The new batch

The thing that stopped me from doing something sensible with my Toer de Geuze weekend, like getting the train to Boon and staying there, was the presence of unfamiliar locations on the itineraries. I picked two routes which got me to all four.

The one whose beer I knew best was Lambiek Fabriek, having tried a number of them in the past and even chatted with the owners at a festival last year. I've mentioned before that I'm not a huge fan of their output, and it was instructive to learn that their warehouse in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw is right next door to a sewage plant.

It was one of those Toer set-ups which favours big bottles, so as a solo traveller on the day my options were a little limited. From the draught tap I began with Muscar-Elle: something of a beast at 8.8% ABV and created with the addition of Belgian-grown grapes. It's far from a typical grape lambic, however. It's a surprisingly dark amber colour and the flavour opens with a leafy bitterness that made me think of hops: the sort of effect that lambic brewers try to avoid by using flavourless aged hops. After that surprise, a weird savoury smoky spice, like chipotle or paprika. There is grape in here, buried deep, but it's raw and firm, not soft and juicy. It's still a lambic though, but not a great one, and very typical of how this producer tends to miss my preferences by a whisker.

They had small bottles of a beer they make for a local cycling club, called Sporty Geuze Origin-Elle. Even though it's a niche product, it gave off flagship vibes: 6.5% ABV and a standard shade of orange. Once again, the flavour wasn't where I wanted it to be. A wax bitterness jars with caramel sweetness and there's not much else. The spice level is minimal, only a single twist of black pepper and no nitre or saltpetre. There's a sort of stale sweatiness about the sour aspect which I found off-putting. I hope the bike folks like it, at least.

A rotating "mystery tap" was, I think, pouring Gros-Elle: 7.7% ABV and brewed with redcurrant and grape. This was very difficult drinking, which was unfortunate as the bus was about to leave. It's very vinegary, curdling horribly in the stomach. The currant is there, for sure, but much too harsh for comfort.

My curiosity about Lambiek Fabriek and where it comes from was thoroughly satisfied. I hate to complain about a start-up lambic-maker that seems to be doing everything right, and which definitely attracts a fanbase, but which rarely seems to make a beer I enjoy. Still, I was glutton enough for punishment, or optimistic enough, to buy a bottle of something else they made on my way out, and I'll get to that in a future post.

The next stop was Kestemont, in Dilbeek. They've been brewing here since 2021, and ageing beer for a few years longer than that, in a group of venerable farmhouse buildings clustered around a courtyard. It's a charming setting, even in the persistent drizzle.

They had a draught tap in the yard pouring 1 Year Lambic, a beer that looked even younger than that, being a rough murky orange colour. The flavour was similarly unrefined, with a hard-edged waxy twang; bitter but not sour. It lacks any of the complexity of older lambic and proved a bit of a chore to drink. I could see why the ancient Pajottenlanders began mixing it with fruit and the like, or simply leaving it in the barrel for as long as it took to start tasting acceptable. There was certainly no lack of flavour here, making it a promising proto-geuze.

And so to the "here's one I made earlier" moment: Kestemont Oude Geuze. It's 6% ABV and pretty much the same colour as the lambic. I found it disappointingly bland, with a clean sort of sourness but none of the spice or fruit which make geuze the best beer style in the world. The weird house character appears to be an unwelcome smoky phenolic phenomenon, which makes it distinctive and individual, perhaps, but doesn't make it good beer.

I say it's a house character because I also found it in Kestemont Oude Kriek, one made with the prestige Schaarbeekse cherries. Add a bit of phenol to that and you get an odd meaty, savoury effect, like the kriek-sauced rabbit beloved of Brussels tourist menus. I come to Schaarbeekse cherries for a richer, rounder sort of ripe red cherry flavour. This didn't have that, and instead seemed a bit cheap, with a kind of sugary raspberry-syrup tang from the fruit side.

For me, then, Kestemont files with Lambiek Fabriek as having their heart in the right place but not delivering the goods I want. I'll give them a bit of time and come back to their beer at a later date to find out if it has improved. On damp Toer Saturday, however, I squelched back to the bus a little disappointed. Still, there was a whole other day to come.

The contrast in the weather was enormous. We started an hour earlier on the sunny Sunday, with the bus leaving Denderleeuw station at 9am. First stop was Eylenbosch. There looks to be a bit of money behind this operation. It's all very slick, situated in another farm courtyard in old buildings which have been carefully and sympathetically renovated. They've only been here since 2019 and the spiders have barely got a foothold. That they claim heritage back to 1886 -- from the brewery whose brand they acquired -- is another indication that the people in charge here wear suits instead of overalls. 

The draught Eylenbosch Lambic (brewed at De Troch) was three years old. It was still a little rough, though not as downright offensive as De Troch's own raw product. Cloudy in appearance, there's a harsh, enamel-stripping bitterness at the centre of the taste and not an awful lot else going on.

Compare that to the Eylenbosch Oude Gueuze next to it, looking ever so polished and smart. This is a much better proposition, smooth and dense, though quite light in alcohol at a reasonable 5.8% ABV. Where De Troch geuze tastes to me of full-on concrete, this has merely a seasoning of dry flinty minerals, and then a charming champagne toast quality. It may not be the most complex geuze in the world, but it's very classy, and perhaps would work well for those just beginning their journey. From what I can see of how Eylenbosch conducts itself, it should have no problem getting it into drinkers' hands.

These were enjoyed at the tables set out in the yard for the event, and when it was time for round two it was the wife's turn for some Schaarbeek action. Eylenbosch Schaarbeekse Oude Kriek is a deep shade of purple, and again takes a counter-intuitive approach to alcohol and body. Here, it's 6.5% ABV yet light and drinkable. And it has the cherry character I had been looking for from the Kestemont one: real and luscious ripe cherry flesh, set on a rich and cakey Bakewell tart base. There's still plenty of the wild beer action that gets the nerds' juices flowing: an oldie mouldy funk at the beginning and a spritzy tart finish to cleanse the palate at the end. While it's definitely a fruit beer, it's a very grown up one, and quite delicious.

I decided to gamble. Last year I had my first taste of whisky-barrel geuze, though didn't think much of it. When I saw that Eylenbosch had one on the go as well, getting much point-of-sale hype around the yard, I figured it had to be tried. They've called it Whisky Symphony and it's a whopper at 8.5% ABV. The funk from the kriek manifests here as a kind of blue cheese effect in the aroma, and then it's a weirdly sweet, malt-driven, treacle flavour plus caramel. That might be OK on its own, but then there's the sharp geuze sourness which clashes badly and feels tacked on as a gimmick. It's the other way around, of course: the whisky is the gimmick. Regardless, it doesn't really work, and I retain my sceptical stance towards ageing lambic this way.

There's a whole other range of Eylenbosch beers, both spontaneously fermented and with tamed yeasts too. I look forward to working my way through them when the opportunity arises. But it was time to leave, with just one more brewery on the list.

Den Herberg is primarily a pub, in the village of Buizingen, adjoining Halle. It looks like a jolly sort of place, though one never gets to see them in normal mode during the Toer weekend. The brewery is down the back, and they had set tables along the side alley leading to it (the aptly-named Zenneweg), finding room for the de rigeur bouncy castle too.

Just one beer each, and I picked the most interesting looking one: a blend of 4, 5, 6 and 7 year-old lambics called Geus Genereus, because there's nobody so generous as the Belgians when it comes to ways of spelling geuze. It's 6.7% ABV and an opaque orange colour. The aroma is mildly spicy, which is pleasant, but doesn't prepare one for the huge amount of dry pepper in the flavour -- just my sort of kick. For all that, it's barely sour, and the old beer in the blend gives it a luxurious calm mellowness. The whole thing is restrained enough that a touch of crystalised candy sugar is detectable too: there's nothing as vulgar as "sourness" in here. Top work by the blenders.

Although not constructed in the same involved way, there's something similar happening in the flavour of Kriekenlambic, seemingly a straight 18-month-old kriek. Here the big spices meet a fruity jam effect making it taste like a classy relish or remoulade. It is admittedly sharper than the geuze, but there's a definite mellowness too, which tastes beyond its years. Though only 6% ABV it has a warming, comforting cake-like feel. And my favourite feature was the dense blood-red colour which tells you from the start that it'll treat you well.

The final score in the exploration of new lambic producers was a 2-2 draw. Eylenbosch and Den Herberg have certainly given me leads on more to explore and taste. With the Toer dropping off its final passengers and closing up until 2026, it was time to move on. We had plans...

Eylenbosch