Nuit Bruxelloise
(has 5 batches)

Wonderful dark purple colour, red hue, light violet head. Fruity aroma, grape juice and must, blackcurrant, wood, yoghurt and vinegar, some cheese notes. Quite sour flavour, very fruity, lemon, blackcurrant, sour blackberries, grapes. Quite dry. Finish wood, grapes, berries. Great flavour bomb, and worked wonderful with the wine - cottage cheese - Tasmanian pepperberry combination. Great stuff.
(from 75cL bottle @ Quintessence '18)

Two year old Cantillon lambic with Alicante Bouchet grapes, an old and relatively uncommon red wine grape variety from France, also known as ‘teinturier’ apparently. Sampled during Quintessence, where it was paired with cottage cheese flavoured with a Tasmanian pepper variety – a combination that worked wonderfully well, I must say. This beer showed a beautifully pure lilac coloured, moussy, lacing head and a hazy, very deep ruby-hued violet colour. Aroma of sour grape juice and grape seeds, dusty attic, old cheese rind, dried blackberries, old tawny port, red wine vinegar, moist wood, green tree leaves, old books, tomato peel. Crisp sour onset with sharp lemony acidic edges, otherwise bursting with tart dark fruit juice, blue grapes in concentrated form but blackcurrant- and brambleberry-like impressions as well, with very little sweetness to it even if the grapes have retained a slight fructose accent amidst all this tartness; bone dry middle further dried by tannins from the grape seeds and skins, with a notably woody factor in the finish, dusty, accentuating the tannic character with an earthy note. Complex, bone dry, very tart and tannic, this is not the most accessible Cantillon fruit lambic, not even in comparison with e.g. Saint Lamvinus, but it sure boasts a lot of personality, with a kind of ‘foresty’ character to it due to the tree leaf, dry and dusty dead wood and forest fruit associations. Curious to find out if this variation on the old grape lambic theme, as revived by Cantillon already in the seventies, will be continued in some or other form.

Fajnie owocowe, cierpkie, przyprawowe, pijalne, mila dzikisc, dosc grzeczna 4.2

Bottle sampled. Bright red wine, ruby almost purple amazing colour. Nose is pure wine, wine skins, dry red wine oak, low acidic, extreme amount of red grape skins, puckering, tannins. Dry vinous wine skins, very lingering dry harsh tannic wine, lingering, all pepper, tannins, oak, wet wine oak, complete wine. 100 % dry tannic red wine with zero beer character. Delicious but completely removed from being beer.

8 4 8 4 17 Bottle at Quintessence. Hazy purple with a pink head. Aroma of red grapes, big vinous notes, red wine, oak and barnyard funk. Flavour is moderate sweet and sour. Above medium bodied with a dry finish and very soft carbonation.

Bottle sampled at Quintessence. Deep purple with dark pink head. Strong red grapes, funk, grape skins, marzipan, sweet berries, light pepper which goes well with the berries they serve with this, tannins, spicy oak. Medium sour, under medium sweet and bitter. Medium bodied. Lovely, but quite spicy too. Cool stuff!