Bouteille 37.5cl, BB 09/11/2041.
Couleur jus de cerise, pourpre oscillant sur un effet Pinot Noir sans la même intensité que la Oude Kriek.
Arôme est plaisant mettant bien en avant le caractère des deux variétés de cerises, ici un nez parfumé délicat, plus dans le côté terreux, funk que sur la Oude Kriek, retrouve un léger bouquet boisé et de jeune lambic.
Palais conserve une certaine douceur fruitée mais vite balancé par plus de funk que la Oude Kriek - cela à la variété de cerise alors que 30g supplémentaire à 430g sont dans cette bouteille. De beaux produits, à voir les développements dans les mois/années à venir et ce avec l'ajout d'autres lambics.

Bouteille 37.5cl @ Het Boerenerf. BB 09/11/2041.
Couleur profonde pourpre, col fin rosé finement pétillant.
Arôme est profond, ici le nez est en rappel de la Kriek Cantillon très fraiche mais avec un côté cerise encore plus marqué, c'est fort et subtile sur des éléments fins de boisé, fleuri, funk.

Palais est assez intense et ma rappelle de suite la Belgian Red de New Glarus voire la Intense Rood de 3F. Le caractère est marqué sur les cerises avec une douceur plaisante mais tranchée par une fine acidité de la cerise et un léger funk du lambic. Je suppose qu'ici on est sur du lambic jeune d'un an. Je retrouve une intensité du fruit avec en retrait une pointe de fraicheur de verger. Le tout est très jeune en bouteille, à voir comment cela va évoluer avec le temps.

The lambic revival of recent years has spawned another new producer: Boerenerf, actually a farm run by Senne Eylenbosch (mind the first name too - this man was obviously destined to end up in lambic), descendant of a family which used to blend lambic at the site until 1965. Boerenerf Eylenbosch, as it is fully called, already delivers grain and fruit to nearby 3 Fonteinen, but now decided to create an assortment of lambics of their own, making use of 3 Fonteinen lambic - thereby closing the loop, as it were. This assortment, publicly released last week, contains mostly somewhat unorthodox lambic beers, like a quince lambic, a sour cherry lambic backblended with cider and this sweet cherry lambic, made with both an old (Hedelfinger) and a more 'modern' (Kordia, or Attika) variety. Sweet cherry lambics made according to traditional methods (you know the drill: pure lambic, no added sugars, real fruit, no pasteurisation etc.) are anything but traditional, as almost invariably the sour species is used; there have been a few small scale experiments by Cantillon (I remember one from the nineties using a combination of both species) and 3 Fonteinen (much more recently, in the Twists of Fate series) but it is at least daring to come out with a pure sweet cherry lambic and positioning it next to a sour cherry one (and even a Schaarbeekse variant). Produces a bright Fristi-pink mousse upon pouring, medium thick but thinning and opening quickly, leaving only a thin rim of tiny pink bubbles behind seconds later; misty, very deep blood red robe with bright ruby glow. Complex bouquet of primarily a lot of black cherry flesh and wry cherry peel (a very generous 430 grammes per liter fruit, mind you), cooked blackberries, ripe blue plums, cherry wine and even a whiff of dry sherry or Sercial madeira but also undertones of wet grassland, freshly cut sedge, armpit sweat, soaking wet oak wood, old almonds, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, chlorine, minerals. Very juicy in the mouth, a thick wave of black cherries indeed, with side notes of blue plum, blue grape and ripe brambleberry, inherently lots of sweet fructose but edged by a tart fruit acidity too, bringing balance; softish carb, full and very juicy, almost vinous body. This luscious black cherry wine effect continues well into the finish, over a soft bready malt soil and further dried by increasing lactic acid, but instead of becoming really sour, it is the tannins from the wood and - in this case perhaps more importantly - the cherry skins and seeds that get the upper hand. A deep earthy tone 'zings' in the finish, moist farmland almost with a sweaty note on top but nowhere does the funk overrule this ongoing, soothing, 'cooked', fleshy black cherry effect and the whole remains deliciously juicy till the last drop. Enough lambic complexity and funkiness, enough acidity, enough tannins - but most of all, this Oude Kers seems as if wanting to showcase how bizarre it retrospectively seems that sweet cherries were never traditionally used in lambics in the old Senne valley. Utterly delicious - if this is the level of quality the other bottles have attained as well, then I am in for a ride (and many thanks again to tderoeck for scoring me this pack!). I guess 'Boerenerf Eylenbosch' will soon be rechristened 'Boerenerf' without the family name for the obvious legal reasons, but who cares: it will not take long for this project to gain fame in the lambic community with this kind of quality, with or without that historically 'charged' name... One to follow closely.