They say…

Des de Moor
Best beer and travel writing award 2015, 2011 -- British Guild of Beer Writers Awards
Accredited Beer Sommelier
Writer of "Probably the best book about beer in London" - Londonist
"A necessity if you're a beer geek travelling to London town" - Beer Advocate
"A joy to read" - Roger Protz
"Very authoritative" - Tim Webb.
"One of the top beer writers in the UK" - Mark Dredge.
"A beer guru" - Popbitch.
Des de Moor

Ads


From the cellar: Cantillon Iris 1996

Cantillon Iris

ABV: 5% Origin: Anderlecht, Brussel Website: www.cantillon.be Date: 18 September 2000

Another review from the archive written for the pioneering Oxford Bottled Beer Database (OBBD). I’ve left it uncorrected — so please read it in that historical spirit. Iris has since become a relatively regular part of Cantillon’s range: it’s very highly […]

Brewing’s disputed histories

“Anything but history, for history must be false.” Robert Walpole (1676-1745)

Old mash tun — though probably not 200 years old — at Lindemans, Vlezenbeek.

Beer culture is a form of popular culture, and suffers similarly from a less than scrupulous approach to its history. Authoritative histories of high art, politics, […]

Gueuzerie Tilquin: Lambic across the language boundary

Gueuzerie Tilquin

There are few circles of brewing so exclusive that most serious beer enthusiasts could recite their membership from memory. One is the roll call of Trappist breweries, currently seven strong (though shortly to increase to nine). Another, slightly longer, is the list of artisanal lambic producers in and around Brussels, the […]

Boon Meerts (Tilquin)

Gueuzerie Tilquin

ABV: 4% Origin: Lembeek, Vlaams-Brabant, Vlaanderen Website: www.gueuzerietilquin.be, www.boon.be

Wooden former wine barrels at Gueuzerie Tilquin

Meerts is something of a forgotten member of the lambic family, though a couple of centuries ago it was ubiquitous in the historic brewing region. It’s the spontaneously fermented equivalent of small beer, made with […]

Lindemans Oude Lambik 2 jaar oud (Tilquin)

Gueuzerie Tilquin

ABV: 5% Origin: Vlezenbeek, Vlaams-Brabant, Vlaanderen Website: www.gueuzerietilquin.be, www.lindemans.be

Brewhouse at Lindemans, Vlezenbeek

The Lindeman family began brewing lambic as a sideline on their cereal farm at Vlezenbeek, just outside Brussels, in 1809, and only finally gave up farming to concentrate on beer in 1950. In the 1980s the brewery achieved […]

Boon / Revelation Cat 3 year old Marsala Lambic

Great British Beer Festival 2011

ABV: 6% Origin: Lembeek, Vlaams-Brabant, Vlaanderen (matured in Roma, Italy)

Revelation Cat Craft Brewing

Rome-based gyspy brewer Alex Liberati has been doing some strange stuff with unblended lambics from Boon and Girardin over the past few years. I wasn’t convinced by his single hop dry hopped lambics — […]

Toer de Geuze 2011

Banner for the Toer de Geuze 2011 on display at 3 Fonteinen.

Snobbery aside, there are some potentially defensible grounds on which to build a case that making wine is a higher field of human endeavour than making beer. Winemakers squeeze the maximum complexity and variety from the minimum of means. From New […]

Boon Oude Lambik 3 jaar oud

Toer de Geuze 2011, Top Tastings 2011

ABV: 6% Origin: Lembeek, Vlaams-Brabant, Vlaanderen Website: www.boon.be

Traditional lambic crocks and samples at Boon, Lembeek

On very rare occasions I taste a beer that’s so extraordinary it sends my rating system off the scale, and this, sampled direct from one of the gigantic oak […]

Cam Lambiek 1 jaar oud

Toer de Geuze 2011

ABV: 5% Origin: Gooik, Vlaams-Brabant, Vlaanderen Website: www.decam.be

De Cam brewery and museum, Gooik

De Cam is a blender rather than a brewery, buying in lambics from Boom, Girardin and Lindemans, so I’ve no idea where this beer was actually brewed, but it was matured for at least one […]

Oud Beersel Oude Lambik 1 jaar oud (Boon)

Toer de Geuze 2011

ABV: 5.7% Origin: Lembeek/Beersel, Vlaams-Brabant, Vlaanderen Website: www.oudbeersel.com

Appropriately decorated window at Oud Beersel, Beersel

Brewed at Boon in Lembeek to former Vandervelden brewery recipes, the Oud Beersel lambics are tanked to Beersel to undergo maturation and blending. I assume this one, served from a bag in a box […]