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Lambic Digest V1 #051
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Subject: lambic-digest V1 #51
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lambic-digest Wednesday, 1 April 1998 Volume 01 : Number 051
Some good news...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mark Gryska <mgryska at javanet.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 22:32:10 -0500
Subject: Some good news...
Hi All,
I've been putting off writing a trip report waiting for my jet lag to
go away and recuperate from my trip or perhaps from my return home. As
always I had a wonderful time in Belgium drinking the excellent beers
that really are best enjoyed at the source IMHO. Anyhow, some good news
for lovers of lambic... evidently Jean Hanssen's daughter is going to
keep the family tradition alive by following in her father's footsteps.
This is very significant because as many of you can imagine the time and
effort required to produce Gueze and other lambic beers, not to mention
the learning process that goes into this undertaking. Also, once the
barrels and environment are lost they are gone forever. I also learned
of some younger folks in Belgium that are starting a lambic brewery
(sorry I didn't get the names). I also learned that Drie Fontainen will
be expanding production and maybe someday we will see some of Armand's
gueze here in the states. I can assure you that his gueze is simply
marvelous ;)
One of the things that I noticed while at Cantillion was that their
gueze seemed less sour than in the past, some other members of our group
felt the same. Is is that the makers of gueze are tempering their
production to make a softer product or perhaps it happens to be the
prevelant conditions??? El Nino? Armand at Drie Fontainen has switched
over from the old cloth and wooden bung to a rubber stopper with an
airlock. He keeps his barrels topped off as they age by drawing from a
smaller barrel(s). I recall that Jean Pierre at Cantillion remarked that
as much as 1/3 of the contents of a pipe is lost to
evaporation/overflow where the barrels are not topped off. As much of a
crap shoot as lambic brewing/blending seems to be the brewers/blenders
share many of the same practices that a plain old brewery does...
sanitation, protecting the product from oxidation, etc. There aren't any
hard and fast rules but sensible brewing practices are not disregarded.
Last but not least there are some recent changes in the way gueze may
be labelled. A true gueze will be labelled something like "oud gueze"
which means that the beer is 100% from 1,2,3 year old lambic. (This is
opposed to some "industrial" gueze that may be a little as 10% aged
lambic.) The labelling is meant as an appelation so that the consumer
will know exactly what he or she is buying. Quite frankly, I always look
for the bottles that have a swash of whitewash on the side that are
covered with cobwebs and dust. I don't suppose the BATF has anything
against that do you ;) (PS A helpful hint... when aging those bottles
avoid a damp cellar because they are more likely to go 'off' on you)
- mg
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End of lambic-digest V1 #51
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