Lambic Discussion Thread

[iong516]

Context anyone?

 

[BadJustin]

Context anyone?

Voila!


Magic Lambic?

2012 brah, won it in a razzle dazzle.

 

[Gonzoillini1]

Context anyone?

Since our newly appointed admin isn't very helpful ( ), it was a post in the Lambic.info Facebook group with the above picture and questions about possible authenticity. If the OP isn't trolling (and these days I'm a cynical bastard who thinks everyone is trolling), he got taken.

Justin did mirror my thoughts thought with his comment saying, "this is why you don't buy bottles on the secondary market" though. I guess my only caveat would be, "Don't buy bottles on the secondary market unless they have impeccable provenance".

 

[BadJustin]

Since our newly appointed admin isn't very helpful ( ), it was a post in the Lambic.info Facebook group with the above picture and questions about possible authenticity. If the OP isn't trolling (and these days I'm a cynical bastard who thinks everyone is trolling), he got taken.

Justin did mirror my thoughts thought with his comment saying, "this is why you don't buy bottles on the secondary market" though. I guess my only caveat would be, "Don't buy bottles on the secondary market unless they have impeccable provenance".

Didn’t like.


I’m part of team mods


Don’t buy secondary.


Go finger your pee hole.



Love you. Fo reals. Srs.

 

[stupac2]

I dunno. I imagine pretty hard, because there are a ton of different things that can be changed in many different ways. If you're looking at the change in one particular thing (pH, or perhaps even more specifically, the concentration of lactic acid or something) on a known substrate, with a known yeast under known conditions, then most likely you could build that. Some parameters may be really general and insensitive to slight changes (like pH may always go up by about X after Y time, for pretty much any strain of yeast in any wort), but there may be some that aren't. Off the top of my head, I really dunno.

Back when I was doing analytical work for the UW bio department, we'd take a single strain of algae and look for fatty acid composition changes while we changed just one variable. So we'd do a whole series of different pHs, salinities, nitrate concentrations, light/dark cycle changes, temperatures, etc. and try to figure out which knobs we could turn to re-compose their fat content. Some things had little to no effect, while others had large effects and which variables were effective varied from alga to alga. One alga might be real sensitive to salinity changes, and increasing it slightly might cause it to get stressed and produce more storage lipids. Another might not care at all. Some variables were more universal, though. Starving the algae of nitrogen very often (though not without exception) increased the lipid content. And this was all for axenic cultures.

In essence, what I'm saying is that there may be some general rules about how this stuff will evolve with time and other parameters, but there are a ton of parameters to explore and I can't say for sure which parameters will matter and how. I do suspect that since we see the same basic ecological progression occur in pretty much any spontaneous fermentation that some fairly general rules might be established, though probably more qualitatively than quantitatively.

Here's just about the best review article on this I've seen, though it's been a while since I read through it.



Yeah, that's definitely a much easier question to answer. Unfortunately most of the evidence I've seen for changing pH with aging has been anecdotal sensory reports.

EDIT: I haven't searched for this yet, but Milk the Funk might have some more formal pH measurements of their beers as they age. Not quite the formal PR literature, but it'd be a hell of a lot better than someone saying "I feel like this beer tastes less sour than the last time I had it four years ago" is.

I guess this is also something you could do at home, just get a pH meter and a bunch of bottles of with the same bottling date. Of course you can't rule out bottle variation...

 

[iong516]

Voila!


Magic Lambic?

2012 brah, won it in a razzle dazzle.

Fair to say I'd be a bit razzled...

 

[SeaWatchman]

That thread is awful.

 

[tosh1]

Let us improve things with tonights installment of Dishwashing Lambic.

 

[wuntrikpony]

An interesting read from the guys at Beachwood Blendery who are trying make American lambic. Some cool data points in there from Cantillon and some other lambics that were tested.

http://beachwoodbbq.com/pdf/BBAIBLTBLENDERY.pdf

 

[stakem1]

You guize are in the know so this is probably the best place to ask for advice/opinions since im trade stupid. Lets say I had a bottle of Bierpallieters and I wanted a bottle of Lambikstoemper. Is this even a ballpark 1:1 trade?

On one hand the stoemper is only ~4 years old whereas Bierpallieters was released 3 years earlier than that.

Ive heard nothing but good things about the stoemper but never had a chance to try it. Bierpallieters however is notoriously a game of bottle variation roulette whereas it has been both the best and worst geuze ive had.

 

[SeaWatchman]

You guize are in the know so this is probably the best place to ask for advice/opinions since im trade stupid. Lets say I had a bottle of Bierpallieters and I wanted a bottle of Lambikstoemper. Is this even a ballpark 1:1 trade?

On one hand the stoemper is only ~4 years old whereas Bierpallieters was released 3 years earlier than that.

Ive heard nothing but good things about the stoemper but never had a chance to try it. Bierpallieters however is notoriously a game of bottle variation roulette whereas it has been both the best and worst geuze ive had.

I’d say it’s a fair trade insofar as they’re both oddball one-off bottles, but there were a lot more of the Lambiekstoempers made, so more folks have them. On the other hand, Bierpalletiers can be a hit or miss bottle so it’s a bit of a risk for a tick. I love both bottles, but Compton25 has the market cornered in those Stoemper bottles.

 

[steinbbr]

PSA tickets for Cantillon’s brew day in Nov are on sale now. Lots of time slots still available.

 

[iong516]

You guize are in the know so this is probably the best place to ask for advice/opinions since im trade stupid. Lets say I had a bottle of Bierpallieters and I wanted a bottle of Lambikstoemper. Is this even a ballpark 1:1 trade?

On one hand the stoemper is only ~4 years old whereas Bierpallieters was released 3 years earlier than that.

Ive heard nothing but good things about the stoemper but never had a chance to try it. Bierpallieters however is notoriously a game of bottle variation roulette whereas it has been both the best and worst geuze ive had.

I'd agree there are quite a bit more stoemper around, and if I had one I'd likely do the trade and take the gamble on a (especially your) bottle of Bierpalleters. Beeradelphia shared one with me, and damn. I later got him back and shared a stoemper with him, which he had not previously ticked.

 

[mrk_d]

You guize are in the know so this is probably the best place to ask for advice/opinions since im trade stupid. Lets say I had a bottle of Bierpallieters and I wanted a bottle of Lambikstoemper. Is this even a ballpark 1:1 trade?

On one hand the stoemper is only ~4 years old whereas Bierpallieters was released 3 years earlier than that.

Ive heard nothing but good things about the stoemper but never had a chance to try it. Bierpallieters however is notoriously a game of bottle variation roulette whereas it has been both the best and worst geuze ive had.

If I didn’t send Compton25 my last Lambikstoempers I’d do this in a heartbeat and smother you in extras for being too generous. There’s not much Bierpallieters out there and it was easy to get a bunch of Lambikstoempers pretty recently.

 

[tylerk88]

If I didn’t send Compton25 my last Lambikstoempers I’d do this in a heartbeat and smother you in extras for being too generous. There’s not much Bierpallieters out there and it was easy to get a bunch of Lambikstoempers pretty recently.

ISO.

 

[2plums4one]

So much glorious .info on the last few pages, thanks guys. IT would be fun to see data showing lactic acid, ph, and acetic acid on different fruited lambic and gueuze reported over time. Especially if the lou pepes were in the mix. Short story is that generally elements in fruited lambic (in the fruit) = higher chance of low PH and acetic acid over time correct? Isn't that why the sugar/syrup is added to lou pepes? To allow for more sugar to be eaten by the yeast in order to preserve/improve flavor over time?? Or is it that sweeter fruits don't necessarily produce lower ph over time but possibly more acetic acid? I'm pretty much beginner level on this stuff so I appreciate the info from you guys.

 

[GetchaPull]

it was easy to get a bunch of Lambikstoempers pretty recently.

I just wanna sniff the cork one day.

TWSS.

 

[wuntrikpony]

I just wanna sniff the cork one day.

TWSS.

She literally never said that.

 

[pen15clubmember]

I picked up some gueuze 375s last weekend for like $11. Mure 750s should also be priced around $30. The place you saw is gouging

the problem there is stakem 's location. those prices aren't indicative of most of the country. pretty sure he's not in Philly proper, but inPHLation is very much a thing.

 

[BadJustin]

the problem there is stakem 's location. those prices aren't indicative of most of the country. pretty sure he's not in Philly proper, but inPHLation is very much a thing.

I'm in the middle of nowhere and it's 15 and 30, respectively

 

[pen15clubmember]

- DIY still lambic -
1) pour
2) wait
3) drink still lambic


But also... asked my friend that brought home the linden lavender honey haul if he'd opened any. His was overcarbed, and I saw another pic on untapped that seemed to be quite carbed as well. He also mentioned it was quite sour and they preferred the b54 they had next to it. Anyone else have more data points?

Had Hanssens OG with 61091 on the cork (should be a relatively recent batch - not sure if they date beyond that?) and it was damn near still. Gonna really sit on the other bottle I got from that batch...

 

[stakem1]

the problem there is stakem 's location. those prices aren't indicative of most of the country. pretty sure he's not in Philly proper, but inPHLation is very much a thing.

I never made it to the store last week to see/ask/confirm but based on how reasonable the place normally is, i think i was wrong and the pictures they posted to social media looked deceptively like 375’s but were actually 750’s

 

[GetchaPull]

She literally never said that.

 

[duketheredeemer]

I guess this is also something you could do at home, just get a pH meter and a bunch of bottles of with the same bottling date. Of course you can't rule out bottle variation...

If you have vast enough resources, do a bunch of replicates of each condition so you can estimate the variance.

But now we're talking about hundreds of bottles of lambic for science.

 

[duketheredeemer]

So much glorious .info on the last few pages, thanks guys. IT would be fun to see data showing lactic acid, ph, and acetic acid on different fruited lambic and gueuze reported over time. Especially if the lou pepes were in the mix. Short story is that generally elements in fruited lambic (in the fruit) = higher chance of low PH and acetic acid over time correct? Isn't that why the sugar/syrup is added to lou pepes? To allow for more sugar to be eaten by the yeast in order to preserve/improve flavor over time?? Or is it that sweeter fruits don't necessarily produce lower ph over time but possibly more acetic acid? I'm pretty much beginner level on this stuff so I appreciate the info from you guys.

I've been under the impression that the sugar added to the LP bottles is just priming sugar.

Acetic acid in lambic is mostly produced by aerobic metabolism of ethanol, so I don't think adding fruit necessarily increases it, though it might through preferring those organisms that perform that metabolism over others, or stressing others out so they release more acetic acid (or even possibly through enzymes contained in the fruit, etc.) I haven't seen any data about that in any event.

 

[stupac2]

If you have vast enough resources, do a bunch of replicates of each condition so you can estimate the variance.

But now we're talking about hundreds of bottles of lambic for science.

Definitely something I would do if I had "**** you" money. Oh well.

 

[vav1]

There's a few ways pH can change. Yeast/bacteria can excrete buffers, or metabolize some organic acids. Esterification is also a good acid sink that we know does take place during extended aging, though that's largely dependent on the makeup of the beer and the yeast/bacteria. I believe autolysis can spill out the esterification enzymes yeast usually keep within themselves and can cause pH changes through the esterification of acids and alcohols after extended aging periods in the bottle, though like most esterifications, this process can go either direction.

As to what's actually happening or if these pH changes are taste-able, I'm not sure. It might just be batch variation, or changes in how we remember a beer, or how we experienced it both different times. I know if I've been drinking a lot of sour beer in an evening, I taste the later sour beers as less sour. Adding sweetness can reduce the perception of sourness as well. Perception is a complex thing and could also be responsible for a change in the percieved sourness even if the pH remained unchanged.

I think this is right on. I think the overall PH change would be negligible, although i suppose the potential for restarting fermentation as the sugars break down to simple ones the remaining live yeast can consume could indeed contribute. Rather, the enzymatic digestion that occurs due to yeast autolysis during aging makes the most amount of sense. As the cell walls break down and proteases leak into the beer, this can kill head retention and give the impression of an overall flatter, less piquant beer, which we'll perceive on the palate as less acidic. Add the escaped lipids from the insides of the cell which we perceive as meaty/richer, and the perception of sour diminishes further.

 

[tosh1]

Someone killed The DDT on TB. Therefore this can be my daily Lambic Dishwashing thread

 

[Tlo4sho]

I missed the part where BadJustin became a moderator...!

 

[jbeezification1]

I missed the part where BadJustin became a moderator...!

Don’t worry. He missed it too.