Bottle at 3F. Rich’s 50th do. Hazed medium gold. Ring of white bubbles. Whiff of light savoury smoke to start. Some sour wheat. Light flora. Soft herb. Taste has some sweetness with low to moderate tartness. Fresh and lean and clean. Foamy carbonation. Gentle acidity on the finish.

- Heavy with oaky notes, some stingy wood, hints of sweetness, smokiness and tart funky farmyardy notes. Quite intense.

Small if persistent off-white head over clear goldne beer. Earthy, smoke - tarry even - , charcoal. Again smoke, almost as if Rauchmalze was used; finish is more lactic acid, with farmyard, lemon(rind). Good carbonation; present if mild acidburn and -thinning. Very interesting, but I really wonder whence the outspoken smoked flavour.

Bottle shared at 3 Fonteinen, for Rich's 50th Bruxelles adventure. A light hazed orange coloured pour with a lasting loose white head. Aroma is hint of smokey, cherry, lemon rind., chatted wood, phenol,. Flavour is composed of semi sweet, tart, pithy citrus, mineral, lightly smoked cherry,, light mineral. Palate is tart and prickly, massaging carbonation. Good stuff.

Bottle split at 3F Lambik O Droom, 10/02/24. Moderately hazed orange to light amber with an off white cap that thins to a swirl. Nose is herb, light smoke, straw, funk, barnyard, hay bale, musty berries. Taste comprises funk, damp wood, berry must, herb, damp straw, more subtle smoke, stewed prunes. Medium bodied, fine carbonation, light drying close with a light puckering edge. Solid.

After the chestnut version, something even more exotic showed up in the Single Wood list at Lambik-O-Droom: lambic aged on mulberry casks, again custom-made for 3 Fonteinen by a German cooper (Böttcher). Small wooden objects are sometimes made of mulberry wood, but it remains a rarity as a raw material here in Europe, due to mulberries being only small trees (and therefore not very interesting for the wood industry) and being fairly uncommon as cultivated plants (if anything, one encounters them primarily as ornamental trees, fruit trees or host plant for silkworms). Open, snow white but dense ring of foam on a misty deep and warm orange-glowing apricot robe. The aroma proved even more bizarre than that of the chestnut version, with very odd notes of kipper (!) and liverwurst initially, though these weird meaty-fishy aspects faded after a while, making room for impressions of dry hay, unripe plum, mustard seed, old lemon zest, rosewater, redcurrant, gooseberry, sour apple and a bit of ‘putteke’ (sewer water, but luckily also fading). Crisp, acidic onset, redcurrant, crabapple and green gooseberry, rhubarb perhaps, medium carbonated with minerally effects; astringent yet not overly puckering, with a colourful lactic acidity running through a vinous, bread-crusty core with a certain iron-like touch in the end – yet feeling completely natural, so doubtlessly related to the mulberry wood as well together with those odd meaty and fishy aspects in the nose. Unripe orange and unripe apricot shine through in the finish, something rosewood-like eventually appears and clearly represents the mulberry wood, while that bright sour fruit radiance persists. Basically a beautiful, elegantly fruity, citric lambic with a weird twist to it from a wood species I have never seen in beer (or any other beverage); the whole thing kept shifting colours which made it all the more interesting and though thoroughly enjoyed in spite of the lack of reference frame, I am unconvinced that mulberry wood is very suitable for ageing beer (or lambic) on. Still a fantastic experiment because at least now I know what mulberry wood can do, just in case I ever come across it again…

Pours a darker, unclear blonde. No real head. Scent is biscuity, some woody notes. Taste is sharp, tart, dry, woody with a spicy, herbal side. Coockies come to mind. More tart expression than other versions in the series. Nice !