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“Anything but history, for history must be false.” 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, economics and other worthier fields [...] 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 dedicated band that [...] Gueuzerie Tilquin ABV: 4% 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 the last, low gravity, runnings from the [...] Gueuzerie Tilquin ABV: 5% 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 significant commercial success by following the lead [...] Great British Beer Festival 2011 ABV: 6% 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 — traditionally lambic brewers have used hops [...] 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 World varietal superplonk [...] Toer de Geuze 2011, Top Tastings 2011 ABV: 6% 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 casks at the Boon brewery during the Toer [...] Toer de Geuze 2011 ABV: 5% 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 summer in one of the Plzeňský Prazdroj [...] Toer de Geuze 2011 ABV: 5.7% 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 at Oud Beersel’s outdoor bar during the [...] Toer de Geuze 2011 ABV: 5.7% Lambic straight from the cask at De Troch, Wambeek Much of De Troch’s lambic ends up in its sweetened fruit beers which, if this rather fine example is anything to go on, is a great shame. Part of the pleasure of sampling it on the 2011 Toer de [...] |
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