Bottled 11/11/2016, drunk 9/20/17.
Bright, honey-golden with good clarity and sediment left in bottle. Well-carbonated creating a white head that slowly fades to a ring.
Wax, plaster, light black pepper and soft Brett rise up to create a very enjoyable lambic-sour ale hybrid-like nose. Nothing is out-of-balance here and the malt backing shows light wheat-like biscuit, soft honey with no alcohol or flaw. Very complex, well-developed rustic/funky nose.
Bright, tart Brett and lacto provide a good deal of acidity but the malt is quick to soften things and a great balanced is achieved, allowing for a very juicy finish free from any aggressive acidity. Perfect, champagne-like, tight carbonation makes for a true lambic-like experience. Lip-smackingly delicious and full of rustic mineral and other funk. Wonderful stuff, hope to try more Lindheim beers.

Bottle shared by Benzai. Hazy golden color, medium rocky head. Aroma of funk, grainy wheat, flowery. Soft tartness in flavor, flowery, some citrus. Nicely balanced, good complexity. Very nice! --- Beer merged from original tick of FiftyFifty - FRIENDSHIP SERIES on 25 Nov 2017 at 14:00 - Score: 8

Bardzo lambikowe. Skora, siano, ciut obora. Duzo jasnych kwasnych owocow. Lekkie. Ladne. Mile. Mocno kwasne. 4.1?

Bottle - pours gold white head - nose and taste of funk, oak, lemon and light tart fruit - medium body

A remnant of this year's Toer de Geuze, about six months old. Now here is something interesting: a blend of half old Oud Beersel lambic and half spontaneously fermented Lindheim beer, which would qualify as a 'lambic' as well, since it follows the same recipe and methods. Lindheim is quite a fascinating Norwegian craft brewery and has been drawing attention from the international beer community recently for its experiments in brewing Belgian style lambic with genuinely spontaneous fermentation, which in Norway would logically involve a different micro flora than in the Zenne valley; the project is still young, but is meticulously monitored by Nofima, the Norwegian research institute for (among other things) food research. They possess the technological means to carefully and thoroughly study the micro organisms involved in this ancient type of fermentation and it's pretty exciting to think of which discoveries will be made on a biological level in the Lindheim project - discoveries which may be well applicable to the ancient lambic culture in Belgium as well. The 37.5 cl bottle with cork and muselet opens under high pressure, like a champagne bottle; smoke escapes from the bottle neck under the soothing sound of loudly crackling foam. In the glass, this 'geuze' shows a medium thick, egg-white, densely moussy and irregularly lacing head, dissolving into patches in the middle but well-retaining around the edge; it sits atop a warm peach blonde beer with slightly ochre-ish hue, with a hazy robe almost right from the start, shifting to a milky orange blonde in the very end. The aroma is indeed pure lambic and very alluring if you are into this class of beers: old dried out lemon peel, stale lemon juice, green gooseberries, wry green plums, soaking wet old moldy bread, unripe pineapple juice, fermenting pear, dusty haystacks, raw rhubarb, unsweetened cider, the old horseblanket, something faintly old urine-like underneath (as it ought to be), old books in a forgotten, cobweb-covered attic, wet old newspapers, but also a faint, almost ripe peach- and even very subtly banana-like sweetness peeping through, likely the most recognizable Lindheim element in it, but I have no experience with this brewery yet so I am unable to assess that with certainty. Utterly crisp, very vividly fruity and estery onset, acidic sourness with a very lemony flavour to it yet remaining relatively 'mals' and not harshly puckering at all, more rhubarb-, gooseberry- and unripe stonefruit-like sourness and wryness, very refreshing, with a small sweetish peach-like core locked inside; carbonation is very high and minerally, very champagne-like - the way it is supposed to be in a sparkling, bright geuze but even in that context perhaps a tad on the coarse side, with bubbles that feel just a bit too large to elegantly convey such an amount of effervescence. Lovely wry unripe stonefruit, but also peachy and green melon-like flavours keeps accompanying the whole palate, over a deep, lactic tartness and a soft, bready, mellow malt base with very dim sourish wheatiness. Finishes very dry as one can expect from the style, but still retaining some juiciness; the overall effect is highly appetizing, if not mouthwatering. Bretty horseblanket-, haystack- and fermenting fruit-like aromas rise up retronasally, a crisp lemony sourness rests on the tongue and deep down, the almost 'dusty' woody tannins (even a slight glimpse of actual old wood flavour) and a late, earthy, bit leafy hop bitterness bring everything to perfect balance. This is a very full, crisp, bright, vivid geuze - still relying on half 'authentic' Belgian lambic of which I know and love the character, though, so I am left wondering what a 'geuze' made entirely from Lindheim's own part would taste like. In general, this feels a bit 'heavier' due to the above average ABV, and tastes a tad sweeter (that peach thing) than an Oud Beersel Oude Gueuze would, which I'm guessing is the Lindheim part of it. Probably benefited significantly from the half year of cellaring too; I wonder how this evolves over a more extended period of time, so I'm considering buying a few other bottles for aging. Anyway, I must find out more about this hugely fascinating Norwegian project. This, heavily supported by the expertise and flavour of Oud Beersel of course, is a beautiful creation in all respects; if you love lambic the way I do, you will not be disappointed. Cheers to the future of lambic - in the wake of Zwanze Day. I will never get enough of it.