Decisions

Frank Boon never wanted to do retail. He was frequently advised to start -- the brewery he set up in 1975 is right beside Lembeek train station, a 30 minute hop from central Brussels: the potential for beer tourism was enormous, but he couldn't be bothered. Officially, Frank retired last year, passing the brewery to his two sons, who decided early on that retail was the way to go. Now, at the brewery's front office, you'll find a shop for bottles, merchandise and guided tour bookings, and upstairs a tasting bar where the range can be sampled.

Above that there's a hospitality suite where I spent two days at the spring 2023 meeting of the European Beer Consumer's Union. There were occasional forays down the stairs to see what's on the bar.

I've had their straight 2-year-old lambic on draught but didn't know that they also do a draught version of their geuze: Geuze Boon Sélection. This has been conditioned in the keg and is slightly lower strength than the bottled version, at 6.3% ABV. The brewery claims it tastes different: less soft, more spiky. I didn't try it side-by-side but I couldn't detect any variation. All the wonderful features of bottled Oude Geuze are here: the same waxy bitterness, mild funk and flinty spices. It's lovely, and if it gets the geuze out into more places, I'm all for it.

I'm less familiar with Boon's Oude Kriek, but there's a draught equivalent of that too, called Kriek Boon Sélection. This is 6.5% ABV, so identical to the bottle. Tasting it made me realise why I don't drink as much of it: there's a stale sweaty side that I didn't care for, the cherries (from Poland, mostly) thoroughly macerated and funked up. The finish is gentler, offering warming mulled wine spices, plus a residual trace of the base geuze's mineral bitterness. It's fine, but I think I would need to be in the mood for it.

Boon Faro is not one I had tried before. They say this is one of their weaker beers, but it's still substantial at 5% ABV. It pours a tawny amber colour and tastes very dry and tannic, with added sweetness for a sugary tea effect. The blurb says that as well as sugar and water, they've added spices to the blend, but I couldn't tell you what they are. This is simple fare, designed to be refreshing, and doing an extremely good job of it. Don't expect much of the base lambic to have survived in the flavour here, but it's good fun in its own right, and far from a silly novelty or a compromised take on geuze.

From the shop I picked up a bottle of Apogee, the geuze created to mark the transition of ownership to the next generation of Boons. The hefty €20 price tag presumably goes straight into Frank's retirement fund. When I got it open I found something not madly dissimilar to Boon's magical Mariage Parfait. It shows the same rounded maturity; wood, but smoothed by time; a sprinkling of juicy peach and a seasoning of peppery spices. While it's absolutely beautiful I couldn't really detect anything distinctive about it: you know you're drinking a quality Boon geuze. Nice to try, but a couple of bottles of Mariage is the better play.

That's it for Boon, but before I leave the lambic for today, a note on one which was waiting when I got back to Dublin: Oud Beersel's Earl Gray Tea Infused Lambic. Beersel has a whole series of these lambics flavoured with odd stuff, and some of them work and some of them don't. Earl Gray is an excellent choice of adjunct as it complements the base beer (from Boon, of course) very nicely, enhancing the citrus spritz that's already there, making it the centre of the flavour without losing any of the tartness or spicing that is the style's hallmarks.

But back to Brussels, and from Boon, Reuben and I passed straight through the city centre and alighted at Bruxelles-Nord, to visit the Brasserie de la Senne taproom. It's been 18 months since my first visit, and the redevelopment of the neighbourhood doesn't seem to have kicked in yet: the beer garden still overlooks vast expanses of waste ground. There was plenty of interest on the menu.

For one thing, they've done a collaboration with American witbier icons Allagash. Of course it's a witbier, and called Zennegash: 5.7% ABV and dry hopped. It's bright yellow and emphasised the herbs rather than the hops, I thought, with lots of coriander plus more floral bath-salts vibes. Beyond that, like many a microbrewed witbier, it just tastes like a witbier: refreshing and lemony, ideal for thirst-quenching, but not something to spend time analysing. Was it worth Allagash's time to come to Belgium and make this? It got me buying it, so maybe.

My next one was a 9.5% ABV strong ale named Coucou Puissant. This hazy orange number is packed with spices, giving me sandalwood, clove, black pepper and pine resin. Fruity orangey top notes prevent it from turning harsh. The brewery claims it works as a warmer, but sitting outside in 6°C temperatures, I wasn't feeling it. The alcohol is well hidden. It's still an enjoyable example of what it is, lacking the boozy thickness of a barley wine or quadrupel and showing off other fun features instead.

For the road, then, I had a Vent du Sud, brewed at de la Senne for Brasserie des 4 Vents, seemingly a side project of Jean van Roy of Cantillon fame. I don't know whether to be surprised or not that JvR is going to other breweries to make sour beer, but this is one, and while the head retention is poor, the flavour is a fantastically complex mix of succulent Bretty peach and a light dusting of spice. Though it's a full 5.5% ABV it's light and clean, finishing respectfully quickly. While not a geuze, there's clearly some mixed-fermentation magic at work here.

Reuben's beer, with the much more handsome foam, is the one on the left of the picture. This is another collaboration, with new Brussels brewery Mule, and is called Zinne-Lager. It was created as part of the 25th anniversary celebrations of de la Senne flagship Zinnebir and follows the recipe exactly until pitching time, when they've used a lager yeast instead of an ale one. The result is pale and hazy with a biscuit aroma and tonnes of noble hop character. I get rocket, celery and a musty dry grass effect. It's interesting, but not the lager for me. Where Zinnebir has lots of fun new-world character this is strictly Germanic and quite different.

That completes this short bimble through Brussels and environs. I decided, however, that I would take the long way home.