The Art of Lambic

Back in 2006 the brewers from each of the breweries listed above took a trip to Belgium together and tasted through as many Geuze lambics they possible could and searched for the secret tricks of this very complex and difficult to make style of Belgian sour beer.

Geuze lambics are traditionally made with indigenous wild yeast cultures that create some extremely interesting, and, at first glance, ‘off’ flavours. In other words, if these yeasts were used in wine the result would be disgusting.

Through history and accident, however, a great brewer can tame the beast of the wild yeasts and create one of the world’s most interesting beers.

These bold Americans decided to take on the challenge on their home turf.

Mastery and Collaboration

It was understandably difficult for five brewers of the stature involved in this project to get together and brew something at Tomme Arthur’s Lost Abbey brewery near San Diego. However, I am thankful they finally managed to do so four years ago and that Tomme’s master plan for this beer came to fruition.

The idea was to get four oak barrels sent from each of the five breweries along with yeast indigenous to that particular brewery. Then, the brewers would get together at the Lost Abbey brewery and blend the various components together in order to make a Gueze style beer unlike any other that had been made before.

The Greatest Sour Beer in the United States?

This beer tops the list of sour beers that I’ve had. Only Russian River manages to get to this level, but they don’t make anything quite like the Isabelle Proximus. It has the cellar-like and yeasty aromas you expect from a Geuze, but everything is under extreme control and I would even call the beer poised.

The sourness, unlike many lambics, is not overwhelming and in fact is balanced incredibly well with the oak and some secondary fruit characteristics brought from the used oak barrels. These fruit notes come from the Festina oak barrels that were provided by Dogfish Head. The Festina beer is made with ripe peaches and it is amazing to see how the fruit notes are carried by the oak into a separate beer and how well these flavours integrated into the overall balance of the beer.

This is something you should drink slowly and out of a wine glass. It is a remarkable creation and I would not hesitate to call it a masterpiece of the art of brewing. It is too bad that this beer was only made once. I aged this in my cellar for 2 years before drinking.

Excellent+
$40 at Lost Abbey Night at Toronado SF during San Francisco Beer Week 2008.

So for any wine lovers out their who foreswear off beer, you would be surprised to learn how well beer pairs with food – often, with certain foods, far outshining its grape-based counterpart. The problem in the past has been a real lack of very high quality craft beers in the province and a true diversity of styles. This is now changing, and will continue to improve over the next couple of years. The momentum we are now seeing in craft beer has moved from the province offering a very basic range of styles from basic stouts, brown ales and lagers to a scene now where we have wheat beers, bocks, imperial stouts, a full range of Belgian beer styles, barley wines, and, now, the hottest beer style right now: sour ales. The upcoming Vancouver Craft Beer Week is the perfect opportunity for wine lovers to delve into this world.

For this tasting I chose to begin with a legend from Belgium making “lambic” style wines that are extremely dry. I discovered this producer – Cantillon – and this beer – Rose de Gambrinus – when down in California and I was struck by its intense and pure expression of natural tasting fruit without any hint of sweetness. Luckily for us BC beer drinkers these beers are being brought into the province now by Raincity brands, and will be available at your favourite craft beer store (Viti, Firefly, Brewery Creek, etc.) sometime in May. This particular beer was fermented with raspberry and tasted like a pure expression of the aroma and character of the fruit. We paired this with a wonderful St. Andre cheese and the coupling was out of this world – sort of like a complex and more sophisticated version of brie and cranberries. A truly outstanding marriage of flavours.

The next wine on the list is from one of the most sought after series in the craft beer world: the De Proef Brewmaster’s Collection. The concept here is for top brewers in the United States to collaborate with brewmaster Dirk Naudis of De Proef to make a beer brewed only once. Each year the guest brewer changes. The Van Twee Belgian Ale is the third in the series and is made with the brewer from Bells Brewing. Each year the style also changes to reflect the brewer’s tastes and so that each beer can contain an ingredient from the guest brewer’s home state. The Van Twee is a Belgian dark ale brewed with cherries and it was absolutely fantastic, maintaining the consistent quality this collaboration series has brought to the table. Supremely well balanced, full in flavour and nuance and yet not heavy on the palate and with good freshness and a long finish. The cherries provide a nice fruit lift and the dark ale underbelly actually has some stout-like characteristics and roasted malt flavours. Unfortunately this is only available in the United States right now, but if you are ever down in Seattle, Portland, or SF seek out the Brewmaster’s Collaboration series and you will not be disappointed.

The third beer, moving on to the first of two dessert courses, is Brooklyn’s Monster Ale, a beer made in the barley wine style, which tends to have a particular style of heavy malt flavours like caramel and butter, high alcohol and a lot of richness. However, this particular Monster Ale is vintage 2007, which is about as young as I’d like to drink most barley wines, as the age tames the aggressiveness of both the alcohol and the hops. The real revelation here, though, was how stunningly perfect it is to pair barley wine with crème brulée. Don’t take my word for it, try it for yourself. I’m not sure any wine pairing could exceed this. The Brooklyn is available in most of the fine beer stores in the province, on a seasonal basis.

The first of two stouts is also available in the province and is fairly easy to acquire – the North Coast Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout. This was one of the first RIS’s I got into many years ago and while I think it is good now, I also believe that it becomes far more interesting with a little age. This particular bottle was about a year old, which again helped the alcohol integrate with the rest of the flavours and brought out more richness in flavour and a more velvety mouthfeel.

The last stout is one of Michigan based Founders Brewing famous beers – the Breakfast Stout – a beer made in the style of an oatmeal stout, but with coffee and chocolate brewed in. This was also about a year old. The beer stood up to the hype and presented a full range of flavour and nuance balanced together with pure textural pleasure and a wonderful aromatic profile. This stout has it all and it is far more balanced than most ‘big’ stouts out there (I think it is around 8% ABV). Unfortunately, this beer is only available in the American Midwest. As with the previous beer, this was designed for drinking with a piece of dark bitter chocolate.

So I hope that this journey through a range of beers and styles offered enough intrigue to get you out to one of next week’s Vancouver Craft Beer Week events. I’m attending at least three, and if I didn’t have to work I’d be at many more. I highly recommend you check it out, even if you think you only like wine. Beer is the wine lover’s great missed opportunity.

Lucky for me, the last time I was in San Francisco, I stopped by Healthy Spirits, an awesome beer store in the Castro district, and found a bottle of this taunting me with its simple beauty. So yes, like any faithful beer geek I picked up a bottle.

I opened this a few months later, and found it to be one of the best Geuze style lambics I have had the fortune to taste. The nose has the classic notes of must, funk, damp cellar, oak, wood, and some dried fruits. This is very expressive aromatically and has crazy nuances that newer Geuzes just don’t reveal.

The palate had citrus, dried apricot, wood, forest, and pine needles all mashed together in a very robust, and yet low alcohol, potion of goodness. The beer was smooth, slightly off-dry and had great complexity. In the end, it confirmed the legend – a rare and singular offering. If you ever see one of these beers pick it up immediately, you will not be disappointed.

Excellent
$15 / 375ml at Healthy Spirits

However, even with all the excellent sours being made in the US, it is nice to go back to the source and try a traditional blended unflavoured geuze lambic (made from aged and young lambic and no added fruit). Further, given BC’s severe lack of microbrews and interesting beers, it is nice to see a properly made (i.e. sour) gueze lambic on the shelves in the province.

This particular lambic had a nose with bread, funk, green apple, dry lager yeast, lemon and spice. The palate is sour, but also balanced with funky earth, must, bread and a ton of yeast flavours (kind of like rising bread smell). While not for all, this is a beer that anyone with an adventurous palate should taste and it is certainly an excellent authentic version of the Belgian lambic. And, as an added bonus, it pairs brilliantly with stilton cheese.

Excellent
$9/375ml at Viti or Brewery Creek