Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 9

Bottle, 2011, drunk 2/5/16. Huge thanks to James for opening this!
Lightly murky, drab copper with some brighter hay tones throughout. Huge white head, even decanting the beer, that slowly fades to cover.
Unmistakable elderflower in the nose combines with perfumey brett notes, tons of basement/cellar character and a light touch of wood. It’s bright, pervasive and true to Cantillon’s fruit lambics, very fruit-forward (in this case flower-forward). Elderflower, being quite powerfully aromatic, seems to find a good match in the ripe and earthy funk that Cantillon lambics bring to the table and it’s incredibly unique smelling the interplay of both.
Delightful carbonation, tight and natural as always, helps spread this magnificently flavorful elderflower all over the palate, while lactic and brett acids somewhat match the intensity providing their own funky punch. At 5 years of age, this is still very vibrant and strong and I’d be very hard-pressed to imagine this being optimal to drink when brand new. The elderflower is a very strong flavor component that easily (and has almost always) turns things astringent when not carefully controlled. While it is here done very well, there are still some touches of bland nuttiness, soap/oil and light astringency that are inevitable from its use. Wood/oak and mature barnyard flavors abound behind the elderflower and the beer is an absolute joy to drink. Experimental and fun, yet well-executed.

Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 10 | Overall - 8

2022 vintage bottle shared at the brewery. Citrushejjas, kellemesen savas, funky, kisse tanninos, joghurtos bodzaszorp. Nagyon szepen osszeall, komplex, kerek, de ugyanakkor felfedezheto benne egy szep egyszeruseg is, ha nem vagyik gondolkodasra az ember.

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

Bottle at Cask Days 2018. Funky, but subdued. Floral, yet tart, with some wet hay, and light horse blanket, and lactic notes. Mouthfeel is lively, carb is more of the same. Tart, floral finish, light fruit, and cereals. Well balanced, very enjoyable.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5

From bottle at Wild Festival 2021. 2020 bottle. Aroma is pretty herbal with elderflower, notes of dille. Medium sour with a little bitterness. Medium body.Pretty young, lacks complexity. Very herbal. Cantillon can do a lot better.

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5

Bottle 0,75ltr: Slightly hazy golden Lambic thats not so sour as its regular brews from Cantillon. Its kind a fruity and flowery of taste,and quite dry and bitter too. They used elderflower its an good Lambic variation.

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8

0,75l from bottle at the brewery. Apparantly this is a blend with some(?) Ashanti. yellow hazy color, small white head. smells herbal, earthy, tobacco, spices, coriander. full body, soft carbonation. tastes spices, earthy, coriander, tobacco. finishes lightly dry and light to medium sour with notes of herbal, spices and tobacco. Very interesting one, very much like it. Rather unique

8, 8, 8, 8, 8

Hapu, leedrine, musta piprane, puuviljane, funky, nats nisu, veits happeline. Äge, pipar sobib hästi siia.

Hapu, leeder, funky, sidrun, kuiv herbaalne. Hea.

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8

Very special edition of this familiar Cantillon classic: though the label was exactly the same as with other Mamouche editions, the content is very different, in that to a total of 1400 liter of Mamouche, 50 liter of Poivre de Gorilles was added, the black pepper lambic specifically created for Zwanze 2022. This was mentioned on their socials, but the fact that the bottles are labelled identically to ‘normal’ Mamouche (without even a small additional sticker for clarification), causes me to suspect that the addition of the pepper lambic was simply a mistake to begin with – and ‘retconned’ on their Facebook page afterwards as being intentional… Over at Ratebeer a debate has already been held over whether or not this blend should be regarded as a different entry or not, with the outcome being that because of the brewery selling it as just another edition of Mamouche, it should not be seen as a different beer. I remain a bit in doubt about this – but luckily Brewver offers the possibility to rate vintages so here this problem does not exist. Anyway, thanks to Bart A. for sharing. Snow white, moussey, thick, regular head, slowly dissipating over an initially clear, very pure yellow-golden blonde robe with champenoise sparkling, misty in the end. Aroma quite strongly pointing at freshly crushed and roasted black peppercorns – even stronger than the quantitatively much more important elderblossom which comes clearly after, paired with impressions of dried lemon peel, old wood, green apple, minerals, cava, old cheese rind, damp hay, dry capers. Tart, lemony onset, lots of green apple and green plum with a touch of halfripe peach somewhere, lively and minerally carbonated with drying yoghurty sourness pushing through a bread-crusty core; leathery and hayish Brett effects retronasally, quickly overpowered by black peppercorn spiciness – which then fades and gradually makes room for the elderblossom, taking things back into old familiar Mamouche territory, in a flowery, herbaceous and somewhat ‘cheesy’ way (cheesy being positive here – and typical for elderblossom-flavoured beers in general). Woody tannins and a subordinate bittering touch of old hops do the rest – but the finish remains juicy, floral and ‘fresh’. A very odd but happy ‘accident’ (if it was indeed an accident) which actually works wonderfully – the boldness of the pepper does not obliterate the elderblossom completely (though it does dominate orthonasally) and the pepperiness and floweriness actually work very well together, with a pungent, bright, ‘spring-like’ effect. If this is what happens when Cantillon makes a mistake, then they can mistakes every day as far as I am concerned – in fact, maybe they should consider releasing this pepper-elderblossom blend as an entirely new lambic altogether, on a more regular base…

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 8.5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 9

Bottle for Zwanze 2024 shared with Sjoerd. Slight hazy golden. This is supposed to have the Pink Pepper Zwanze blended in. And yeah, I get a ton of Pink Pepper up for ont, followed by a lot of elderflower, soft funk and malts. Yeah this is really different from the 2023 we just had. Really good.