Not the Toer de Geuze

The 2019 Toer de Geuze is coming up this weekend. I'll be returning to Belgium for it, but before that I need to clear the notes from my last trip a few weeks ago, for the spring meeting of EBCU. Arriving in Brussels on the early flight on a Thursday morning, Dr John and I had an afternoon to kill. I had wanted to return to the 3 Fonteinen Lambik-O-Droom since the last Toer, to see it on a normal day, not packed with Toer-goers, and this seemed like an ideal time to do it.

The train from Brussels arrives at Lot and it's a short walk from the station, over the river Senne, to the boxy taproom. It feels a little like a primary school inside, with the brightly-coloured furniture arranged around large tables made from foudre lids. We opened our account with Cuvée Armand & Gaston 2018. It was fabulous: a bright red-gold colour and with a rich warm oaky flavour contrasting with a sparking flinty sourness. There's a bitterness in there too: hard wax and and an unusual-for-geuze citrus note too. The finish leaves a pleasant acidic woody buzz. This smooth and mellow chap is a beer for relaxing into, not that we had time for that sort of thing.

The cask engines were pouring 3 Fonteinen Faro, so we got a couple of those before leaving. This was much classier than I was expecting: sweetened geuze has a tendency to be harshly sugary but this retained an Orval-like funk next to a sherbet sweetness and a kind of fruity, spicy, brown-sauce tang. A slight soapy note was the only part not to like. Although it's not saying much, this is the best Faro I've tasted.

Our destination for the weekend was Antwerp, and changing trains at Brussel Zuid we had time to nip in to Cantillon where there were a couple of new-to-me beers. One was 50˚N-4˚E, a geuze aged in Armagnac barrels. It's quite sweet, in a funky/fruity way. There's a peppery spice and quite a severe waxy bitterness. Nothing that I could detect suggested the brandy barrels, and overall it's an OK but quite dull lambic. Not Cantillon's best work.

Neither is Magic Lambic, blended from Lou Pepe kriek and a blueberry lambic with added vanilla. Highly unorthodox. It looks wonderful: a clear ruby red. The aroma is sweet, like ripe and squashy raspberries, and there's a fair bit of that in the flavour too. It's not jarringly sweet, however, and the blueberries bring a significant balancing tartness. There's a strange herbal and floral quality too, part Parma Violets, part urinal cakes. Thankfully there's no vanilla taste, but I'm guessing it's working in the background, accentuating the fruit sweetness. Overall it's easy drinking and the quality of the base beer is still discernible, but it's maybe just too much of a nod towards alcopop lambic for me to approve of it.

To Antwerp, then, and at the back of the grand station is a small off licence, Station 1280, with a couple of draught taps and drinking-in space. The selection is very much Craftonian: brightly-coloured cans from the UK and Scandinavia, and even a handful from Ireland. Colourful cans of Belgian IPA are a rarity, but they had one of them: Nonkel Hop from Gistgeest. 6.5% ABV, it's brewed with Citra and Hallertau Blanc. It may not have been the freshest as it tasted a little stale, with a sharp bitterness and sweaty malt. There's a trace of apricot and passionfruit, but nowhere near as much as one would expect from something purporting to be in the New England style. If it was fresh the brewer has bigger problems.

I'd never had a beer from England's DEYA Brewery before, so took the opportunity to try Into the Haze since it was on tap. It's hazy all right: the de rigeur orange-juice yellow. There's a strangely minty aroma and the flavour isn't sweet as these often are, but herbal and quite bitter, with notes of satsuma and melon rind. At 6.2% ABV it's quite a big beast, but it doesn't taste its strength, slipping down indecently easy. It's a good take on the style, though not a terribly exciting one.

In the tall glass next to it is Bizarre Love Triangle by Finnish brewer CoolHead. This sour one looks even juicier, a lurid shade of orange from the inclusion of mango, passionfruit and peaches. There's a massive tropical hit in the aroma and it tastes more like a cocktail than a beer: thin and flat; tart and salty, with lots of passionfruit flavour. I enjoyed it, and was shocked to learn it's a whopping 7% ABV. Handle with care.

Before we move on, just a taster of an imperial stout from Yorkshire. Turning Point's Aggressive Hospitality is brewed with figs, almonds and golden syrup so I guess qualifies as pastrified. It's lightly textured for all that, and does a good job of hiding its 10% ABV. I would have sworn there was coffee in it as that's the dominant flavour, along with some fun and fruity pipe tobacco. I would have liked to become better acquainted with this one.

That's Station 1280, then. Worth a look if you're passing through Antwerp, with plenty of beers you wouldn't normally expect to find in Belgium.

We kept things craft with the next stop: Beer Lovers Bar is a bright corner pub with the IKEA aesthetic common to beer specialists the world over. I opened with an unfamiliar De Ranke beer: Franc Belge. It's 5.2% ABV and a hazy orange colour. A little like the classic XX Bitter, it's dry and pithy. There are subtle floral notes of honeysuckle and jasmine, but the bitterness level builds as it goes, eventually drowning that out. I found it just too acrid to really enjoy, preferring XX's superior balance.

Finally for now, one of several Dutch beers I had over the weekend: La Truite II by De Kromme Haring of Utrecht. It's a Bretted pale ale of 6% ABV and really shows the specialist yeast at its best: the gummy, fruity mango and cedar effect, and a dusting of floral lavender. The base is dry, like a waterbiscuit, so the Brett and hops can work their magic on the palate unhindered. While complex it's very easy going, everything subtle and balanced. Delicious.

We'll have more from De Kromme Haring in the next post.