Lambic and Wild Ale

Jeff Sparrow’s Wild Brews: Beer Beyond the Influence of Brewer’s Yeast is a major contribution to the literature on lambic beer. In this book the author does not only discuss traditional lambic but Flanders red ale, Flanders brown ale, and contemporary (American) wild ale as well. If anything, this book is testament that spontaneous fermentation and brewing with other yeasts then Saccharomyces is not dead.

After being introduced by New Belgium’s Peter Bouckaert, the book starts off with the obligatory account of how the author became interested in the beers he  loves to write about. In this case the author is traveling in in Europe, ends up in Chez Moeder Lambic in Elsene, Belgium, orders a lambic “with some odd tropical fruit” and is told by the bartender to try Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus instead. This experience, and a later experience with a vintage bottle of Liefmans Goudenband (old recipe) set the stage for an enduring interest in the wild brews of Belgium.

The recovery of traditional lambic and the movement to brew wild ales in other parts of the world raises the obvious question if lambic can be brewed anywhere else than Brussels and the Payottenland. Brewer Frank Boon reportedly said “you can’t” but Cantillon’s Jean-Pierre Van Roy  believes that spontaneously fermented beer can be brewed  in other places in the world. These answers are not mutually exclusive. If lambic beers are defined as spontaneously fermented beers that are brewed in Belgium’s Payottenland, it is evident that lambics cannot be brewed in any other part of the world. If the defining character of lambic is true spontaneous fermentation, all bets are off. And if lambic is defined solely by its flavor profile, the character of lambics can be approached by controlled fermentation with non-traditional yeasts and bacteria. In his book 1990 “Lambic”,  Jean-Xavier Guinard argues persuasively that the temptation to ride on the popularity of lambics should be resisted and that this label only needs to be used for the traditional brews of the Payottenland. On the other hand, when brewers in other parts of the world employ the authentic traditional techniques such non-Belgium lambics could help to save the tradition from extinction.

Sparrow devotes some effort to distinguish between Flanders red ales (sour ales), Flanders brown ales  (oud bruin) and lambics. In the case of lambics such distinctions are clear but the attempt to distinguish red ales from brown ales looks more challenging.  One cannot just tweak a little with another beer style and get a lambic but the dividing line between the Flanders ales can appear quite arbitrary, although one could mention that the the presence of Acetobacter sp.  contributes to the more pronounced presence of acidic acid in the reds. But reading his account of the Flanders sour ales, it seems that these beers are more vulnerable to disappear than lambics. This is ironic because modern examples of such beers are produced in ways that would be considered taking lazy shortcuts by traditional lambic standards. This raises the question of how the production of a traditional Flanders sour ale be distinguished from a traditional lambic, a topic that is discussed at various points in the book.

The history of wild brews is covered in some detail, including a brief discussion of the American Wild Ale style. Sparrow expands on the history of lambic brewing given in Guinard. As the author states, “lambic can lay claim to being the oldest existing beer style in the world”, its first written documentation going back to around 1320. The most infamous lambic variant must be faro, “the beer which is drunk twice”, a characterization that dates from the time that waste-polluted Senne River water was used to brew this sweet lambic. Discussing the practice of blending and diluting lambics, the author notes that some hint  “that the founder of the Belle-Vue lambic brewery-pub in Brussels was not well respected and produced his lambic with help from beer discarded from other breweries and  returned from cafes.”

Although most lambics that are consumed today are gueuze and fruit lambics, one hundred years ago 90% to 95% of lambics were sold straight. Lambic brewers Cantillon and De Cam have bottled unblended aged lambic, but it is not likely that this style will catch on beyond locals, a small group of lambic connoisseurs and perhaps some adventurous wine drinkers any time soon. Sparrow mentions that traditional lambic brewers consider  the differences between lambic and wine and between Gueuze and Champagne very small. Quite remarkably, the author also mentions that in Eastern Brabant the traditional white (wit) beers were produced by spontaneous fermentation as well. Fruit and herbs were often used in the production to balance the sourness of the beer. The addition of herbs has remained a staple of Belgian white beers such as Hoegaarden but the tradition of spontaneous fermentation has been abandoned.

The third chapter about drinking wild beer has lot of information (including a number of maps) about most of the major existing producers of traditional lambics and wild ales and  makes the book quite useful as a reference. There are also interesting tidbits of information about the evolution of some brewers, which often means the transition from a traditional product to something with more mass appeal (such as the reduction of aged beer in Rodenbach Classic to make it sweeter). This chapter really shines in its description of the traditional lambic brewers; their formation, history and brewing approach. Sparrow’s description of 3 Fonteinen’s unorthodox “temperature controlled” barrel stores has taken a completely different meaning since the 2009 disaster that cost the brewery most of its years product and contributed to DeBelder’s decision to stop brewing and return to blending. The United States is also discussed and includes some interesting information on smaller experiments with wild ales around the country. Also featured, of course, is Russian River, the California brewery that has done a lot to promote sour ales in the United States and who can give many Belgium brewers a run for their money.

The technical treatment of lambic brewing covers much of the same ground as Jean-Xavier Guinard’s 1990 book on the topic but adds a lot of interesting details, photos (including microscopy images) and tables.  In the case of Sparrow’s book there is, of course, also the technical treatment of the production of Flanders reds and browns. Most impressive, and somewhat of a neglected topic in Guinard’s book, is the extensive discussion of the characteristics, selection and maintenance of barrels, an element of traditional lambic brewing that requires a lot of expertise, which further adds to the mystique of lambic brewing. In his discussion of barrel choice, the author mentions the ability of some lambic connoisseurs to detect the original use of a “new” barrel in a blend.  Breweries such as Belle-Vue, Cantillon, and Oud Beersel also use chestnut barrels in addition to oak.

The technical and procedural treatment of lambic is completed with a chapter about blending, and that of Gueuze blending in particular. As the author notes: “Gueuze blending is an art. The traditional gueuze blender expresses himself using a liquid media the same way a painter uses paint and canvas.”

Wild Brews is great book for  lovers of traditional lambic.  Highly recommended.

The Belgian beer blog Hier Stroomt het Bier! has an extensive photo report on the birth of a new Gueuze blender from Bierghes in the French speaking part of Belgium (Walloons). Brewer Pierre Tilquin, who has learned the skills of traditional lambic brewing at 3 Fonteinen and Cantillon, expects to release his first Gueuze in mid-2011.  Lambics are obtained from Boon, Lindemans, Girardin, and Cantillon (the first time this brewer is making its lambic available for blending) and will be aged in used Crozes-Hermitage of Cornas barrels.

Is this possible to make a lambic in the United States? This depends on the definition of what constitutes a lambic (brewing process or location) but the ongoing attempt by Allagash to use the usual ingredients, a cool ship, and  real spontaneous fermentation could do it. In the meantime,  some of the beers made by Russian River are coming closer in terms of brewing process and taste.  Few, if any, American wild ales have come as close to the smell and taste of an actual Belgian Geuze as Russian River’s Beatification.

Beatification is a blend of two vintages of a base beer called “Sonambic,” which are further blended with “a couple of other orphan beers” to change the mouthfeel of barrel aged beers or enhance its acidity. Beatification was aged for 8 to 15 months in old Oak Barrels (at least 5 years according to Russian River’s website) which impart little wine or oak notes to the beer. Its “spontaneous” character lies in the wild yeasts and bacteria which inhabit the barrels.  This method comes a lot closer to traditional lambic brewing than just adding a lambic or Flanders Red culture to the beer. Like traditional Geuze, Beatification undergoes a secondary fermentation in the bottle, which, as all the Russian River wild ale bottles, feature restrained and beautiful labels.

Because we did not have an opportunity to try this until a family member from California visited us, the beer that we tasted may have benefited from further aging after it was purchased in 2008.

The following notes were taken on Thursday, August 27, 2009:

Batch 003. 750 ml. Poured into a Cantillon Geuze glass.

Upon uncorking — lots of carbonation, foam came over the lip of the bottle.

Appearance: When pouring, half a finger of head which dissipated quickly. Blond / yellow beer, opaque.

Smell: Smells like a traditional Geuze. Cannot recall any American beer that smells so much like a lambic/Geuze. Brett, citrus (lemon), wheat.

Taste: Very tart, with a smooth finish. One of the strongest lemon notes I have ever tasted in a beer. Wheat. Alcohol is not very noticeable. A slight grapefruit note develops as it gets warmer.

Mouthfeel: Light. Moderate carbonation (just the right amount). Some astringency.

Drinkability: Extremely drinkable. Perhaps it is a good thing that the price prevents excessive consumption! A perfect beer to drink outside in warm weather.

One difference between Beatification and Geuze lambic that I detected is the reduced complexity in taste. In this case I am wondering whether this should be considered a defect because the bone dry and lemon-like taste is exceptional.   There are more complex Russian River wild ales but Beatification simply blows them away.  There is something to be said for alcoholic beverages that simply feature flawless execution of a specific flavor. More than one reviewer has compared Beatification to a very dry, tart white wine. In light of my preference for the dry and concentrated white wines from the Alsace region in France, this characterization does not surprise me.

Since this beer was so close in taste to a traditional Geuze it would be interesting to  use an analytical chemistry technique like chromatography on this beer to determine its chemical profile and compare it to traditional lambics and other wild ales.

After tasting Beatification there is no doubt in my mind that Americans can compete with the best traditional Lambic brewers if  instant gratification is suppressed and the temptation to sweeten the beer, the use of new oak , and excessive carbonation is discouraged. All these pitfalls have been avoided in Beatification.

Of all the wild ales that are currently available in the United States, Beatification ranks among the best.

On Saturday May 16th 3 Fonteinen’s Armand Debelder entered his storage place in Halle, Belgium and found that a failure of  the thermostat had allowed the temperature to rise from 16 degrees Celsius to around 60 (!) degrees Celsius for at least 36 hours. As a result, a small number of the fermenting bottles of geuze and kriek had simply exploded and others had started leaking. Upon tasting some of the intact bottles, DeBelder observed that the beer was slightly oxidized; still better than a lot of beers that can be found on the shelves, but not worthy of the name 3 Fonteinen.  As a consequence, close to 100,000 small bottles (50,000 liters of beer), had to be discarded.

Volunteers and supporters from different countries flocked to Halle to help Debelder uncork all the bottles by hand to save them for future use.  To salvage some of his investment (around 315,000 dollars), Debelder will be using the lambic from the intact bottles for distillation to produce a non-sweetened 40° eau de vie at Distillerie de Biercée in Tuin, which will be offered in small bottles of 50 cl.

Naturally, DeBelder is devastated about what happened but notes that the support from lambic supporters and other lambic breweries has been heartwarming. Please support 3 Fonteinen by purchasing its excellent products and the unique eau de vie upon release.

Dutch links:

Thermostaat vernielt productie 3 Fonteinen

Thermostaat verknoeit 50.000 liter lambiek (with video)

English Links:

Serious blow to Drie Fonteinen

Brief Update on Setback at Drie Fonteinen

The nature of producing Geuze makes it quite suitable to blend lambics from different brewers. As a matter of fact, in the old days some pub owners blended their own Geuze (or added their own fruit to create a fruit lambic), a tradition that has sadly disappeared as a result of the general decline of traditional lambic brewing. Fortunately, the practice of Geuze blending  still exists at “geuzestekers” like Hanssens in Dworp and, more recently, De Cam in Gooik.

It was only a matter of time before the traditional, and not always so traditional, lambic producers that make up Horal (the High Council for Artisanal Lambic beers) decided to release a beer with contributions from most Horal brewers and blenders: 3 Fonteinen, Boon, Timmermans, Oud Beersel, Lindemans, De Troch, De Cam and Hanssens. Missing from the list are Girardin and Mort Subite. Girardin is a member of Horal but generally tends to keep a lower profile and perhaps this played a part in its decision not to participate in the creation of this beer. One tour guide at Tour de Geuze 2009 speculated that Mort Subite (whose Oude Kriek indicates that it still can made a good beer if it wants to) may not have been allowed to participate by its new owner Heineken. Another brewery that did not participate is Cantillon but this should not be a surprise in light of Cantillon’s decision not to join HORAL because of its inclusion of breweries who have, let’s say, a lukewarm commitment to traditional lambic brewing.

Horal’s Oude Geuze Mega Blended was produced under the supervision of Frank Boon.  1, 2 and 3 year old lambics from the 8 collaborating brewers and blenders were collected in the summer of 2008.  The blend was bottled on October the 16th and released to the general public on the day of the Tour de Geuze, April 26, 2009.  Reportedly 16000 bottles were produced and all the bottles were numbered. The recommended sales price during the Tour de Geuze was 6 Euro. Bottle number 00001 was sold by Horal on Ebay on April the 20th for 255 Euro. As we discovered during the consumption of the Mega Blend, the recommendation on the bottle label to age this Geuze until 2011 is solid advice.

The following notes were taken on Friday, May 15, 2009:

Poured into a Cantillon Geuze glass.

Appearance: Golden, hazy, quite carbonated,  poured slowly but still had a two-finger thick head, remarkable lacing over the course of the entire beer.

Smell: Funky Brettanomyces  smell, but not overpowering. Missing some of the sharp, acidic characteristic smells of other Geuzes — very subdued. Smells sweeter as it gets warmer.

Taste: Mild, sweet-sour, lemon, somewhat astringent, little bitterness. Almost no aftertaste. Not too appealing when it approaches room temperature.

Mouthfeel: Rich carbonation, feels thicker/creamier as it goes down.

Drinkability: With a few notable exceptions, traditional Geuzes are always very drinkable. This one could have a bit more “bite” (more tartness) to it. Like most Boon products, excessive carbonation and foaming can be distracting.

Horal’s Oude Geuze Mega Blend is a decent Oude Geuze but seems to have left the brewer too early. On the other hand, some people may enjoy the taste of a young Geuze and the early release date enables lambic connoisseurs to taste the beer at various stages during its long life. An attempt will be made to age a bottle for 5 more years and revisit this beer in the future.

The name Horal’s Oude Geuze Mega Blend has been chosen to reflect the collaborative effort of 8 lambic brewers and blenders. But since a traditional Geuze requires the hand of a blender to make it all happen, one could argue that not all collaborators are equal and this is really a Boon product.  Only time will tell how this beer will compare against  Frank Boon’s best creation, Boon Oude Geuze Mariage Parfait.

Portland, Oregon, is considered one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, beer city in the United States. Even the average neighborhood deli or gas station has a greater selection of craft beers than the average supermarket in other cities.  Many people here have a healthy dislike of mass produced lagers and not a week goes by without interesting beer events. And, as can be expected, Portland brewers also have a strong commitment to organic brewing, as evidenced by brewpubs such as Hopworks and Roots.  So if Portland is Beervana, should it be easier to locate and drink traditional Belgium lambics in this town?

The answer to this question is YES. As I document in the The Portland Oregon Guide to Lambic and Gueuze Beers, there are quite a number of beer stores and pubs that sell traditional lambics.  To my knowledge all traditional Belgian lambic brews can be found in Portland with the exception of De Cam but this should not be surprising because to date De Cam is not available in the US at all. A lot rarer is finding traditional lambic on tap, but it occasionally happens, especially during the annual “Puckerfest” at Belmont Station. As a general rule, expect to pay for lambics in Portland. This does not only reflect the obvious fact that lambics need to be imported, but also the labor- and time-consuming  process of traditional lambic brewing itself, which further increases price.

Is Portland a great location for locally produced wild ales? In my opinion, NOT YET. Portland does not have the equivalent of a Russian River or Allagash brewery. To the extent that sour ales are produced in Portland they often are expensive one time seasonal experiments, stray too far from tradition, or leave the brewer with too much residual sugar. Although one cannot expect a Portland brewer to produce a traditional product like Cantillon Lou Pepe Gueuze without extensive knowledge, skill, and most of all, patience, there is no reason to assume there could not be a market for such beers in Oregon. And, like California, Oregon also has a strong wine culture and it is well established that traditional lambics are often found more appealing by wine drinkers than by beer drinkers.

Like traditional lambic, The Portland Oregon Guide to Lambic and Gueuze Beers is ALIVE. Please contact the author with updates, corrections, or information about events: lambicandwildaleATgmail.com

Traditional lambic brewers are among the few remaining producers of alchoholic beverages that  allow spontaneous fermentation and the unruly behavior of  bacteria and yeasts to influence their brews. Such practices have been increasingly rejected by modern brewers who want complete control and a consistent end product. This development is not the first step in the “domestication” of beer, as evidenced by the history of “gruit.” As Theodore Schick writes in “Beer and Gnosis: The Mead of Inspiration” (in the collection Beer and Philosophy: The Unexamined Beer Isn’t Worth Drinking):

In the fourteenth  and fifteenth centuries, many Europeans began to look askance at the lavish and hedonistic lifestyle of many church leaders. Their promotion of the highly inebriating gruit was emblematic of their decadence…So the movement toward hopped ale was in part an anti-drug movement. The passage of the German beer purity laws in 1516 which mandated the use of hops was a form of prohibition not unlike that passed by the US congress in 1919.

Because for hundreds of years all beers were brewed using spontaneous fermentation, there must have been beers that combined the sour character of the traditional lambic and the herbal characteristics of medieval gruit. A recent attempt to create such a beer is Old Odense Ale, a collaboration between Denmark’s Nørrebro Bryghus brewery and Delaware’s Dogfish Head. As has been highlighted before in the discussion about “barnyard IPA“, the use of wild yeasts does not have to be confined to lambic beers.

In his book Grape vs. Grain Charles Bamforth writes:

It is often not realized that, while some bottled beer was shipped, by far, the bulk of the beer sold to India was in casks, for bottling locally. Hop bitter acids by no means kill all organisms, and the most prolific inhabitant of those casks bouncing on the ocean waves was Brettanomyces. The typical flavor notes produced by this organism are “barnyard” or “mouse pee.”

The author continues to write that modern IPAs “happily, lack this touch of authenticity…..” But some traditional lambic brewers are experimenting with all malt brews and  fresh hops though. The best known available example is Cantillon’s Iris, which is made from 100% malted barley, 50% fresh hops (Styrian Goldings) and is “cold hopped” (dry hopped) before bottling. Because Iris does not contain wheat, this beer is not a lambic beer in the traditional sense of the word, but a spontaneously fermentented ale. Cantillon has even brewed an experimental concoction with fresh US Cascade hops. And in the United States, some innovating brewers are collaborating on “wild IPA” style beers.