Beer of the Week - Lindemans Cuvée René

When I heard the LCBO had brought in Lindemans Cuvée René from Belgium, I was excited. I had only had it once at the Bier Markt when I spent an afternoon a year and a half ago sampling lambic beers.

It was not available in Ontario at the LCBO until recently and so I am very happy to be trying this today. I asked Teena to join me and to give me her impression.

Yeast was not discovered until sometime in the mid 1800s. Up until then nobody really knew what gave beer its alcoholic bump. Once discovered, brewers have been developing thousands of different strains of yeast to use in their brews.

Before the discovery, beermakers would leave there brew, or wort, uncovered, out in the open, not realizing that airborne yeasts were falling into their recipe, which reacted with the sugars already there and made their beer into beer.

There are now only 7 breweries in the world which make beer the old way. Six are in Belgium, including Lindemans. Today the wort is left in open air vessels called cool ships to pick up the airborne yeasts. Lindemans' cool ship is pictured to the right.

Cuvée René is what is called Gueuze.

"The height of the blender's art is the production of gueuze, a blending of lambics from casks that are at least one and three years old. This blending creates an additional fermentation in the corked bottle, as the yeasts alive in the aged lambic eat the sugars present in the young lambic. The result is a slightly higher alcohol beer (an average of 6 % alcohol by volume versus 5 % for other lambics) and, most important, carbonation."

Time for us to give it a try.

The bottle is capped and when we both opened our bottles were surprised to find it was also corked. Not surprising as there is a fair bit of pressure in the bottle. The beer pours light amber in colour with lots of aroma and a very active head.

From here I wish to go to Teena's experience first.

She was quite surprised at how active the head was when she poured hers. She took the first sip as if it was a regular beer. She found it a surprising strong sour taste. From there, she decided it was better to sip it as you would a wine. She found the Cuvée René had a different feel about it and enjoyed the bubbly champagne experience. When it came to the taste, it reminded her of a dill pickle, a briny kind of taste. Blindfolded she would not know what it was and would have guessed a wine product and definitely not a style of beer. Even though it is only rated at 5.5% APV, she could feel the alcohol content. Enjoyable to have one but would not want any more.

Like Teena, the sourness caught me by surprise and, yes, it is much better to sip like a wine. I found it quite refreshing, especially on a warm day like today. I could have a second but would want to switch away after. A big surprise was between sips was when I licked my lips, the sourness was there to experience once again. If I was given a blind taste test, I would guess a very dry champagne.

In describing the experience of having a lambic beer, the last word goes to the Beer Hunter Micheal Jackson ...

"The Lambic family are not everybody's glass of beer, but no one with a keen interest in alcoholic drink would find them anything less than fascinating. In their 'wildness' and unpredictability, these are exciting brews. At their best, they are the meeting point between beer and wine; at their worst, they offer a taste of history."

No better way of putting it!

Beer of the Week Stats

Beers Profiled 122
Countries 23
Breweries 106
Provinces 8

Beer of the Week - Mort Subite Framboise Lambic

So what is Lambic beer?

According to the Beerbistro in Toronto it is ... "A spontaneously-fermented style of wheat beer called lambic forms the base for this popular line of sweetened, perfumey fruit beers. The unique raspberry flavour of Mort Subite has converted scores of people here at the restaurant who swore they'd never touch a beer, and continues to please and surprise on a daily basis."

I had only had it once before back in December and really enjoyed it.

Lambic beer is produced the same way as beer has been made for thousands of years, where all the ingredients are combined, placed in a vat for a day or two to pick up all the airborne yeasts and then left to work their magic. It wasn't until the mid 1800s when it was discovered that the magic came from something called yeast.

There are only 6 or 7 breweries left who still use this process.

Morte Subite is one of them. Mort Subite is the brand name for a number of lambic beers brewed by the Belgian brewery Keersmaeker (pictured bottom left) which take their name from a café in Brussels, A La Mort Subite (pictured to the right)

The last time I tried Lambic beers, I found the flavour "explosive". Would I find it the same this time. Teena was to try some. What would she think?

The beer pours with an quick forming head. The reason for the two different heads in the picture, is the one with the head I poured trying for a head which had to be tamed and the other I went too far the other way to control the head.

The beer has a reddish tinge to it, no doubt due to the raspberry (love to state the obvious). When sipped, there are lots of fabulous lacings which remain along the inside of the glass. In fact the lacings were there a half hour after we had finished. Quality is in this beer.

Raspberry is definitely in the aroma and very predominate in the taste. The beer starts with raspberry and ends with raspberry. It is a very refreshing beer, not not with the explosive flavour I remembered from previous lambics. I enjoyed this beer but found it quite sweet. It would make an excellent desert beer or a replacement for a rose sparkling wine.

And Teena's thoughts ... "I liked it. It would have been nice to have a couple all to myself. The raspberry taste is there but I didn't find it too sweet. I liked it better than Amsterdam's raspberry beer."

Obviously there will be more coming into our fridge. As much as this is a beer which I find too sweet for me, it sure is a very very quality beer.

Beer of the Week - Dec 18- Lambic Beer

I have read about Lambic beer in the past and was excited to find that the Bier Markt carried this style of beer. So this week instead of writing about one beer, I decided the Beer of the Week should be about one style of beer, the Lambic.

So what is Lambic beer and why am I excited?

The book I am reading, Beer (Eyewitness Companions), says that "Ancient brewers must have stumbled across fermentation by happy accident." Grain which had become wet during storage would have released starch and sugars. The unseen and, at the time unknown natural yeast that floats through the air, would have transformed this substance into a very primitive beer. That is a happy accident!

We now call this "spontaneous fermentation".

For many centuries, this was the way beer was produced. Beer makers prepared a primitive "wort" and would let it sit and magically turn into beer. In fact, it was not 'til the mid 1800s that it was discovered that yeast was the necessary agent that transformed wet grain into beer. Now brewers had more control over the brewing process, could make larger volumes of beer quicker, and the old process was nearly forgotten.

There are brewers in Belgium that still produce beer in this same ancient way by using "spontaneous fermentation". The wort is prepared and left to sit in shallow cooling trays called "cool ships", rooms where the windows are left open to invite the airborne yeasts to enter and settle into their brew. The the brew is casked into barrels and left to ferment for up to three years. The beer produced by this method is called Lambic beer.

And the Michael Jackson's Beer Companion, states,"to sample Lambic is to encounter one of the world's most complex drinks: it is also to experience a taste of life half a millennium ago."

Most of the Lambic brewers age their casks for three years. They then mix some of the three year old or "old Lambic' with the "young Lambic' which has fermented for just a year to create what is called Gueuze.

And the Bier Markt has some!

First choice was the Mort Subite Gueuze. At $11.30 for a 375 ml bottle of 4.5% beer, it was costly but hopefully worth it. The original brewery was founded in 1686 but according to a book that I just purchased, The Beer Book, bought out in 1970 by De Keeremaeker Brewery. This recipe lives on.


So ... how does it taste?

It had a very strong malt flavour, not surprising as hops are only used to preserve the beer and not to add flavour. This beer was unfiltered but fairly clear, something I did not expect. There was a slight head but it did disappear fairly quickly.

I was surprised at the initial sweetness of this beer. Although, as far as I know, no apples were added, it quickly developed a strong apple cider taste. It was a very enjoyable beer, one I intend to have again and share with Teena.

After a nice glass of water, I then tried a St Louis Gueuze Lambic. Again I was surprised when the label said that it had "artificial" added ingredients in it, which were sugar and Acesulfume Potassium which is an artificial sweetener. I found this beer started off sour but the taste diminished quickly.

My final selection was "Lindemans Cuvee Rene Gueuze". The bar manager, Alex, had not yet tried this so I told him to grab a sampler glass for himself. He said he would pay back with sample but I have had so many from there and we were enjoying a nice chat about Lambics.

This may sound more like a bubble gum commercial but when I took a small initial sip, my mouth exploded in flavour. It had a very strong citrusy sourness to it which nicely faded but stayed with you. Alex too was surprised by the powerfulness of the flavour.

Even after drinking most of the glass, each taste gave the same wonderful explosion of flavour. After I was done and left, there was an enjoyable lingering taste in my mouth.

So my verdict on Lambic beers?

Very enjoyable but for the price, one to enjoy only on occasion. I loved the Mort Subite Gueuze and the Lindemans Cuvee Rene Gueuze. They are very refreshing and I would love to sip on one on the patio on a warm summer day, which I am sure I will next summer. I would pass of the inferior St Louis Gueuze Lambic.

It was a fun way to start my vacation, though!