I’ve been wondering for many years why lambic brewers never attempted to diverge from the classic recipe and create dark varieties, but Zwet.be was already a step in this very direction and now 3 Fonteinen presents this one-off as a careful experiment - hopefully leading to many more varieties on spontaneous fermentation by traditional lambic breweries. From a chilled growler, poured by Armand Debelder himself at the Lambik-O-Droom. Very loose, bubbly, evidently unstable head consisting of large off-beige bubbles over a hazy dark, chestnut-hued, burgundy coloured beer. Fascinating aroma of balsamico and sherry vinegar, blackcurrant, wry blue grape peel, lots of wet wood, vanilla-ish oak recognizable, hint of butterscotch, redcurrant, sweetish blue plum touch when warming up. Estery, fruity flavour with a lot of wry and sour red berries in the onset, tart but not sharply puckering, flat and almost vinous mouthfeel, bone dry but with this very subtle caramelly and candied fruit-like sweetish touch providing a minimum of roundness against the dryness and tartness. Lactic dryness takes over in the middle, comfortably ruling a malty middle phase, sherry-ish, a tad nutty and even a bit roasted in the end, oud bruin-like but ’darker’ so to speak, while remaining estery, wry and completely dry, much drier than any oud bruin (or Flemish red ale, the style Debelder compared it with). Ends bone dry like it began, with a lot of ’palpable’ furniture-like wood tannins and ongoing sherry vinegar-like tartness, even some burning acidity in the finish. Dry and very complex, this is truly unique - apart from its precursor Zwet.be and perhaps Cantillon’s 2015 Zwanze, I cannot think of anything even remotely affiliated to this. I guess the craft beer craze must have served as a vehicle to finally end up with dark lambics, but apparently there are no intentions to make this regularly and age it to blend the world’s first dark geuze - so far. In any case a very peculiar, highly fascinating experiment, many young craft breweries venturing into the complex world of ’sour beers’ can learn from this - this was a true revelation and already worth the trip to the Pajottenland by itself. Big cheers to Armand!

Sampled draft @ Lambik-O-droom during Tour de Geuze 2017. Dark brown amber with no head. Nose is amazing combination of vinous notes & sweeter malts, almost chocolate notes, red berries bit sour. Taste is red wine vinous with great darker malts, caramel, faint chocolate, almost puckering, vinous, wonderful oak. Amazing how well they made it work. Flat which works perfectly well for me. Damn this is impressive & now I can only hope for a dark geuze.

At tdg 2017 Pours rather clear, very dark brown to black. No head. Smell is funky, woody, dry, some dark malts. Taste is full, some sherry notes, dark malts, subtile yet intense enough sourness. Bit sweetness from what I think is the sherry. Aftertaste reninds of very very good milkchocolate. This is seriously good !