30 August 2025. At 7de Bier van Olier (Sijsele). Cheers to Anke, mom & dad!

Damp cellar, attic, dust, wet straw, cheese rind, horseblanket. Sour apricot, lemon, leather, attic. Tart bretty notes, woody tannins, funky cheese, mouth-puckering. Lovely funky stuff!

After roughly a dozen years of home blending, John Versyck took the step of - limitedly - going commercial, operating now from a warehouse in Sint-Amandsberg, submunicipality of Ghent; I had several of his experiments throughout the years (first in 2016 at an event held by the now-defunct Bierhalle Deconinck) but as a lambichead and fellow Ghentian, I just had to have a bottle of his geuze, now boasting the official Sint-Amandsberg address on its label and the number 74 hand written on the crown cap. Said to contain lambics from no less than five different producers, I am really curious for the result (and confident about it, knowing John's experience, passion and dedication). Moderately thick, off-white, bit irregular, quickly breaking but (at least initially) edge-retaining head on a misty deep orange blonde robe with tangerine glow, on the darker side of the spectrum for a geuze, filled with bubbles during pouring but calming down instantly after that. Strong, notably funky-'animalistic' aroma of wet leather, goat stable or the classic 'horseblanket', lots of old furniture, aged dry sherry, armpit sweat and overripe onion, dried grapefruit peel, bitter garden weeds, barnyard galore, minerals piercing through, dried rosehip, tamarillo (and its leaf), wood sorrel, subtle notes of damp forest floor, old cheese rind, walnut vinegar. Astringent onset but in a decent and intriguing way - if you are a geuze lover at least, displaying elements of wild berries, crabapple, tamarillo and (lots of) overripe lemon, deeply sour but not vinegary, with a thick lactic acidity forming a sturdy backbone through it all, surrounding a bread-crusty and rusk-like grain core. The dryness, already strong at first, only increases towards the end, with considerable tannic woodiness setting in - working together with the acids to, so to speak, scrape off the enamel of your teeth. Wild sour fruit keeps playing in the finish, along with profoundly earthy, funky layers, as in dead tree leaves, bitter herbs (dandelion - very much De Troch in fact), dried mushrooms, old onions and very old Parmigiano - but also a lot of ongoing minerality underneath. Long, bone dry finish carrying all that funk, wood and sour autumn fruit with it. I miss a bit of sparkling, literally but also metaphorically: this is a very dense, 'heavy' kind of geuze, with bulky layers of earthy, leafy flavours weighing heavily on the palate - but this is also what makes this particular geuze distinct, without deviating too much from the genre's core features (which did happen, in my personal view, with some novelty geuzes of several other, new producers in the past few years). It feels almost 'autumny' or even 'wintery' especially compared with the stylistically ultra-light, summery 'Petite Gueuze' by Tilquin I had right before this one - a contrast showing how diverse geuze can be, and for me two opposite extremes on the spectrum. This one feels old - beautified by the ravages of time, one could say, and very mature; certainly not a geuze for neophytes in the genre, rather one for the seasoned geuze drinker, and one to tuck away till the cold days of late autumn will be upon us again. Interesting one - not the easiest, smoothest or most elegant geuze I had, but definitely inspired. Cheers John!