Spontaneous beer newbies from the Pajottenland

Officially spring is here, the temperatures raise and our Lambic brewers and blenders … keep on working! Because yes, there is something moving in our Pajottenland. Just read on.

New at Oud Beersel

Gert Christiaens of blendery Oud Beersel (Beersel) just introduced 2 new beers. Oude Geuze Barrel Selection Oude Pijpen 2017 is a blend of Lambics, with a mean age of 20 months and riped on the best old barrels (650 liter) of the blendery, which are now about 60 to 120 year old. From now on you can also descover his Bersalis Sourblend Grand Cru, a blend of the known Bersalis Tripel with a batch of very expressive and fruity lambik. Mmm … sounds promessing!

Oud Beersel nieuws maart 2018

BTW: Again, congratulations with your 4 prizes at the Barcelona Beer Challenge 2018 Awards, Gert! 😉

Boon Belgian Family Brewer

From their part the family Boon has officially joined the Belgian Family Brewers-organisation. This authenticity label will be present on all the bottles of brewery Boon (Lembeek) from now on.

Boon Belgian Family Brewers

Gueuzerie Tilquin in motion

It’s no secret that blender Pierre Tilquin is doing well. At his site in Rebecq a new GAI-bottle line is recently installed – until now he had one on loan, this one is now his own – good for 1.800 75 cl bottles per hour, or 2.300 37,5 cl bottles per hour! From now on he can bottle a batch of 3.800 liter in just 1 day time.

And his Lambics – in the photo below from the brewery Lindemans (Vlezenbeek) – keep on fermenting spontaneously. 😉

Spontaneous actvity at Lambiek Fabriek & Belgoo

This month the same picture was also seen at the guys from Lambiek Fabriek (Ruisbroek), where a new load of fresh brewn Lambic is now fermly fermenting. In short: a new Brett-Elle in the making!

And also Belgoo-brewer Jo Van Aert produced a new batch Belgoo Bikske (Lambic) at the beginning of this month – when it still was really cold –, in collaboration with Jozef van Bossstraeten of Lambiek Fabriek in their shared coolship at Sint-Pieters-Leeuw. Doing well, guys!

3 Fonteinen plays fate

Finally, at the Lambik-O-Droom (Lot) of Brewery 3 Fonteinen a series of Oloroso and Amontillado sherry Barrels were filled with young 3 Fonteinen Lambic at the beginning of this month. These can now go and do their thing.

Armand Debelder & Michaël Blancquaert however like to go crazy once in a while. You can taste the result on Friday 27 and Saturday 28 april 2018! Then they indeed uncork their “Twisting the fate”  at the Lambik-O-Droom, a series of experimental brews, barrel ripings fruit macerations and/or assemblies with a limited edition. Don’t miss this!

3 Fonteinen bespelingen van het lot

For more (beer) news keep an eye on our our Facebook– and/or Twitter-page! Santé. 😉

Tasting Belgium-The Netherlands is won by …

België vs. Nederland

On Friday 8 December 2017 The Lambikstoempers played an interland … beer tasting. 🙂

Within a certain beer style they each time tasted a Belgian and Dutch beer next to one another, without knowing which was the Belgian and which was the Dutch beer. The beers were indicated with the numbers 1 and 2, each time served at a random order.

Proeverij België-Nederland

In total there were 5 different beer styles:

  1. Pale ale
  2. Tripel
  3. IPA
  4. Bock
  5. Stout

Per beer style the organizer Kristof Verhasselt tried to place two very similar beers next to one another: the same hops in the pale ale, malted triple, a resin nature in the IPA and a strong coffee taste in the bock and stout. This is to judge as objective as possible which of the two beers – within the same taste experience – was finally judged as the tastiest.

De geproefde bieren

BELGIUM THE NETHERLANDS
Pale Ale Janimal (Vrijstaat Vanmol / Eutropius) 3,3% Hop & Liefde (De Molen) 4,8%
Tripel Waterloo Triple Blond 7 (Brasserie de Waterloo / John Martin) 8,0% Tricky Tripel (Gebrouwen door Vrouwen / Lindeboom) 7,8%
 IPA Delta IPA (Brussels Beer Project / Anders!) 6,5% Mooie Nel IPA (Jopen) 6,5%
 Bock Four Aces Herfstbock (Het Nest) 7,0% La Trappe Bockbier (Koningshoeven) 7,0%
 Stout Café Noir (Keun) 10,0% Espresso Stout (Emelisse) 9,5%

In total there were 18 Lambikstoempers present to taste – among which also Frank Boon and his son Karel! – and the reactions were praising. Most beers – Dutch or Belgian – hit the spot, they needed to vote nonetheless a favourite beer within each category.

Line-up proeverij België-Nederland

And the winner was …?

Within the different categories the next votes were recorded and those beers were the ones that are most liked …

  1. Pale Ale: Hop & Liefde (11 votes) vs. Janimal (7 votes)
  2. Triple: Tricky Tripel (12 votes) vs. Waterloo Triple Blond 7 (6 votes)
  3. IPA: Delta IPA (16 votes) vs. Mooie Nel IPA (2 votes)
  4. Bock: La Trappe Bockbier (15 votes) vs. Four Aces Herfstbock (3 votes)
  5. Stout: Keun Café Noir (9 votes) vs. Espresso Stout (9 votes)

So The Netherlands won in the categories ‘pale ale’, ‘triple’ and ‘bock’, while Belgium only won in the ‘IPA’-round. With the ‘stout’ the opinions were nicely divided.

And also in the general score (all votes counted together)  The Nederlands came out the winner, with in total 49 votes against 41 votes for Belgium. So, Orange on top!

Winnaars proeverij België-Nederland

Purpose of the tasting

With the score mentioned above  the goal of the tasting was reached, this was: let people taste Dutch beers unprejudiced to show that our neighbours in the North are doing well at that front.

This result wasn’t promoted, as confirmed by the attendees during and after the tasting: all beers were chosen with a objectively comparable taste within the same beer type. But  maybe the most important of it all: it was a nice, interesting and tasty tasting. 😉

> Look here at the photo’s of the tasting

Proeverij België-Nederland

25-26/11/2017: 12th Day of the Oude Geuze

De Lambikstoempers vzw and the Streekproducten Centrum Halle invite you at their

Dag van de Oude Geuze 2017

12th Day of the Oude Geuze

on Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 November 2017 in the Streekproducten Centrum Halle

It is already the 12th time we collaborate, so this is becoming a tradition. As a annual habit we organise a tasting with regional products near the year end, also the ideal occasion to get ideas for a gift for the year end.

This year we invited 2 guests at the Streekproducten Centrum:

  • Sven Deman of WHERE BEER MEETS CHOCOLATE specialised in combining of chocolat & beer: during this open door you can taste beer and chocolat. This results in a surprizing blend of 2 different products.
  • Johan Pevernagie of MATERIA GIN will get the visitors acquainted with his 4 tastes of different gins and if needed will give the explanation about the combinations with different tonics.
  • The regional products produced in-house can also be tasted of course. New this year is a paté made of Oude Geuze & Kriek 3 Fonteinen.

12th Day of the Oude Geuze

This twelfth edition takes place on Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 November 2017, in the upper room of the Streekproducten Centrum, Poststraat 3A at 1500 Halle.

Saturday from 10.00 h to 18.00 h and Sunday from 14.00 h to 18.00 h.

Lasr year more than 650 interested people, among whitch a great number of foreigners, found their way to the Streekproducten Centrum to (re)discover the different tastes of the Lambic beers!

Also this year we provide an extensive variety of beers of spontaneous fermentation to taste.
Beers of the following breweries / blenders can be tasted : Boon (Lembeek), Cantillon (Anderlecht), De Cam (Gooik), De Troch (Wambeek), Drie Fonteinen (Beersel), Girardin (Sint-Ulriks-Kapelle), Hanssens (Dworp), Lindemans (Vlezenbeek), Mort Subite (Kobbegem), Oud Beersel (Beersel), Tilquin (Rebecq), Timmermans (Itterbeek) and the Lambiek Fabriek (Ruisbroek).

Dag van de Oude Geuze 2015

We only serve, to joy of a horde of beer lovers, the real lambic beers. Only those that are made with 100% lambic  to make a OUDE GEUZE & OUDE KRIEK and with the yeast in the air of the Valley of the Senne. We are really proud to offer you in one location the full assortment of the 12 Lambic brewers and Geuze Blenders still left and a new one from the region.

Also this year the visitors get the chance to taste a real Lambic, the base brew of the geuze. We provide three Lambics, directly from the wooden casks of the local lambic brewers.

Besides Lambic we also serve Oude Geuze, Oude Kriek, Faro, Raspberry beer, … and two beers that actually don’t belong in this assortment: our own Servais beer, a top fermented beer brewed in the occasion of the year of Servais, a festival beer with a low alcohol by volume of 6,5%. And the high alcohol variant, Servais Tripel. Also coffee and soft drinks are available.

Dag van de Oude Geuze 2015

All beers are served in tasting glasses of 15 cl. This way you can taste more different beers.

FREE entry to the Day of the Oude Geuze.

Primeurs & tasters

As with the previous editions you can taste a number of special beers and scoops at the Day of the Oude Geuze. Among others you can taste the GingerGueuze of Lindemans, Cuvée Lambikstoemper, Boon Black Label 1st Edition, Megablend 2013, …

Dag van de Oude Geuze 2015

This year we choose the Vat-series of brewery Boon for our (now) traditional “proefplankje”. The beers we serve on our slat are Vat-bieren numbers 91, 92, 108, 109 and 110. This tadting slat was specially designed to allow the visitor to order 5 glasses at the same time to take a trip through the exiting tasting landscape !

Golden Lambikstoemper

Every year the Lambikstoempers vzw want to put an extra focus on the Lambic beers by awarding the Golden Lambikstoemper.
The first Golden Lambikstoemper in 2010 went to De Heeren van Liedekercke, the second to Kaf’eko in Halle, the third to Boelekewis in Huizingen, the forth to De Zwaan in Dworp, the fifth to ’t Antwaerps Bierhuyske in Antwerp, the sixth, exeptionally to the Streekproducten Centrum in Halle and last year the managers of  ’t Parlement received their Gouden Lambikstoemper.

Based on a by now extensive list of horeca busisnisses and a number of criteria and after an anonimous on site visit De Lambikstoempers vzw will award the Golden Lambikstoemper for the eighth time on Sunday 26 November 2017 at 15.00 uur to a horeca business that, according to us, gave a special attention to the Lambic beers in 2017.

Wanne met Gouden Lambikstoemper

The Golden Lambikstoemper is an artful certificate with some poetry made by Leo Lintermans! By the way every one can suggest Horeca businesses through our website.

But first of all come and taste our Pajottenland’ pride, on Saturday 25 (10h-18h) and Sunday 26 November 2017 (14h-18h) at the Streekproducten Centrum Halle!

Dag van de Oude Geuze 2017