Gueuze

Boon Oude Geuze Apogee

by

I’ve long enjoyed Boon’s series of Mono Blends, which are basically single-barrel Geuzes. They even release a Discovery Box of four different Vats for easy comparison. By my count, I’ve had 7 different Mono Blends, and there’s a surprising amount of variance between them. Some really lean into what I think of as Boon’s house minerality, some are brighter and fruity, others are more funky and earthy, and so on. Eat your heart out, whiskey!

What we have here today is Boon Oude Geuze Apogee, which is brewed in honor of the two generations of family brewing talent now working at Boon. To symbolize the transition, this blend primarily consists of 2 year old lambic from Boon’s newest foeder (Vat N°83) and 3 year old lambic from Boon’s oldest foeder (Vat N°79 which, incidentally, is my favorite of the Mono Blends).

No sisyphean power struggles for succession in the Boon family, which may not be as exciting as Frank Boon pitting his two sons against one another in a bloody battle royale; two men enter, one man leaves and gets to continue making lambic… but hey, I guess we’ll just have to console ourselves with some fine lambic wares:

Boon Oude Geuze Apogee

Boon Oude Geuze Apogee – Pours an almost clear yellow gold color with a finger of white head and moderate retention. Smells of sweet, tart fruit, oak, a bit of minerally funk. Taste starts with that sweet, tart fruit but quickly moves into that minerality that I always associate with Boon, then some more complex earthy funk, oak and a hint of vanilla, finishing on that tart fruit note again with some minerality sticking around. Mouthfeel is light bodied, well carbonated, and crisp, moderate acidity but still nicely dry. Overall, really solid and interesting little Geuze; not quite Boon’s best, but it’s a blend worthy of the celebration. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 7% ABV bottled (750 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a flute glass on 9/30/22. Batch #: 14902. Best Before: 31/12/2039. Bottled: 29/4/2019.

Always love the novelty of new Boon releases, though I will almost always find myself falling back on my beloved Boon Black Label (at this point I am contractually obligated to note that, as much as I love the beer, the label is not actually black, which has always annoyed me).

Lindemans Oude Geuze Cuvée Francisca

by

The likes of Cantillon, Drie Fonteinen, and maybe even Tilquin tend to dominate the lambic discourse these days, but that just leaves some room for lesser known producers like Boon and maybe even Lindemans to peek their head in the door and sneak a word in edgewise. I’m… not sure where said door leads or why everyone is clamoring to get in there, but I’m glad to see other producers doing interesting stuff with lambic.

Indeed, due to their availability, Lindemans is probably the most accessible lambic out there. This is something of a double edged sword though, as part of the reason you see so much of this stuff is that it is basically young lambic that uses artificial fruit sweeteners which, to my palate, resemble a particularly fine vintage of Robitussin. That being said, while my first Cuvée Rene didn’t do much for me either, once I got onboard with sour beers, it turned out to be a legit Geuze (and the Kriek Cuvée Rene also has a leg up on their regular fruited line). So when I saw this 200th Anniversary Blend, I took a flier on it.

Named after Francisca Vandersmissen, the wife of Joos Lindemans, who together started a lambic brewery 200 years ago, this is a blend of 4 year old lambic and younger lambics. Traditionally, a Geuze is a blend of 3, 2, and 1 year old lambics, so the inclusion of 4 year old juice represents something quite special (reminiscent of Drie Fonteinen’s Golden Blend). My kinda blend:

Lindemans Oude Geuze Cuvée Francisca 200th Anniversary

Lindemans Oude Geuze Cuvée Francisca 200th Anniversary – Pours a slightly hazy golden color, maybe a hint of yellowish orange, with a solid two fingers of head and surprisingly good retention. Smells nice, a little earthy funk, a hint of spice, a helping of oak, all leavened by a tart, fruity character, pears and lemons. Taste is sweet up front, those pears and tart lemons make themselves known before the funky, earthy notes emerge, finishing dry and oaky. Mouthfeel is light to medium bodied, well carbonated, and crisp, with a pleasant dry character emerging in the middle and lasting through the finish and only moderate acidity. Overall, this is certainly an improvement over Cuvée Rene and honestly, the more effervescent nature compares favorably to recent 3F Golden Blend vintages as well. It’s definitely worth seeking out for Geuze aficionados. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 8% ABV bottled (750 ml capped and corked). Drank out of a flute glass on 9/23/22. Bottled: April 2021. Best before: 2031. Lot # BD15USE

This was a really pleasant beer and I’m absolutely going to buy another bottle of this stuff if I see it again. Here’s to hoping they make it another 200 years…

Gueuzérable Tilquin

by

So there I was, concocting an elaborate backstory about why Pierre Tilquin was so miserable that he conceived of this beer in order to lift his spirits. I won’t get into specifics. Suffice it to say that despite my high energy creativity, it got really dark and weird. Then I discovered the boring truth and scrapped the whole thing.

It turns out that Gueuzérable is just an amalgamation of the words Gueuze (the beer style) and érable, which comes from the Latin for “maple”. Yes, this is Tilquin’s standard Gueuze with added organic maple syrup from Québec. It’s allowed to referment, then packaged with more maple syrup for bottle conditioning. Boring explanation for the name, but on the other hand, it sounds tasty. The treatment also has the interesting effect of raising the ABV to 10% (pretty darned high for lambic). Let’s dive in:

Gueuzérable Tilquin

Gueuzérable Tilquin – Pours an amber/orange color with a solid finger of fizzy head that nonetheless manages to stick around a bit. Smells very nice, funky earth, a sweet, almost vinous aroma that seems more acetic than usual for a gueuze (though not, like, bad or anything). Taste is richer and sweeter than your typical gueuze, but the funk and sourness are on point. The sourness is more lactic than acetic, but both are there (it’s not like this resembles a Flanders Red or anything). Mouthfeel is medium to full bodied, certainly heftier than your typical lambic, sweet and a little more sticky, but high carbonation helps even that out.

I did not realize this was as high ABV as it was, though I think the stickiness and gentle warming sensation give it away. If I had realized that it was 10% before I opened it, I might have saved it for a share. If, uh, such things ever happen again. Overall, it’s a fascinating take on a high octane gueuze. High ABV and sours don’t always work for me. But it’s about as good as such a thing could be too. I don’t know that it’s better than regular gueuze, but it’s still a nice twist on an old favorite. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 10% ABV bottled (750 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a flute glass on 11/8/20. Vintage: 2017-2018. Best before: 09/10/2028.

Always worth seeking out new Tilquins. This one seems hard to come by; I guess I just lucked into finding it on a shelf. These days, I seem to prefer twists on Gueuze to fruited variants. Tilquin is good at them – (Gueuze Tilquin)² was pretty great too (though they haven’t made that in a while).

I have a bit of a backlog of beers to review. But in this season of beer hiatus, keep an eye out for non-beer posts. It’s always fun to see me pretend to understand esoteric nuances of things like specific wine grapes or mead or whatever.

Boon/Mikkeller Oude Geuze White Vermouth Foeders

by

Boon tends to get lost in the shuffle of lambic producers. Maybe it’s their relatively lackluster fruited offerings, or perhaps their distinct minerality character isn’t as exciting to folks, or it could be a cosmic roll of the dice, and Cantillon and Drie Fonteinen rolled higher (alright, Tilquin seems to have rolled well too). Maybe Frank Boon cheated the devil in a game of chance. That sort of thing. That said, I appreciate Boon’s availability, usually approachable price-point, and their variety of releases. Their geuze offerings are generally underrated and plentiful.

This particular release is the third in their series of collaborations with Mikkeller. To my mind, the best is still the first collaboration, Bone Dry, and the subsequent Boon Black Label batches (basically the same beer, but without Mikkel’s blending notions). Indeed, despite the glaring fact that the label is not actually black, Black Label is my go-to lambic and it’s a terrible shame that it doesn’t appear to be produced anymore (though hope springs eternal for a batch 5).

This beer is aged in old White Vermouth Foeders and the blend consists of mostly 2 year old lambic, with some 1 year old for bottle conditioning and just a touch of 3 year old for complexity and, I dunno, joy. Will these vermouth foeders provide a more noticeable character than the Calvados barrels from the second collaboration release? Only one way to find out:

Boon/Mikkeller Oude Geuze White Vermouth Foeders

Boon/Mikkeller Oude Geuze White Vermouth Foeders – Pours a slightly hazy yellowish gold color with a solid finger of white, fluffy head, moderate retention. Smells good, a healthy amount of earthy funk leavened by some nice vinous notes from the vermouth. Taste is sweet up front, followed by funky earth, some herbal and spice notes, that Boon minerality, and then tart fruit with a sourness emerging towards the finish. Mouthfeel is light bodied, well carbonated, and crisp, dry up front yielding a bit into the finish. Moderate acidity. Overall, it’s a nice vinous spin on your typical Boon Geuze, the Vermouth Foeder definitely provides more character than the Calvados barrels from the last release. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 6.6% ABV bottled (750 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a flute glass on 9/19/20. Lot: 73321.

It does seem as if Boon’s riffing on Geuze is slowing down. There aren’t any new Vat releases. Black Label seems dormant. And while these Mikkeller jams are interesting, the pricepoint does seem higher. Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to keep drinking the regular OG or Marriage Parfait. Both are well worth your time, and there are still Black Label bottles can be scrounged off shelves. There is a fourth Boon/Mikkeller Collaboration that I’m sure will eventually make the rounds, so there is that.

Allagash Coolship Resurgam

by

Back in the before times, the long long ago, there were two American breweries that had made a name for themselves by specializing in Belgian style ales: Allagash and Ommegang. I thought it might be fun to catch up with both and see how they’re faring in the current beer scene. Now that we’re awash in barrel aged pastry stouts, hazy slurry IPAs, milkshakes, fruit juice beers, and other stuff that doesn’t actually taste like beer, how’s a traditional Belgian style brewery to adapt in tomorrow morrow land?

Allagash’s flagship beer is White, an excellent, flavorful Belgian Wit that’s been a popular gateway beer for all those Coors/Blue Moon drinkers out there, but doesn’t exactly get twixt the nethers of beer dorks. For those already ensconced in the warm embrace of beer nerdery and thus more fickle in their tastes, Allagash has been building an excellent sour beer program and basically become an American Lambic producer.

They’ve even installed a Coolship at their brewery. For the uninitiated, a Coolship is basically a long, shallow pan that’s used to cool the wort while also exposing it to the environment and inoculating it with wild yeast and other microflora. Only a handful of American breweries have even attempted something like this, and Allagash is definitely one of the pioneers of such projects (at least, in America).

What we have here is an American take on Gueuze, a blend of 1, 2, and 3 year old beers aged in oak. The term “Resurgam” is latin for “I shall rise again,” which has obvious Christian connotations, but it is also apparently the name of a Victorian submarine. Go figure. Now: it’s beer!

Allagash Coolship Resurgam

Allagash Coolship Resurgam – Pours a slightly hazy pale golden color with a solid finger of white fluffy head. Smells great, lots of earthy funk, a little stone fruit, lemons, and the like. Taste hits that earthy funk up front, quickly followed by fruity esters, apricots, lemon zest, finishing with a tart bite. Mouthfeel is well carbonated and crisp, light bodied, moderate to low acidity, dry finish. Overall, it’s a pretty damn spectacular beer. Something about Allagash’s sours always seem to just click with me. Also of note is that this is about 3 years old, which means that it ages pretty well too… A

Beer Nerd Details: 6.4% ABV bottled (375 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a tulip glass on 9/12/20. Bottled: Aug. 31, 2017.

N.B. The picture above was taken almost two years ago at a local bar, but the tasting notes were from a different bottle I drank this past September. I just thought the older picture was nicer looking than my standard setup so I used that instead. I’m pretty sure it’s the same batch of beer, so there’s that…

The Coolship program also releases several fruited variants, like Coolship Red (made with raspberries) and Coolship la Mure (made with blackberries), both excellent. There are many others that I have not had, but one of these days I’m going to try and snag a bottle of Ghoulship for the Halloween Season.

Anywho, as hinted at above, I’ve got some Ommegang beers in the pipeline too. They’ve gone in a bit of a different direction, but are still putting out some interesting beer…

Zwanze Day 2018

by

Zwanze Day is a worldwide event in which Cantillon releases a new, limited lambic to the huddled masses, yearning to be drunk. The event spans many countries and is limited to 70 or so bars, worldwide. I attended the 2016 festivities at Monk’s Cafe in Philly and was dutifully impressed with that year’s Raspberry/Blueberry entry into the Zwanze canon. It’s always a crowded event and some people get there very early and wait in line. If it means getting a table, that’s a very good thing indeed and fortunately for me, I had some friends who decided to line up early and had an extra seat at their table.

Along with the Zwanze entry, which isn’t tapped until later in the day, Monk’s pulls out all the stops, with a whole assortment of other Cantillon lambics available. It was quite the rainbow:

Taste the rainbow... of Cantillon

Click to embiggen

A few of these were even new to me, which is always nice. Nath is made with macerated rhubarb in 2 year old lambic, and it provides a nice little bump in the tartness and funk profile of your typical Cantillon (I didn’t take formal tasting notes, so I’ll leave it at that – it was excellent).

Cantillon 20 Ans D'Amitié

The other new to me lambic was 20 Ans D’Amitié, a blend of Rhubarb and Raspberry lambics (so Nath and Rosé de Gambrinus?) that was produced for the 20th Anniversary of Monk’s Cafe in 2017. As you might expect, it’s delightful.

And of course, there were a whole slew of other Cantillons that we all know are fantastic, like the Kriek (still my favorite, to be honest!), Rosé de Gambrinus, Grand Cru Broucsella, the Classic Gueuze, and Vigneronne.

Zwanze 2018

Finally, there was Zwanze 2018 Manneken Pise. If you’re interested in lambic, you’ve no doubt discovered that it’s damn near impossible to track down Cantillon lambic. Even ordering direct from Belgium (with it’s absurd shipping prices) isn’t a particularly viable option anymore. Back in 2015, Cantillion acquired a new building across the street from their current location. Over the next few years, they increased production and had to source a whole slew of new barrels to age their lambic. Enter three particular sets of barrels that stood out: those that had previously held Sangiovese, Amarone, and Chianti. Ah, the wine of my people! Anyway, Zwanze 2018 is a blend of lambic that had been aged in those three types of barrels. And it’s quite nice, adding a noticeable but distinct vinous character to the typically oaky, tart, and funky Cantillon lambic base. Some subtle fruit notes and a nice, light, tannic dryness make this a somewhat unique experience. Again, I didn’t take formal tasting notes, but they’re normally pretty boring and ultimately, yeah, it’s a big shock that Cantillon produced a good lambic. Stop the presses.

So yes, another successful Zwanze day under my belt. Well worth checking out if you have a Zwanze venue near you. I’d be curious to see what it would be like at a less crowded venue, but it’s hard to turn down an afternoon at Monk’s (and if you somehow manage to snag a table, many of the issues with the crowd are minimized!) Anywho, now that Cantillion has increased capacity, here’s to hoping we see a little more of their stuff making its way into our hands… And maybe I won’t wait a month to post something about it next time.

(Many thanks to Kaedrin friend Dana for taking/sharing that fancy picture with all the beers lined up.)

3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze Cuvée Armand & Gaston

by

Lambic in general, and Gueuze in particular, have slowly but steadily taken up more of my allotted drinking cycles. Channeling my inner-wonk, nothing beats the harmony, complexity, and balance involved in the traditional three vintage blend of spontaneously fermented beer that marks Gueuze. I suppose this sounds like marketing fluff or just plain wanking, but who cares, Gueuze is probably awesomer than you are. I mean, not you, the other readers. Wink wink, nudge nudge. As producers go, the conventional wisdom is that Cantillon is well known for their fruited lambics, but Drie Fonteinen is most famous for their Gueuze blends (not to belittle their other offerings, nor other lambic producers, who all have their strengths, and what the hell, conventional wisdom can go pound sand, but I digress – the point is that Drie is great at blending.)

After Drie Fonteinen recovered from their “Thermostat Incident”, they actually managed to rev up a new production facility, and a few years later, the first vintages of their Gueuze were ready for blending. Of course, their OG standard is wonderful, but since they were finally self-sufficient again, Armand Debelder decided to blend up a special batch in honor of his father, Gaston. This beer consists only of lambic brewed by 3 Fonteinen, and this post will actually cover two batches. One, with the old label, was one of the earlier 2015 batches, and I shared that with a bunch of friends recently (so didn’t take detailed notes, but I’ll give some background on why I was sharing such a bottle and whatever thoughts I can muster below). The other is a newer 2017 release, and has the new, swanky silkscreen label with stickers, which I was able to write tasting notes for. Because you all love those, right? Right. The label sez that this is “blended from lambics aged and matured on 4 different barrels, originating from wort of 7 different brews. The old lambic was brewed with slightly darker malts and was destined for another Straffe Winter (but we actually forgot about it…)” (Straffe Winter is a Faro that they have still only released once, in case you were wondering.) Ok, enough wanking, let’s get to it.

Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze Cuvée Armand and Gaston

Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze Cuvée Armand & Gaston (2017) – Pours a dark golden orange color with a couple fingers of fluffy, bubbly head. Smells fantastic, deep, earthy funk, oak, plenty of fruity esters. Taste hits the fruity ester notes more than the nose, but that earthy funk provides some good complexity in the background and the oak leavens things well. A well balanced sourness emerges in the middle and lasts through the finish. It’s delicious. Mouthfeel is highly carbonated, crisp, and effervescent, medium bodied, with a moderate and well balanced acidity. Overall, this is one spectacular, well balanced, complex geuze. A

Beer Nerd Details: 5.3% ABV bottled (375 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a flute glass on 2/9/18. Bottling Date: 01/25/17. Best Before: 10/26/37. Blend n° 17 – Season 16-17.

Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze Cuvée Armand and Gaston 2015

Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze Cuvée Armand & Gaston (2015) – I hate the sport of basketball. However, I do make one exception, and that is Villanova basketball, which I have watched with some regularity since I graced that fine university, jeeze, over twenty years ago? Anyway, two years ago, Villanova won the NCAA championship and my friend and fellow VU alum Rich brought a BCBS Vanilla Rye to a share the night after we won. It was a spectacular beer; age had treated it very well and I’d go so far as to say it’s one of the few beers I’ve had where age has actually improved the beer. Anyway, a few weeks ago, Villanova won their second NCAA championship in 3 years (and third overall), and Rich and I immediately started putting together a share where we’d dig out something great from our cellars. He brought a spectacular bottle of ADWTD, and I brought this beauty: the first vintage of Armand and Gaston. This consists of some of the first lambic brewed on their new system in 2013, and according to the bottle logs, it’s the second 750 ml bottling (both in October of 2015), and there were approximately 3,800 bottles in this batch (there was an additional 375 ml bottling and a thusfar unreleased 1.5 l bottling that is aging in the 3F cellars).

Opening the bottle resulted in some mild gushing (cork basically popped out on its own), but fortunately, not too much of our precious juice was lost. And yes, my impression was that this was somehow even better than the 2017 vintage I just praised to high heaven above. Super funky, but it didn’t quite veer into extra-pungent blue-cheese territory that is fascinating for sure, but not quite as nice as this. Earthy, fruity, tart but not overly acidic, highly carbed and effervescent, great balance,depth, and complexity, I could have easily rocked the entire bottle by myself, but I was glad I shared it with some friends who could appreciate its charms. Again, I didn’t really take any notes, but it was great. I’ll give it an A too, and this is definitely the sort of thing to seek out.

Beer Nerd Details: 6% ABV bottled (750 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a wine glass on 4/12/18. Bottling Date: 2015, October 20. Best Before: 2035, October 26th.

I love the Best Before date on the bottle. Not just 20 years, but 20 years and 6 days. A minute longer and it’ll spoil. Anywho, both vintages were phenomenal. Seek this out. It may be pricey, but it’s worth a stretch. But my priorities are way out of whack, so you do you.

Boon / Mikkeller Oude Geuze

by

The second lambic collaboration between Boon and Mikkeller (the first being their Bone Dry, a sorta older sister beer to Black Label (which always annoys me because despite being delicious, the bottle does not actually have a black label on it… but I digress)), this iteration focuses on a blend that is primarily comprised of lambic from a foeder that had previously contained Calvados (apple brandy, for the uninitiated). No indication which foeder or how old that particular foeder is, but it’s got the traditional Geuze blend of 1-3 year old lambics, which is certainly good enough for this beer dork. Let’s dive in:

Boon Mikkeller Oude Geuze

Boon / Mikkeller Oude Geuze – Pours a yellowish golden color with a solid finger of bubbly but dense head with good retention. Smells great, lots of earthy funk, something a little fruity playing around the edges (of my nose? Yeah, something like that.) Taste is has a lighter earthy funk to it, definitely some fruity twang (if I’m looking for it, maybe, maybe some Calvados green apple kinda character), a little sourness towards the finish. Mouthfeel is highly carbonated and effervescent, very dry, moderate acidity, pretty easy going. Overall, it’s good, but I don’t know that the Calvados character comes through in a particularly strong, identifiable way. Still a worthwhile experiment and a nice twist. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 6.4% ABV bottled (750 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a flute glass on 12/1/17. Best before: 22/11/2036.

Boon seems to be riding that novelty wave by putting out lots of variants and different releases, but one thing that is different about them: They seem to be generally available. You have to hunt them out a little, as most stores seem to focus on the US boom these days (and who can blame them), but if you want these suckers, you can usually find a way… Moar Boon incoming soon (I picked up that set of four different Vat variants, which should be interesting)… and maybe even lambic from another producer. Stay tuned.

Boon Vat 109 Mono Blend

by

For anything that is primarily blended, there’s this instinct to see what individual components would taste like. You see this a lot in whiskey, but there are plenty of other applications as well. Take this series of Mono Blends from Boon. Each is primarily composed of lambic from a single foeder (blended with a very small amount of young lambic for bottle conditioning purposes), and this is the third one that I’ve had. Unfortunately, I’ve had them over the course of 2-3 years, so this isn’t exactly a side-by-side comparison, but I feel like all three have been somewhat distinct.

Vat 77 was very earthy with a big kick of minerality. Vat 79 was noticeably more fruity and tart, though it still retained that mineral character that I seem to get out of all of Boon’s lambic. Now we’ve got Vat 109, a 9000 liter cask built over a hundred years ago (approx 1910 timeframe) and originally made to be used in beer production. That being said, it was used to age Cognac starting in 1935 up until Boon got their hands on it in 2009. This particular batch was brewed in 2014 and released in 2016, only showing up on my local shelves recently (at least, that I saw). With acknowledgement to the infamously unreliable nature of memory, I’d put this somewhere on the continuum between Vat 77’s earthy minerality and Vat 79’s more fruity character, though all have what I’m coming to recognize as Boon’s trademark character.

Boon Vat 109 Mono Blend

Boon Oude Geuze A L’Ancienne Vat 109 Mono Blend – Pours a hazy golden color with a couple fingers of fluffy, fizzy head that manages to stick around for a bit. Smells great, lots of earthiness, that trademark Boon minerality, and something brighter, fruitier in the background. Taste hits that mineral character pretty hard, lots of earthy funk, with a touch of sourness and fruit only really emerging in the finish. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, highly carbonated, crisp, and effervescent, lowish acidity. Overall, this is another solid offering from the Mono Blend line, maybe not quite as great as 79, but still damn good. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 8.25% ABV bottled (375 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a geuze tumbler on 11/4/17. Best Before 04/19/2025. Batch #: 71312.

I have some extra bottles of Vat 79 and now 109, so maybe one day I’ll be able to do a better, side by side comparison (perhaps we can wait until we get some additional batches out there), which would be entirely more reliable than drinking these suckers months/years apart and trying to discern the differences that way.

Boon Vat 79 Mono Blend

by

Another entry in Boon’s Mono Blend series, kinda like a singe barrel offering, only it’s got a touch of young lambic blended in for bottle conditioning. Still, it’s an interesting series of beers. Vat 77 consisted of 2 year old lambic and was very earthy and minerally, but here we have Vat 79. It’s the oldest foeder at the brewery, dating back to 1883. In addition, according to the brewery:

So old that we do not know. The oak comes from oak trees that are almost 250 years old, which means your lambic is matured with trees planted between 1670 and 1680.

Sploosh. Rumor has it that Vat 79 is mostly used as a component for the Mariage Parfait blends (which are mostly 3 year old lambic).

An anecdote from an old brewery webpage: An American lady that tasted lambic from the No. 79 cask said it was “Boon to be Wild”. Well that sounds good to me, let’s dive in:

Boon Vat 79 Mono Blend

Boon Oude Geuze A L’Ancienne Vat 79 Mono Blend – Pours a slightly hazy golden color with a finger of white head that has good retention. Smells nice and earthy, funk, that trademark Boon minerality, something a little fruity lurking in the background. Taste hits with sweet, fruity notes up front, followed by funky earth and minerality, finishing with oak and tart fruit. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, highly carbonated, moderately dry, medium acidity, a nice oaky character to the mouthfeel too. Overall, this is one damn fine geuze, better than Vat 77 for sure, and stacks up favorably against the competition. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 8.8% (back label) or 9% (front label) ABV bottled (750 ml, caged and corked). Drank out of a geuze tumbler on 4/29/16. Batch #62203. Best Before 12/17/2034. Brewed on the 19th and 20th of 2011. Bottled 17th Dec 2014. Released April 2016.

There have been two other Mono Blends released, Vat 44 and Vat 109, but I have yet to see those around just yet. I will most certainly be keeping my eyes peeled for those…