Lambic

Tier B · BJCP 23D · Ale of a sort, though nobody pitched the yeast. Fermented by whatever organisms live in the air and the brewery timber, then aged in wooden barrels for one to three years.

ABV

5.0-6.5%

IBU

0-10

SRM

3-6

Serve

45-50F

Glass

Small tumbler

Extras

aged hops, oak

Identify

Pale yellow to deep gold, darkening as it ages. Clarity runs from hazy to bright. The tell is that it is flat. A traditional straight Lambic is uncarbonated, so it sits in the glass without a head and without bubbles, which is unlike any other beer in this course. Sour and dry, with no fizz to lift it. Then the smell arrives properly: hay, damp cellar, old leather, farmyard, dried citrus peel. There is no sweetness and essentially no bitterness. It finishes short and clean and leaves your mouth puckered.

Place

The Zenne valley and the Pajottenland, the countryside just south west of Brussels. The French speaking side calls the same river the Senne. The farmhouse tradition behind it is several centuries old, and there were more than 300 producers in 1900.

Cause

Every other beer in this course begins with a brewer choosing a yeast. This one does not. The brewer makes the wort, which is the sweet liquid that becomes beer, then leaves it open to the night and waits. Mash a grain bill of roughly 30 to 40 percent unmalted wheat, with barley malt making up the rest.

Confused with

Gueuze, which is a blend of Lambics refermented in the bottle, so it is fizzy and more complex. Fruit Lambic, which is the same base beer with fruit added. Flanders Red, which is also wood aged but red, fruity and pitched with a culture rather than left to the air.

Numbers

The field mark that settles it is the absence of bubbles. Traditional straight Lambic is served flat, from the cask, and it is the only style in this course where that is correct rather than a fault. The second field mark is the smell. Hay, damp cellar and farmyard are the words the official guidelines actually use.

Will you like it, Order and Try

Bone dry farmhouse cider, especially the still, cloudy kind sold by the jug. Dry sherry, or an old white wine that has gone slightly nutty and oxidised. Strong washed rind cheese. If a cheese that smells of a barn appeals to you, so will this.

Pair, Judge, Myth and Remember

Sweet food of any kind. There is no sugar at all in this beer, so a dessert makes it taste bitterly sour by comparison. Delicate food loses too, because the beer simply shouts over it. A good one is sour, dry and complex, with the funk sitting alongside the acid rather than on top of it.