Cantillon Gueuze (2022) | 5.5% ABV 30 IBUs
Brasserie Cantillon Bouwerij Brussels🇧🇪

Ordered from Great Beer Experiment 🇸🇬

This review is fuelled as much by my admiration for Brasserie Cantillon as it is by my nostalgia of having visited the brewery / Gueuze Museum back in 2012 with @wheelswheelsandmeals and @randomradiowaves while we were on our hoppy pilgrimage to Belgium.

I group Cantillon and Boon together when it comes to lambic breweries: they tend to be funkier and less sour than their contemporaries at 3 Fonteinen and Lindemans. Thus it is so for this bottle of Cantillon Gueuze: it’s the definition of funk and horse blanket brettanomyces character but with the acidity kept in check, AND at a very approachable 5.5% ABV (Boon’s excellent Oude Geuze clocks in at 7%.) You’ll notice the taste of apricots / nectarines mid-palate and some tea-like astringency in the finish. It’s utterly delicious! On top of that it’s pleasingly woody from its time resting in oak.

The fact that Cantillon’s offerings are so hard to come by here in +65 only intensifies the hype surrounding them when there’s even a hint that stock is going to become available at the Great Beer Experiment, but this is hype you can believe. If anything, it’s a pity that they are simultaneously a great introduction to lambic beer yet so rare; this is a beer that everyone should try.

@hopviously