Zenne d'Auge (Season 21|22) Blend No. 122
(Batch of Zenne d'Auge)
Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen in Lot, Flemish Brabant, Belgium 🇧🇪
Lambic Style - Unblended Series|
Score
7.59
|
|
Season 21|22 Blend No. 122 description:
Zenne d’Auge is a new addition in the Zenne-series and is the result of ageing lambik on old Calvados barrels. The Pays d’Auge is a beautiful area in Normandy, France. This region is known for its apple orchards, point-l’évêque and camembert cheese, and ciders and calvados.
For this two-barrel calvados lambik, we matured three thirty-one-month-old lambikken for a full year on two casks from a small organic cider and calvados producer. About one third of the grain bill used for brewing these lambikken was sourced directly with Pajottenland farmers from of our Cereal Collective. We let them sit in our cellar for another full year almost before its release.
Sign up to add a tick or review
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8
Pours cloudy amber. Small to no head. Scent is mild, some apples. Lambic funk. Taste is full, tart. Very funky. Oak is expresive. Towards the back, a lot of apples show. Seemingly spicy as well (spices, not hot) this is more than geuze+apples, this is a culinary highlight beer.
Appearance - 9 | Aroma - 9.5 | Flavor - 9.5 | Texture - 10 | Overall - 9.5
One of 3 Fonteinen’s newest high-profile experiments to date, a lambic aged in calvados barrels, which apparently inspired the 3F crew to link it to the Zenne series and baptise it Zenne d’Auge. Announced for the Open Beerdays of last week, this one was not considered completely finished by the brewery at the time and has therefore not officially been released yet, but pours were given at Lambik-o-Droom and in view of the sheer beauty of this new product (and the fact that Untappd already has a bunch of ratings too), I decided to enter it here already and add this preliminary rating based on the pours from two different bottles I got at the great Lambik-o-Droom. Snow white, stable, medium thick, irregularly lacing and opening head on a clear to misty orange-glowing deep golden robe. Incredibly rich and unique nose of ripe peach, cooked apple, lots of vanilla-scenting oak, a touch of dusty shelves, hazelnut oil, lemon, Pineau, passionfruit (!), pineapple even, calvados indeed very present through it all. Cooked gooseberries and sweet-sour red apple in the onset, fruitiness complemented by hints of yellow plum, passionfruit and even vague pineapple, softly carbonated with supple and fully vinous mouthfeel, through a bready core with biscuity edges under a whole world of flavours, maintaining this beautiful ‘yellow’ fruitiness, adding vanillin-flavoured and tannic oakiness and, in the end, a soothing afterglow of calvados warmth, which remains in perfect balance with the lambic’s base characteristics. I was baffled by this one, I can imagine every bottle being fairly different still at this stage, but if this is intended to become even better as the brewery apparently believes, then I must have a sip of it again when it is ready – because even in this ‘not yet perfectly mature’ form, this is one of the most beautiful lambics I ever had. A masterpiece of utmost sophistication.