29/X/20 - 37.5cl bottle from Geers (Oostakker), shared @ home, BB: n/a (2020-1016)

Clear orange beer, big creamy white head, stable, non adhesive. Aroma: funky, lemony wood notes, lovely stuff, clean funkiness, bit fruity, some banana. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: nice clean acidity, some tannins, little bitter, some green apples. Aftertaste: good acidity, lemony, nice stuff, bit dusty, cellar, musty, lovely stuff!

Paired with spicy lobster and bisque pasta.

Bottle at home.slighr hazy golden with fizzy white head. Dry funk, malty, grapes, soft peach, green leaves, dry cellar notes. Medium sweet and sour, soft bitter. Over medium bodied with quite low carbonation, all the CO2 went out when pouring. Decent.

Wollig en zweterig, paardendeken, kazig, roestig en abrikoos & kruisbes fruitig. Licht kruidig ook en een dun aluminium metalig randje. Zacht en vol mondgevoel. Stevig maar niet scherp zuur. Erg lekker.

--- Beer merged from original tick of Oude Geuze Boon à l'Ancienne - VAT 108bis Mono Blend (2018) on 18 Jul 2020 at 21:24 - Score: 8

Bottle SB Eriksberg 2020-07-14 Göteborg AR: sour tart citrus, white grapes AP: clear coppery, no head F: sour tart citrus, white grapes,wee bubbly carbonation, oak

Bottle @ home. Pours relatively unclear, darker blonde. Medium-large sized, surprisingly creamy and stable (for the style) . Scent is intense, showcasing ripe fruits (apple) , mineral. Tart impression in the scent is very mild, so acetic acid is very low (which is a good thing) , woody. Taste is very intense, due to it's high and sharp carbonation, the taste is even intesified (when it comes to it's tartness) . no acetic acid, as expected, yet a relatively strong lactic acid / Fruit acid (for a Boon, as they're usually very mild). Woody, with some funk. Bit thin body, but it does work. A nice Boon, but like most of the latest in the series, I think they're not suffuciantly higher in quality, to justify the much higher price compared to their regular Oude Geuze. This used to be different ( Vat 77 was a legend! ) . Still happy to taste the series though, just not my go to drinking geuze's, as the price/quality ratio has been done much better in today's market.

Corked bottle. Honey in the citric, vinous aroma. Hint of oak. Rounded sours, with citrus, gooseberries and vinous notes. Oak. Complex. Very nice.

The latest Boon Mono Blend to date and quite a special one this case, as announced by the white label (rather than black as in all previous variants): the first one that makes use of a lambic already used in a previous Mono Blend (and the very best of the series for me so far), namely the VAT 108 from 2017, hence the ‘bis’. I leave it to the admins to decide whether this is enough to merge both entries into a single beer here, but in any case this special edition should also be seen as a tribute to the 108th ‘foeder’ itself, because this very barrel has meanwhile been taken out of production, its staves to be used on other ‘foeders’ where needed. The very last batch of lambic coming out of this particular barrel 108 was used in this 108bis blend. A Boon Mono Blend is always a big treat to me so I was very much looking forward to this one as soon as I saw its announcement on social media. Medium thick, off-white, mousy, slowly opening but generally very well-retaining head on an initially clear, deep orange golden beer with pale amber tinge and a ‘storm’ of swirling sparkling everywhere, shifting to misty when more of the bottle is added to the glass. Wonderfully noble aroma of freshly baked bread and ‘crêpes de blé noir’, grass seed, jute bags, unripe green plums, Sauvignon Blanc, green apple, old dried orange peel, cognac without the alcohol, grape seed oil, ‘roux blanc’, toasted pine nuts, very dry sherry, hint of typical ‘old Boon lambic’ chlorine. Lots of lemony and redcurrant-like sharpness and acidity at first but nowhere too harsh and softening to a more sedate lactic tartness further on, passing by green apple, yellow plum and even very subtly sweetish apricot notes in a spritzy, ‘champenoise’ effervescence; full, soft body, lovely breadiness with minerally side notes, ongoing stonefruity and grapey fruitiness and crispness till the very end, where a noble tannic woodiness and old sherry-like vinosity take over. A light, deep and vague hop bitter note brings structure to the finish, but this fruity crispness remains bright as ever even at that stage. Another highlight in this exciting series, youthful, crisp and ‘moelleux’ but at the same equally noble and mature – this is truly fantastic geuze in all respects. I need more bottles of this – to cellar them and in that sense keep the treasure of this ‘foeder 108’ alive for years to come…