5/V/24 - from cask @ Toer de Geuze, BB: n/a (2024-290) Thanks to all for sharing today’s beers!

A little cloudy orange beige beer, no head, just a small layer of big bubbles, a little stable, non adhesive. Aroma: some diacetyl, grains, dirty touch, sulphur, meh. MF: no carbon, medium body. Taste: bitter, funky, dry, tannins, woody, earthy bitter, decent. Aftertaste: dry, spicy, more earthy, bitter, wood, tannins, meh, not too exciting.

Bottle. Clear deep ruby. Yoghurt, cheesy, sweet cherries, wheat, quite some dusty herbs, soft lemons, red currants. It needs a little time to open up and become less dusty. Medium sweetz a bit less sour. Medium bodied, soft carbonation. Quite unique, not amazing but fun to try.

0,375l bottle at home. Lot 20221228. BB 28.12.2032. had to use a corkscrew to get the cork out, then opened with a super loud blob. yellow lightly hazy color, very small white bubbles. smells funky, wood, rather oak forward, some hay, subtle walnuts. nice to very nice smell. full body, rather subtle carbonation. tastes oak, hints of vanilla, nutty, walnuts, light minerality, some hay. finishes dry and lightly sour with notes of walnuts, oak and minerality. very nice one, tastes suprisingly major. good stuff!

Poured from 375mL bottle (bottled 2022/12/28). Hazy gold with minimal white head and some small chunkies. Lighter bodied, flater in character, mild funk, but not quite enough depth, okay.

Bottled Dec 2022. 375mL bottle, pours a hazy golden dull orange with a small white head. Nose is fairly low on the barnyard funk, with some orange zest, a touch of oak, and some leather. Flavour is very musty and earthy, with subtle, subdued funk, gentle oak, very low acidity, some yogurt, and a hint of grapefruit. Not very funky or clean, nor very complex, but it has its charm. Decent, but far from an elite gueuze.

Sample from bottle at Stigbergets Fot. Hazy reddish with a small head. Quite tart with black currant, blueberry, funk, some oak and minerals. A tasty one.

One of the newer Kestemont lambics to date, and now that this lambic producer has entered the honourable HORAL council, I guess the time is right to celebrate with this multi-fruit lambic. Made with fruits cultivated by the family Kestemont themselves, namely sour cherries, blackberries, redcurrants, red gooseberries and green goodeberries, a specific combo the world probably never saw before (though there are, of course, very comparable constructions around, see e.g. Lambiek Fabriek's Pluri-Elle). Initially thick and frothy, audibly crackling, quickly breaking but edge-retaining, off-white head with 'dirty lilac' tinge, dissolving into nothing; hazy warm burgundy robe with purple tinge, cloudy to murky in the end. Aroma of lots of ripe (sour) cherry including almond from their pits, blackberry coulis, gooseberry wine, vanilla (quite pronounced - from oak wood and again cherry pits I presume), marzipan even, plum juice from a bottle, passionfruit, sweet sherry, redcurrant bush leaves but no recognisable redcurrant fruit, hazel-tree leaves, natural wine, soggy bread, blueberry crumble even though no blueberries went in, glazed beetroot, damp earth. Juicy onset, evidently a whole lot of fruit, fleshy sour cherries coming to the foreground quickly but ripe blackberries and red gooseberries following quickly at comparable force so that there is no pure 'oude kriek' experience here - rather a 'gathered forest fruit lambic' experience, I would say; again the astringency and sharpness of green gooseberry and redcurrant lags behind, engulfed in the sheer juiciness of the other, more fleshy and sweet fruits. Effervescence is relatively low for a fruit lambic, but there is a general vinosity to this product reminiscent of homemade fruit wine (and I mean other fruit than grapes in this case). Some underlying acidity does 'scratch' the enamel of the teeth, but the loads of fructose from the ripe red fruits covers a lot, including a soft undercurrent of lactic acid and a mellow 'bed' of bready malts. 'Green leaf' aspects pop up here and there, woodiness adds a tannic effect joining the tannins from all that fruit, but a juicy and vinous impression, with considerable retronasal vanillin from the cherry pits, remains the core of this unusual fruit lambic. Retronasally, apart from all the fruit, a kind of 'green' pepperiness as well as a noble oxidized sherry effect show up, but subtly so and only in the very end. Little bitterness from hops in the end, but the fruit skins take over this function and add soft astringency - again, not standing a chance against all that fruit wine juiciness. The sweeter and fleshier red fruits clearly dominate the sharper but thinner green fruits completely here. In all, sour-sweet to the extent that it vaguely nods at 'oud bruin', but more importantly: completely drowned in naturally grown, ripe, juicy autumn fruit, fleshy and vinous at the same time, with a background 'wet' earthiness (even something sewer-like) lurking around the corner, but not quite revealing itself. The latter only adds to the utterly natural character of this lambic, but I do miss the lambic 'wildness' as well as the refreshing effervescence present in Pluri-Elle by Lambiek Fabriek (the only lambic I can think of right now that departs from a similar concept even though the berries are not the same); like most of Kestemont's fruit lambics so far, this one feels a bit dirty, underattenuated and underdeveloped in its lambic core, but I am willing to admit that the sheer fruitiness and overly 'natural' character of this beer makes up for a whole lot. A bit odd but quite unique and surprising, so have some extra points for that alone.

6/II/24 - 37.5cl bottle from Geers (Oostakker), shared @ home, BB: 6/XI/41, lot: 20211108 (2024-79)

Pretty clear deep ruby red beer, no head. Aroma: very dirty, funky, urinals, then after a while in the glass the fruit starts opening up, nice cherries, almonds, and quite some vinegar as well. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: sourish start, lemony, cherries, very acidic, a little bitter, some tannins, a bit watery, earthy, grape skins. Aftertaste: some red wine, woody, bitter, earthy, dry, tannins in the finish.