750mL bottle, pours a hazy golden orange with a large white head. Aroma has lots of champagne-like effervescence, subtle grapefruit peel, and moderate funk. Flavour is much the same, light grapefruit peel, and subtle funk. Not super complex, but I like the forced carb. Very good.

750mL bottle from Oud Beersel. Pours clear gold with a white head. Musty old wood on the nose. Flavour has musty old furniture, grapefruit peel, dirty funk. I like the forced carbonation compared to the infused flat lambics on tap at the brewery. Very nice.

One of the latest flavoured Oud Beersel lambics to date which has made it from unblended infused 'trial' form to 'sparkling infused' bottled form, with a pinch of sugar to spark refermentation. I liked the unblended 'prototype' quite a lot and have good memories of this Sparkling Infused series so far, so my hopes are high. Medium thick, off-white, moussey, gradually opening head retaining thinly around the edge and in patches in the middle but eventually dissolving; misty pale orangey-apricot golden robe with enthusiastic sparkling. Aroma of indeed clear grapefruit peel (both fresh and dried - even an impression of grapefruit flesh), old wood, dry haystack, young wormwood leaf, orange water, unripe green plum, dandelions and other bitter garden weeds, poisonous ornamental plants, lightly toasted sunflower seeds, hints of lemon thyme, something vaguely perfumey (lavender) and chlorine. Sparkling onset for sure, lots of minerally, carbonated water-like effervescence, tart with impressions of lime, green gooseberry and unripe plum, but also something briefly and subtly sweetish hidden within (apricot), smooth bready core pierced by fruity lactic acidity and ongoing lambic esters, sour of course but quite 'mals', with drying woody tannins in the end; from the middle onwards, however, this tonic water-like, rooty, deep bitterness from the grapefruit peels takes over, overshadowing the subtleties of the lambic a bit, but admittedly working well with the woodiness and old hop bitter note sitting at the back. Remains citrusy-fruity, but this lively-bitter grapefruit flavour, both tasting like grapefruit pith and grapefruit juice, takes the biggest share of this effect. A grapefruit peel-flavoured beer is bound to be really bitter, of course, so I guess I knew what I had coming, but - as with the unblended prototype, if I may call it that way - the grapefruit as a whole is really very dominant here, like actual grapefruit juice poured into a glass of 'malse' young lambic. One to try for those who enjoy botanical bitter drinks like gin and tonic, perhaps? I can actually see this function well ice cold outdoors in summer, because refreshing and cleansing it sure is. It also remains to be seen how this will behave over time: Brett eats everything, as they say, but I wonder if it will also eat the naringin (the compound responsible for the grapefruit's bitterness)... Not entirely my personal cup of tea, but obviously - this is Oud Beersel after all - a technically very well made and original lambic.