I’m pretty sure I’ve run the spectrum of beer in my posts over the course of the past year-plus, so naturally some styles come up more often than others. I do try to present as varied a selection as possible, but, well, some things are more prevalent in the beer room at home than others.
I enjoy my Belgian beers, but as a treat once in a while to sit back and savor. Most aren’t really poundable styles anyway, if you were so inclined. Today’s beer, “brewed and bottled in Brij Boon,” is actually my first geuze for the site, but I like it as a good introduction to the style. The brewery, Oud Beersel, creates a select few beers, but only the geuze (and the kriek, a cherry-infused geuze) make it to the U.S. This geuze is named Oude Geuze Vieille; Vieille is French for “old”, so it’s maybe a little redundant.
Geuze, or gueuze, is the result of blending young and old lambics in the brewhouse. At Oud Beersel, they blend batches of one-, two- and three-year-old lambics (in their own proportions) to produce the Oude Beersel Vieille. The younger lambic is still actively fermenting, with the yeast coming solely from what lives in the wooden barrels where it’s kept — no yeast is pitched into the wort to start the fermentation. The older lambics serve chiefly to take the edges off the lambic, which is typically too sour and harsh for most palates. Yes, these days there are a lot of craft beer enthusiasts who would pay any price just to have the straight lambic, but that isn’t how it works — though plenty of Belgian lambic producers do reserve some of the straight stuff for bottling as well, and beer drinkers are rewarded with a challenging, complex, interesting beer.
Like most lambics and geuzes you’ll find on store shelves, the Oud Beersel geuze is corked and caged, like champagne. There’s no practical reason for this, other than tradition and expectation.
Spontaneously fermented and bottle-conditioned, the Oude Geuze will mature in the bottle for, well, a long time — I’ve never had one more than a few years old. This bottle, for example, says it’s good till April 20, 2026 — that’s ambitious, to say the least — which means it’s about five years old at my time of consumption. That’s pretty standard for Belgian sour ales. How does this one fare?
The Oude Geuze Vieille uncorked with an audible pop (always a good sign with old bottles) and pours a perfectly-clear orange-gold, with just a little off-white head patching up on top. Recalling that this beer is likely five years old, the aroma does not match the description of a hoppy nose. The sourness is very prominent, as peach, pear, even apple, and a little funk, a little mustiness, is creeping in. The 6% alcohol is completely lost in the tartness.
That tartness (but again, not the alcohol) appears in the initial sips, also, but this beer just isn’t as sour as I’d like. There’s some dry woodiness to this beer, but in general it’s a bit thin, a perception possibly exacerbated by the high carbonation that is common for the style. It’s also too clean. Not terribly funky, especially given its age. Oh well, at least the yeast didn’t get in my glsas.
The clear finish offers no real complexities, either. The sourness works throughout to generate interest and an inclination to keep drinking, but I can’t help feeling perhaps I needed to wait another few years.
You probably won’t find many American-brewed versions of lambic or Geuze, for a couple of reasons: one, they’re time-consuming, and take up valuable real estate while they mature. Two, it’s tough to get your hands on the yeast living in barrels in Belgium and coaxing them to do their thing. I’d stick to the Belgians who have been brewing this style for hundreds of years, well before the time when brewers understood microscopic organisms do the fermenting — brewers just assumed god did it and went about making the next batch.
I recommend Oude Beersel Vieille for an occasional taste against other bottled geuzes that might come through: Cantillon, Drie Fonteinen, and a few others still show up in better U.S. beer stores. I paid around $7 for this 375ml (half a wine bottle) geuze, which is fair if an indication that beer sometimes can be a serious hobby requiring serious cash, for the best and most unusual. There are more and more beers coming to big cities, so it’s worth perusing the beer aisles on every trip just to see if a refreshing lambic or geuze awaits your purchase. While Oud Beersel isn’t the best of the best, it’s worthy of a taste. For those lucky enough to find good lambic and geuze near home… well, enjoy your sour ale!
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