20 June 2025. “Iets voor den Erwin” @ Dracuna. Cheers to the whole GBV crew!

Barnyard, wet hay, old white grapes, sherry, damp cellar, rhubarb, cucumber, gooseberry. Sour rhubarb, gooseberry, green apple and vague cucumber mixing with funky hay, cellar and lemon acid against a bready malt backbone. Rather astringent, mouth-puckering finish of woody tannins with lingering lemon & lactic acid and some green apple. Moussy texture, average to fizzy carbonation. Quite 'untamed' but enjoyable at that.

0,75l bottle at tasting at home. Bb 31/12/2044. Yellow rather hazy color, small white head. Smells very much of hay, earthy, light tomato juice, peppery. full body, target carbonated. Tastes funky, earthy, spices, minerals, pepper, herbal, oak. Finishes lightly dry and lightly sour with notes of pepper, herbs and leathery notes. Rather heavy carbonation. Once that dissolves its a lot better

8, 7.5, 7.5, 7, 7.5

20/VI/25 - 75cl bottle from… I don’t even remember where I found this one, shared @ Planckgas release party, Baracuna (Gent), BB: 31/12/2044, L01 24 15:23 (2025-572)

Clear orange beer, small creamy off-white head, unstable, non adhesive. Aroma: oxidized, sweet, some caramel, sherry, fruity touch, some dried fruits, some cardboard. Doesn’t smell great, for such a young beer… MF: very lively carbon, medium to light body. Taste: bitter touch, oxidized, fruity, lots of green apples, a little funky, bitter, earthy. Aftertaste: very sourish, lemony, bitter touch, fruity, green apples, a bit lemony, floral finish, pleasant but lacks some complexity. And the strong acetaldehyde is only drinkable because this is a sour beer, I would definitely hate this in another beer style.

Pours unclear blonde. Scent is very funky, brett forward, but not the most intense. Bit wood. Taste is sharp, tart, dry, citrus and brett. Very high carbonation.

For their 25th anniversary, the honorable Lambikstoempers, who put a lot of effort in keeping attention alive for traditional lambic beers in a time when it was badly needed, chose John Martin's Timmermans - the ancient lambic brewery in Itterbeek best known for sweet and pasteurized 'fake' lambic beers but also producing more than decent traditional ones - to assemble their anniversary geuze, part of which is lambic aged on Pinot Gris wine barrels. The muselet broke off before it could be removed by hand so I had to bring in the pincers to open the bottle, which, after removing muselet and cork, released quite some 'gun smoke'. Audibly crackling, egg-white, foamy, bubbling, lightly lacing head, slowly receding over a lightly misty, deep 'old golden' robe with pale apricot-orangey tinge and a whirlwind of fierce, champagne-like sparkling throughout - this is how any decent geuze should look. Strong and funky aroma of Granny Smith apples, saddle soap, oak wood, drying orange peel, purple gooseberries, plum kernels, old leather, raw quince, barnyard, furniture wax, raw rhubarb, wood sorrel, unripe nectarine, sour grapes, hints of apple vinegar, green cereals and petrichor. Spritzy onset, very crisp and lemony-acidic, sharp green apple sourness mixed with impressions of rhubarb, gooseberry and unripe green plum, but softened a bit by a background apricot-like element; very lively and edgy effervescence, more sparkly than champagne and very sharp even for a geuze, accentuating the sourness. Smooth cereally, bready core strongly dried by this sharp, lemony-citric acidity, quite 'neig' in all, with fruity lactic acid constituting a solid base of ongoing tartness and 'green' fruitiness, until very strong and astringent tannic woodiness adds further dryness, as does a late but lingering, earthy and persistent 'old hop' bitter note. Retronasal Bretty funk (barnyard and wet leather) adds another essential layer of flavours, while the Pinot Gris component, however subtle, is clearly noticeable as a 'grapey', sour-sweetish, vinous fruitiness in the final stages, but the citrusy and green apple-like sourness remains the dominant 'colour'. Quite a sparkly, lively, radiant geuze, perhaps a bit too young still - I should have put this one in a deeper corner of the cellar and wait for a few years, but since they released it into the wild, I guess I can assume it has reached the form the Lambikstoempers were happy with. Rather 'neig', much more so than Timmermans' own 'oude geuze', but rich and complex, and certainly refreshing and stimulating. Not for everyone I think, but I am very curious about future ratings of this particular geuze!