8

Botella @Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen - lambik-O-droom. 03/04/2024. Color amarillo oscuro corona de espuma blanca aromas y sabores madera, ácida, notas dulces cuerpo medio.

8.6

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 9.5

750mL bottle, pours a clear copper amber with a small white bead. Aroma is full of barrels, with plenty of calvados, wood, and musty leather. Flavour is very strong for a lambik, with lots of calvados character, alcohol, wood, and musty leather. Doesn't have much funk or vibrance, but the calvados character is unparalleled. Absolutely wonderful.

8.1

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5

Bottle at 3F. Rich’s 50th do. Mostly clear pale copper. Slim white foam. Pretty intense alcohol here. Lots of apple brandy. Dirty leather funk. Esters. Taste has a honey like sweetness. Some leathery woody booze driven bitterness. Smooth, once you’ve got round the alcohol. Finish has modest bitterness over the calvados fruit.

8.4

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8.5

Bottle shared at 3 Fonteinen, for Rich's 50th Bruxelles adventure. A clear amber orange coloured pour with a loose beige head. Aroma is semi sweet, honey, earth, boozy calvedos, apple wood. Flavour is composed of semi sweet, tart, some lemon rind, honey, earthy brown sugars, earthy lemon, grassy finish. Warming alcohol, toffee apple,. Palate is semi sweet light tannin, highish carbonation. Lovely.

8.2

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

Bottle split at the Lambik O Droom, 10/02/24. Almost clear orange to light amber with a just off white cap that thins to a swirl. Nose is vinous, light alcohol, hedgerow, dried raisins, mellow calvados. Taste comprises wood must, dusty green berries, funk, tannins, subtle calvados, oak, stewed fruits, herb. Medium bodied with some bite, fine carbonation, light drying close with a balanced puckering edge. Solid kit ... picked up as I drank more and the flavours developed.

9.5

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.