006 Originally posted by SilkTork Originally posted by matt_dinges but its more than flavor that is the issue. I agree that people should not be misled and given false information (which is where I came in to this debate, because it appeared to me that Shelton was misleading people and giving out false information) - but at what point are people being misled about lambic? Well, one issue is the way Lindeman’s beers are labled in the US...with a nice story about the tradition of spontaneous fermentation and the use of fruits... But in reality, real lambic is only a portion of the beer, artificial flavors are added, ect...this seems more than misleading to me. Cheers matt
Message SilkTork P beers 7752 º places 111 º 17:47 Wed 5/17/2006 Originally posted by BuckNaked Calling a style "scottish ale" is not necessarily historically or geographically correct but it allows us to have discussions about beer and know what the other guy is talking about. This is a slight deviation from the discussion, but it’s interesting and related. Part of the problem with the nature of beer styles - even (or maybe especially) going back to Michael Jackson’s early writings - is that once an observation is made it becomes limiting, excluding and self-supporting. A little line is drawn. And beers are seen to fall inside or outside of that line. And efforts are then made to keep beers within the limits of the definition. The beers are made to toe the line. Yet, the line was originally drawn up as an observation of the beer, not as a requirement. The style description becomes a prison. I should add here, because I am sometimes misunderstood and my words are taken to extremes, that I use style descriptors myself. I enjoy the nature of style descriptors. I am not against style descriptors. I am just making an observation of some of the limitations and flaws inherent in the nature of style descriptors. So, while "Scottish Ale" or Guinness may be a useful shorthand for a particular flavour of beer - it can also be a means to blind us to both the range and at the same time the similarity of a whole area of beer. My stance is not to take the nature of style descriptors to the extreme. My stance is not to be too rigid. And that is my view here in this debate. I am simply: A) Concerned about the notion of a rigid view of lambic, especially a view which values lack of progress and development. and B) Uncertain why sweet lambics may no longer be termed lambic. Objecting to sweet lambics being termed lambic would be the same as saying that French ciders should no longer be termed cider because they use the keeving process to arrest fermentation - resulting in a sweet low abv cider. It’s a different process. Resulting in a different form of cider. One that some people may not like. But it’s still cider. And that’s what is fascinating. If a Shelton or a Matta wrote an article saying that we shouldn’t call French cider cider because it’s an insult to English cider I would question that article in the same way that I am questioning the notion that sweet lambics shouldn’t be called lambic. Going even further than French cider, we have commercial cider which doesn’t even use cider apples. It fact doesn’t use apples at all, but apple juice which is pasteurised and then fermented with a controlled yeast. The end result may be very different to English dry farmhouse cider. But it is still cider. It is not a cup of tea or hot bovril. And people who drink this commercial cider may go on to explore farmhouse cider. The commercial cider keeps an interest alive in traditional cider. And it could well be that sweet lambic keeps the dry lambic alive.

Message SilkTork P beers 7752 º places 111 º 18:04 Wed 5/17/2006 Originally posted by matt_dinges Originally posted by SilkTork Originally posted by matt_dinges but its more than flavor that is the issue. I agree that people should not be misled and given false information (which is where I came in to this debate, because it appeared to me that Shelton was misleading people and giving out false information) - but at what point are people being misled about lambic? Well, one issue is the way Lindeman’s beers are labled in the US...with a nice story about the tradition of spontaneous fermentation and the use of fruits... But in reality, real lambic is only a portion of the beer, artificial flavors are added, ect...this seems more than misleading to me. Cheers matt I enjoyed the Lindeman’s lambics that I have drunk. And I understand that they are made with lambic - there is certainly a lambic flavour in there. I think there is a degree of marketing in the blurb on all beers. And if Lindeman are using lambic then they are not being misleading. Misleading is a brewer saying they use "the finest ingredients" - a common statement on beers which we all take for granted. Misleading is claiming an American IPA belongs to a heritage which it does not. Misleading is claiming an American Scottish Ale belongs to a heritage which it does not. I should point out that I don’t hold too firmly to this view. I just don’t see the strength of an argument that certain lambics should be called lambic, while others should not, because some people prefer their beers to be dry.
Message Schroppfy beers 2362 º places 13 º 19:13 Wed 5/17/2006 Originally posted by SilkTork B) Uncertain why sweet lambics may no longer be termed lambic. Objecting to sweet lambics being termed lambic would be the same as saying that French ciders should no longer be termed cider because they use the keeving process to arrest fermentation - resulting in a sweet low abv cider. It’s a different process. Resulting in a different form of cider. One that some people may not like. But it’s still cider. And that’s what is fascinating. If a Shelton or a Matta wrote an article saying that we shouldn’t call French cider cider because it’s an insult to English cider I would question that article in the same way that I am questioning the notion that sweet lambics shouldn’t be called lambic. Going even further than French cider, we have commercial cider which doesn’t even use cider apples. It fact doesn’t use apples at all, but apple juice which is pasteurised and then fermented with a controlled yeast. The end result may be very different to English dry farmhouse cider. But it is still cider. It is not a cup of tea or hot bovril. And people who drink this commercial cider may go on to explore farmhouse cider. The commercial cider keeps an interest alive in traditional cider. And it could well be that sweet lambic keeps the dry lambic alive. 1) Did I read Shelton say "Don’t buy sweet lambics!"? Nope I don’t think I did. 2) I guess, Steve, that you think it’s OK to call cider when it doesn’t even have apple juice in it. How much apple juice would it have to be called cider, in any country? 3) It is not an automatic assumption that sales of sweet lambic do anything either way to sales or real lambic, is it? Have you surveyed consumers? - thus there may or may not be any posssible way Shelton’s piece is all that conflicty of interest, maybe, but not definitely. Perhaps they hurt the sals of real lambic, who knows? Steve, one can respect creativity across beer styles and wish for it to flourish and still actually believe it’s ok for there to a style designation for something I could walk into a bar and get next week, called "lambic" and something called "gueuze", right? One can hold both opinions...quit being so overdichotomizing. Oakes’ comments a couple pages back are on target.
Message mullet beers 849 º places 230 º 19:35 Wed 5/17/2006 Originally posted by ClarkVV Girardin is only "mostly traditional" because it does not use a 3 year old lambic in its blend of the gueuze. This makes the flavor much more round and approachable. Though I don’t know why Dan would be bothered by this, since a number of Cantillons are only "mostly traditional" (lou pepe line, cuvee des champions, etc). I recall Dan Shelton making the same claim about Girardin Gueuze when that whole shitfight at BA went on, so I went and flipped through LambicLand and it said that the black label gueuze now carries the appelation "oude gueuze," which I assume means that there is some three year-old lambic in it. But yesterday I received a bottle of this beer and the word "oude" does not appear. So does it meet the criteria for oude gueuze or not?