What are spontaneous fermented beers ?
Belgian sour beers and beers brewed along their lines are among the most complex and appreciated beers in the world.
Taste , production & history
These beers go through a long maturation in which the wild yeasts and bacteria, as well as the maturation process, produce a wide variety of flavours, from fruity lemon and tropical fruits to farmhouse and phenolic clove. Each has a unique character thanks to its microflora. The traces can be sharp or astringent, but the best are balanced. The beers are dry and usually carbonated, with tannins from the wood rather than hop bitterness.
In the seventeenth century, the Benedictine monk Dom Pérignon discovered champagne-making by blending various non-sparkling white wines. A century later, a Brabant brewer mixed several lambics and caused a second fermentation in the bottle. The gueuze was born. Until the 19th century, the people of Brussels and Brabant drank mainly two beers, lambic and faro. The advent of the glass bottle and the contribution of Dom Pérignon were to revolutionise the small world of Brussels brewers. Gueuze henceforth became the symbolic beer of Brussels. A small group of brewers preserved the brewing process and in recent years breweries all over the world have started to copy the style.
Zwei Beispiele aus unserem grossen Sortiment.
Cantillon GUeuze 5.5 % Origine Bruxelles, Belgium
The amber beer shows notes sometimes reminiscent of earthy ripe cheese, hay, farm , but also of preserved lemon and sour fruit, as well as phenolic complexity - a beer full of flavour. the immediate onset of intense sourness is gradually tempered by combining cereal and fruitier notes as you drink. There are woody bitter pines and a refreshing carbonation.
Oude Geuze Boon 7 % , Lembeek , Belgium
Oude Geuze Boon is golden yellow with stable foam and abundant carbonation. It offers notes of fragrant floral lemon, berries and stone fruit and lively fruit acidity with grapefruit complexity, reminiscent of grapefruit pith in dryness and bitterness. It gets drier towards the end with wood, fir and herbaceous woody bitterness with pepper and lemon zest. The beer is wonderfully elegant with less phenomenon than Cantillon.
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