Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen Zenne D'Hesbaye

Zenne D'Hesbaye

 

Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen in Lot, Flemish Brabant, Belgium 🇧🇪

  Lambic Style - Untraditional Regular
Score
7.19
ABV: 8.8% IBU: - Ticks: 2
For this first ever whisky geuze, we blended lambikken that sat for almost16 months on two small Belgian Owl barrels. These barrels contained single matl whisky for years and originally came from Heaven Hill distilleries. We blended with some more lambic of one and four years old, rendering the weighted average age of this blend to more than 37 months. About 80% of the lambikken is brewed with locally sourced cereals. This first small batch marks our first steps into Whisky barrel matureation of our lambik. And we still have so much to explore in the world of spirits..
 

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8.1
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 9 | Overall - 8

New Zenne variation outside of the trusted – and highly praised – Zenne y Frontera series, in which sherry is integrated in the lambic; this one, however, integrates Belgian Owl, a whisky produced in a village near Liège (and one I have encountered in several other Belgian beers before, though never in a lambic). Sampled from a 75 cl bottle during its release event at Lambik-O-Droom last Saturday, cheers Bart A.! Off-white, medium thick, opening but otherwise largely stable head on a misty peach blonde robe with warm brownish-amberish glow. Aroma of pronounced vanillin-exuding oak wood (from both the lambic and the whisky), lemon rind, lime juice, sorrel, indeed (Speyside-like) whisky, dusty attic, goat cheese, wood glue, deep-fried parsley, dried lemon thyme, old leather, hay. Refreshingly tart onset, hints of lemon peel and lime juice, redcurrant and unripe nectarine, with cava-like effervescence and drying lactic acidity piercing through a bread-crusty core along with these lemony acids, fruity esters and – increasingly – very strong, vanilla-scenting, tannic oak wood (oak furniture effect), evolving into a warming, sweetish-rounded, whisky-flavoured alcohol glow, though nothing too outspoken or aggressive. Dried fruit effects, also linked to the Belgian Owl, linger about, while this lemony streak keeps everything sharp and edgy. The whisky is surely there, but feels well-integrated, offering more of its flavours (vanilla, dried fruit and wood) to the lambic than its alcohol, which, in spite of the relatively high ABV, remains firmly in the background. In that sense a sophisticated product, less whisky-forward than most Zenne y Fronteras are sherry-forward, so to speak, but with this special twist I found very agreeable.

Tried on 19 Jun 2024 at 18:32


7.8
Appearance - 9 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7.5

White bubbles, resistant over fully hazy, peach-ochre beer. Wood, faraway booze (whisky), cheese, farmyard, horseblanket. Sweet, obvious whisky, very modeste farmyard, but a bit burning backthroat. Sharp acidburning, acidthinning, good carbonation - the more as the sample is end of the bottle. More than interesting, looking forward to following exploration in the area of spiritbarreling. Txs to Gaëtan!

Tried from Bottle at Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen & lambik-O-droom on 16 Jun 2024 at 05:48