Cantillon Iris

It’s easy to forget how much beer has evolved since it was first brewed thousands of years ago. Most of what could be called beer even a few hundred years ago wouldn’t be palatable today — it just got you drunk and/or was safer to consume than the water. So, many of the “styles” of days gone by have fallen by the wayside.

A few styles have survived for centuries, and for good reason. One little corner of Belgium, Payottenland, plays host to a special set of wild yeast strains, which star in the beer style known as lambic and its derivatives, such as gueuze. And the Cantillon Brewery, based in Brussels, is one of the best of the best at brewing lambics.

You might know that humanity only realized in the past a couple hundred years that unfermented beer (wort) ferments and carbonates because of yeast. It used to be a “God did it” process, and nowhere was that as obvious as in lambic country. Those yeasts specific to the region, Brettanomyces bruxellensis and lambicus chief among them, essentially descended on the wide-open vats of unfermented beer to, over the course of several years, create the complex, sour flavor profile that is the hallmark of a true lambic. Sure, there are brewers far afield that use these yeasts, but few can create lambics as wonderful as Cantillon and the other lambic breweries of Belgium. After saying all that… most lambic is blended, a batch of young lambic with a batch of older lambic, to create a less-sour, more accessible variation, the aforementioned gueuze, and this is primarily what you’ll find for sale. It’s every bit as good and complex, without such a sour edge.

Cantillon Iris isn’t exactly a lambic, either, but not because it’s a blended beer. While it’s aged two years in oak barrels like a typical lambic, Iris uses only standard pale malt and no wheat; instead of using all old hops — to minimize any bitterness from the hops, used in lambics largely for preservative properties only — Cantillon splits the hop bill 50/50 with fresh hops to impart some of that bitterness. Just before bottling, the batch of Iris gets an extra dose of hops to add some hop aroma before it hits the bottle for a year of secondary fermentation and carbonation. If you appreciate sourness and a taste quite unlike your average beer, Iris is right up your alley.

Iris is packaged in a 750ml wine bottle, capped over the cork. This bottle was brewed in 2005, as written on the label, and bottled in 2007, written on the cork. I’ve been sitting on this bottle for almost two years, myself, waiting for the right moment to enjoy it. This week I received some good news that I’d been waiting for, and yeah, that gave me as good a reason as any to open this.

Removing the foil and the cap revealed a cork that immediately started working its way out of the neck on its own. Iris is a fairly well-carbonated beer, and spending nearly four years in the bottle, even at cellar temperatures, means an awful lot of time for the yeast in the bottle to eat sugar and create carbon dioxide. So I watched for about a minute until the cork was nearly out, I pulled the cork. It didn’t gush, fortunately, and I immediately started pouring the turbid beer, just to be safe.

Iris pours a thoroughly cloudy bright orange, with a pinkish tinge. The initial tall, effervescent head dissipates in a couple of minutes to a thin skim of cream-colored bubbles. While a beer infected with something unintended will give a vinegary sourness, Iris yields a bracingly lactic sour aroma. Maybe a little bit of vinegar — hey, there are a lot of yeasts working on this beer — but that bright sourness dominates, tempered by a bit of mustiness.

The complete fermentation of this beer results in a very drying beer. There’s a funky, wet-hay taste to Iris, a slight astringency brought on by the residual hop flavor, and a resulting sharpness. Mouthfeel is dry, as noted, and somewhat fizzy and thin. At 6% alcohol by volume, you won’t notice any heat in the beer, but as I work my way through this bottle, yeah, I feel its effects. The finish actually comes across as grapefruity. Such a complex, layered beer, and so rewarding.

I purchased this at the Whole Foods on Bowery for $20, in early 2009. Newer vintages are probably around that price currently. Yes, that’s a pretty steep price, but the beer is, well, amazing. I don’t think it needs to be aged by the buyer, though, and honestly, I should have drunk this a long time ago — likely some of that astringency wouldn’t have shown up, for instance. Still, just a delicious beer that cuts through pretty much any food you might be thinking of eating alongside it. I recommend it as a beer to be savored on its own, however, like pretty much every beer I’ve reviewed.

If you can’t find the Iris, I encourage the adventurous to look for other Cantillon beers, or one of a number of true lambic producers. Please don’t think that Lindeman’s fruit “lambics” are really lambics — they’re low-alcohol beer sodas, essentially, sickly-sweet and a far cry from the more subtle fruit lambics that allow the true nature of the lambic flavors to complement the raspberries or cherries or whatever other fruit is chosen. If Cantillon isn’t available, look for De Cam, Girardin, or Mort Subite; honestly, there are few beers in this style available in the United States, but they’re well-worth finding. Better beer bars will carry Cantillon, sometimes on tap — Spuyten Duyvil, Ginger Man, and Blind Tiger come to mind. Give Belgian lambic and gueuze a chance!