Lambic Discussion Thread

[Digita7693]

Beersel kriek tho.

Just not as common sadly.

Price and availability? LPK and st lam for me

 

[Marc2]

Price and availability? LPK and st lam for me

 

[FoudreGuy]

Nothing fancy but enjoyed a 2015 RdG over the Memorial Day weekend with family and friends.

 

[boogercrack]

Price and availability? LPK and st lam for me

 

[2plums4one]

Nothing fancy but enjoyed a 2015 RdG over the Memorial Day weekend with family and friends.

That's definitely fancy. Drinking one of the world's top 3 raspberry beers and one of the best fruited beers in the world period should always be special. RdG is no slouch.

 

[FoudreGuy]

That's definitely fancy. Drinking one of the world's top 3 raspberry beers and one of the best fruited beers in the world period should always be special. RdG is no slouch.

Oh for sure, just more along the lines "the three standard Cantillon beers" which nowadays aren't easy to find outside Belgium.

 

[Lamnic]

Nothing fancy but enjoyed a 2015 RdG over the Memorial Day weekend with family and friends.

Quick question for you all: Any argument over drinking RdG fresh?
I've had plenty of fresh and aged (2+ years) over the years and I really think I just prefer the fresh jammy version. To me the fruit generally gets muted with time and the funk isn't enough to justify aging.

 

[FoudreGuy]

Quick question for you all: Any argument over drinking RdG fresh?
I've had plenty of fresh and aged (2+ years) over the years and I really think I just prefer the fresh jammy version. To me the fruit generally gets muted with time and the funk isn't enough to justify aging.

The fruit was still super pronounced with this ~3 year old bottle. It's more that I don't have a lot of Cantillon left and don't really want to get into buying beer online so I'm super picky about when I open what I have. I'm down to two bottles left (OG Kriek and a LPK).

 

[2plums4one]

Quick question for you all: Any argument over drinking RdG fresh?
I've had plenty of fresh and aged (2+ years) over the years and I really think I just prefer the fresh jammy version. To me the fruit generally gets muted with time and the funk isn't enough to justify aging.

6-18 months is my favorite

 

[stakem1]

Drank a 3f OG and the “straffe” version of A&G (blend n18 of the 16/17 season) last night. I think they were bottled within the same week of one another.

My buddy greatly preferred the A&G, I on the other hand greatly preferred the OG. That particular batch of A&G got a serious amount of bitter grapefruit character going on. Dont get me wrong, its delicious but for the price, id take 2x OG over that particular A&G any day.

Tune in next month when I drink them both again and my opinion is different.

 

[SeaWatchman]

Price and availability? LPK and st lam for me

 

[duketheredeemer]

Even if you can manage to re-pitch from dregs of old lambic, how active would we expect the microbes to be? Seems like they'd mostly be dormant by then.

We generally see the Sacc burst back on the scene when spontaneously fermented beer is primed with more sucrose at bottling, though at that point it's only been dormant for like 8-10 months at most. I don't know about longer, though I suspect it could be a while before none are viable. It's probably also species/strain dependent and probably depends on the conditions in the bottle as well.

Pitching from the bottle will also give different starting ratios of the various strains than we'd get from the coolship/barrel/whatever. For example, we'd basically be giving Brett a huge head start (though less of one if we have dormant but viable Sacc and pitched up in a couple steps). I'd expect a beer brewed by pouring lambic dregs into fresh wort to be "Brettier", for example, as Sacc will have a harder time out-competing it early in the fermentation.

Another issue is that I wouldn't expect the yeast/bacteria in an old bottle to be the same as their ancestors. They will have evolved to fit their new environment in the bottle by that time, so we shouldn't expect to get the same results even if we engineered the initial concentrations to be the same.

Whether either of those two effects is large enough to be tasted, I don't know for sure, but I suspect they are.

 

[duketheredeemer]

People pitched Brett from some seriously old Berliner Weisses from long gone breweries, so at least a little bit life can still be left after longer periods.

We successfully cultured brett and lacto from an 80 year old bottle of berliner weisse. No trace of sacch left though.

That's super cool! I'd be really interested to taste how those compare to modern strains/ones that didn't spend decades dormant in a beer. Also it'd be cool to know how their genomes changed and if we can correlate those changes to overall changes in the populations used by brewers or to evolution to fit their new ecosystem in the bottle separate from the brewer's reservoirs of microbiota.

 

[stupac2]

We generally see the Sacc burst back on the scene when spontaneously fermented beer is primed with more sucrose at bottling, though at that point it's only been dormant for like 8-10 months at most. I don't know about longer, though I suspect it could be a while before none are viable. It's probably also species/strain dependent and probably depends on the conditions in the bottle as well.

Pitching from the bottle will also give different starting ratios of the various strains than we'd get from the coolship/barrel/whatever. For example, we'd basically be giving Brett a huge head start (though less of one if we have dormant but viable Sacc and pitched up in a couple steps). I'd expect a beer brewed by pouring lambic dregs into fresh wort to be "Brettier", for example, as Sacc will have a harder time out-competing it early in the fermentation.

Another issue is that I wouldn't expect the yeast/bacteria in an old bottle to be the same as their ancestors. They will have evolved to fit their new environment in the bottle by that time, so we shouldn't expect to get the same results even if we engineered the initial concentrations to be the same.

Whether either of those two effects is large enough to be tasted, I don't know for sure, but I suspect they are.

I think I wasn't clear, I didn't mean that because they're dormant they're no longer viable, that's obviously not the case as dregs can be re-pitched and frequently are. Rather I meant that they're dormant so they're not doing anything in the bottle. It's not clear to me how long the various microbes remain actively fermenting after bottling, and when if ever that activity becomes negligible.

 

[andrewdrinks]

We generally see the Sacc burst

Made me cross my legs.

 

[andrewdrinks]

I miss London, where bars can have these kind of bottles turding up their back fridges for weeks on end


(Link to media)

 

[JCastle1]

I miss London, where bars can have these kind of bottles turding up their back fridges for weeks on end


(Link to media)

I was in London last year at a bar with like 100 different beers so I asked the guy behind the bar for suggestions. "Oh we have this one, it's one of my favorites." Casually pulls out a 2012 Kriek and I said hell yeah.

 

[FoudreGuy]

I miss London, where bars can have these kind of bottles turding up their back fridges for weeks on end


(Link to media)

Last time I was in Osaka (2014) there was this totally cheesy touristy Belgian beer bar in Namba Nankai Station. I didn't think much of it but then noticed they had 375s of Classic Gueuze and Kriek on their menu in the window. I went inside and ordered a bottle and the waiter proudly informed me they had hosted Zwanze Day in the past. I was floored.

 

[matedog]

Last time I was in Osaka (2014) there was this totally cheesy touristy Belgian beer bar in Namba Nankai Station. I didn't think much of it but then noticed they had 375s of Classic Gueuze and Kriek on their menu in the window. I went inside and ordered a bottle and the waiter proudly informed me they had hosted Zwanze Day in the past. I was floored.

That's what, $12-$15 per 375? That's...not unreasonable.

 

[Padraig]

I miss London, where bars can have these kind of bottles turding up their back fridges for weeks on end


(Link to media)

Deptford's certainly changed.

 

[primebeer]

I was in London last year at a bar with like 100 different beers so I asked the guy behind the bar for suggestions. "Oh we have this one, it's one of my favorites." Casually pulls out a 2012 Kriek and I said hell yeah.

Where is this if I might ask? I'll be there next week!

 

[FoudreGuy]

That's what, $12-$15 per 375? That's...not unreasonable.

Back then the exchange rate was like 85 yen to the dollar so not as good of a deal, but still worth it for on-site pricing. I also got a to-go 375 of Kriek at Tanakaya in Tokyo for ~$12 or so.

 

[Padraig]

Where is this if I might ask? I'll be there next week!

I'm guessing The Cask or Craft Beer Co in Leather Lane.

Been mentioned a few times in this thread but Cantillon's UK distributor have a bar where you're pretty likely to be able to score on-site bottles.

https://beermerchantstap.com/

 

[JCastle1]

Craft Beer Co in Leather Lane.

Almost correct, Covent Garden location. But I'd suggest Clerkenwell instead, a much better location. Bought an Armand set there many years ago, good times.

 

[BadJustin]

Does anyone recall the price of the #f Kriken on Etre?

 

[capnmike]

I don't have the Etre price, but they were 10.50 EUR on BIAB...

 

[BadJustin]

I don't have the Etre price, but they were 10.50 EUR on BIAB...

danke

 

[duketheredeemer]

I think I wasn't clear, I didn't mean that because they're dormant they're no longer viable, that's obviously not the case as dregs can be re-pitched and frequently are. Rather I meant that they're dormant so they're not doing anything in the bottle. It's not clear to me how long the various microbes remain actively fermenting after bottling, and when if ever that activity becomes negligible.

Oh, I see. From a lot of the studies on spontaneous fermentation, it appears that the long-term fermentation is mostly Brett, as Sacc falls below detectable amounts pretty fast once Brett takes over the yeast niche. As there remain viable Sacc, I can't say they're doing *nothing*, just that it looks like they take a hard backseat to Brett. On the bacteria side, they also seem to slow down, but there's definitely more action in the LAB going on, too. Yeah, hard to say.

 

[Calcifer]

I'm guessing The Cask or Craft Beer Co in Leather Lane.

If you mean Cask Pub & Kitchen in Pimlico, that place was the ****. When I was in London for a week just under 2 years ago, we probably went 5-6 times for a few beers and/or food. They had 2011 Golden Blend for £12 to go; it was amazing.


(Link to media)

 

[Padraig]

If you mean Cask Pub & Kitchen in Pimlico, that place was the ****. When I was in London for a week just under 2 years ago, we probably went 5-6 times for a few beers and/or food. They had 2011 Golden Blend for £12 to go; it was amazing.


(Link to media)

Somebody must have screwed up there. Cask/CBC aren’t exactly known for their competitive pricing. £105 for Alesmith Reforged XX being one classic I remember from a couple of years ago.