Vintage Collectors Gather to Drink Legendary Beers
Last year, the brewery finally caved to demand and re-created the epic brew. Like the first batch, it was available solely at Akkurat, and almost all of the tasting attendees had flown to Sweden for the release. One of them brought a bottle back to the U.S., and it was served alongside the original batch. Both the ’99 and ’13 poured clear with a light tangerine hue and a wisp of white foam, though the new batch was a shade lighter. And while the ’13 version had a strong sourness due to its youth, the original vintage was declared superior, as its age had allowed the base lambic to better integrate and soften, showcasing the subtle cloudberry fruit flavor.
Talk of fruit–based lambics moved the conversation on to the waiting Menu Pineau bottle. A grape lambic, the significance of this beer goes back to Cantillon’s annually brewed Zwanze beer.
Brewed each September, Zwanze is its special one-off release. Each batch uses different ingredients, and the concept showcases the brewery’s creative, fun side. In 2011, it was to be brewed with one of two obscure grape varietals from the Loire region of France, the Pinot d’Aunis or Menu Pineau. A test batch of each was made, and the Pinot d’Aunis won out for that year’s Zwanze. The Menu Pineau served at the tasting was from the “runner-up” test batch and acquired directly from Cantillon’s brewer/owner/blender, Jean Van Roy, who had given it to attendee Chris Johnson as a gift.
Served alongside a bottle of the ’11 Zwanze (Pinot d’Aunis) for comparison, the Menu Pineau was described as having a notably soft acidity and a honey-tinged fruitiness backed by a light mineral finish. While an immensely enjoyable beer, all agreed that the vibrancy of the Pinot d’Aunis took the lambic to another level and that Cantillon made the right choice for its Zwanze.
Next up, Young offered to open the Driesjes Eerste Plasje, eager to end three years of waiting and wondering. While the tasting had been decidedly laid-back to this point, all ears perked up in anticipation for this bottle. Opening with the slightest pop, the gueuze poured a deep golden, suggesting some oxidation had taken place over the decades. True to the blender, the beer had Drie Fonteinen’s trademark funkiness of wash-rind cheese and barnyard, along with the usual subtle grapefruit-esque lactic presence. However, it was noticeably sweeter than other bottles of vintage Drie Fonteinen, suggesting that oxidation had set in. Young’s verdict? “I enjoyed drinking it … but I do prefer Armand’s later work.”
After that was Cantillon’s ’05 Bourgogne. Contrary to popular belief, there were no grapes used in this beer. It’s simply a lambic aged for two years in a Nuits-St-Georges Burgundy wine barrel (hence, the Bourgogne name). The legend goes that Van Roy was tasting barrels to blend into his Classic Gueuze. When he sampled the lambic from this particular barrel, he was so impressed by its balance and complexity that he pulled a few bottles directly off it to save for special occasions. A mere 24 bottles were filled and rest was blended into gueuze. Attendee Ryan Neas scored the bottle from a Danish beer collector who had a long-time connection with Cantillon.
The unlabeled bottle (save a white-markered “bourgogne” scrawled by Van Roy), opened with a loud pop and poured a vigorous strawlike color into the waiting Cantillon balloon glasses. By the silence that followed after the first sip, it was immediately apparent that its legendary status was more than a tale. A lambic with a deep French oak presence, subtle mustiness, intense acidity and perfect dryness: It was clear this was a group favorite. Neas’ whale hunt was definitely a successful one.
While a tough act to follow, there were only two beers left, and Eric Rueli decided it was time to crack his bottle of Cantillon’s ’03 Cognac Barrel-Aged Lambic. No doubt, lambic buffs are well aware of Cantillon’s cult classic beer, 50°N-4°E (the brewery coordinates), a lambic aged in freshly emptied cognac barrels. When it was first released in 2005, lambic lovers went crazy for its aged complexities and sweet, nutty cognac-induced intricacies. However, the bottle that Rueli opened came from an experimental, one-barrel batch that the brewery made before the official 50°N-4°E vintage. He managed to trade for it at the Copenhagen Beer Celebration festival more than five years ago, with a Belgian beer collector who frequented Cantillon enough to land a bottle.
For the sake of comparison, the group decided to serve the ’03 alongside a bottle of ’12 50°N-4°E. The ’03 was found to be richer and more complex as the more intense fresh lambic flavors had mellowed over the decade. While the cognac so present in the ’12 batch was a distant memory, all concurred that the older beer had aged so gracefully that it still won out.
Having been a massive day of lambic drinking up to this point, palate fatigue was beginning to set in and the tasters were cracking jokes about losing their tooth enamel. But there was one beer left, and once Young pulled the giant 1.5-liter magnum of 1991 De Dolle Proever’s Kersengueuze out of his cellar, everyone suddenly felt up to the task.
A collaboration beer between the Belgian beer club, De Dolle Proevers (not to be confused with the De Dolle Brewery) and Cantillon, the Kersengueuze is a cherry lambic made with sweet kersen cherries instead of the tart schaerbeekse variety normally used in krieks. De Dolle Proevers managed to secure a small barrel’s worth of Cantillon lambic and added kersen cherries to it. After aging, it was then blended with Cantillon kriek and one-year old lambic. While other members took home 750’s, board member Joris Pattyn chipped in enough extra money to fill 50 magnum-sized bottles to gift to friends; one of which ended up finding its way to this tasting.
After more than 20 years, it poured a lovely rose-colored hue, and an immediate aroma of lemons and cherry pie filled the room. As they dove in, tasters reported it having a deep tannic cherry presence with a light mustiness. While there were still sour notes of lemons and grapefruit, it was described as quite sweet and not nearly as sour as most 20-plus-year-old lambics. Many claimed this as their favorite of the night.
As the Kersengueuze magnum was slowly finished, it began to set in that the event was truly complete. After more than a year and a half of anticipation, fanfare and work, the lineup of lambic ghost whales was reduced to pile of glass carcasses. However, if drinking their cellar’s jewels was a matter of sadness, no one seemed to show it. According to Rueli, “These beers should be drunk; we just needed the right situation to open them at. Besides, there will always be more whales to chase.”
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article described incorrectly the origin of the Driesjes Eerste Plasje beer. It was a Drie Fonteinen gueuze given by Hans Bombeke to friends and family to celebrate his twin’s birth; it was not Armand DeBelder of Drie Fonteinen’s first blend.
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Patrick Dawson
Patrick Dawson is the author of Vintage Beer, a book that explores the cellaring of beer. When not at home in Denver, he’s traveling the globe in search of new and exciting brews to add to his cellar.