Tilquin - Oude Gueuze Tilquin à L’Ancienne
Well what have we here.... our guesses couldn't be further off for today's beer! This gueuze was a blend of 1, 2 and 3 years old lambic (not that we knew that at the time) and had been refermented in its bottle for at least 6 months!! Sounds pretty fancy..
Dan
It's well documented across 'Road' that I rarely drink sours and when I do take the plunge, it's a rarer occasion still that it would be with a lambic - the purist, undiluted original sour if you will. My palate simply hasn't got an appreciation for them that justifies the outlay. That said, I do have an empty bottle of Cantillon 'Gueuze 100% Lambic Bio' in my vision line housing a bunch of baby's-breath (Gypsophila) that's been decorating my windowsill for most of the year. I even quite liked the original contents on that one but we are talking about the world's foremost lambic brewer. I also can't deny the bottles are pretty cool...
Notwithstanding the above, I was pretty stoked to find a gueuze in the calendar. A massive change-up from what we had opened so far and if anything, just to pop the fancy cork. The contents, as expected, were tart and acidic to the max with Jack nailing his gooseberry taste description and there being a trace of salt not 'rounding it out' as such, but offering a necessary rest from the puckering intensity. I enjoyed it more as the fridge-chill faded and room temperature did its thing but I'm still not sold on them!
Score - 3.75
Jack
Like Dan, I would very rarely be tempted to go for sour. However, I think I would have probably gone for un-fruited lambic given some unpleasant memories of sickly sweet, artificial tasting "sours", had it not been for the intervention of Vault City. Thanks to the Scottish sour maestros, my desire to try lambic in its purest form has been low to non-existent.
This was a really welcome surprise, not in the sense that we weren't expecting a sour to come along at some point, but because this was a really bloody good one. As Dan mentioned above, the overriding taste was gooseberry for me, but almost like fresh, uncooked gooseberry in that this was masochistically sour and like the naughty little imp I am, I loved it. Also, there is a certain sophistication to drinking corked beers, so colour me impressed.
Score - 4
Watch us knock this back here.
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