A wild turn

It wasn't all imperial stouts, quadrupels and barley wines at the Borefts Beer Festival, even if my reporting makes it seem that way. The festival's final outing last month had a particularly good showing from breweries operating in the wild fermentation space, and I put in a bit of effort to try as much of that as I could, especially from the unfamiliar outfits.

Like 't Pomphuizeke, for example. It's a one-man-band operation, founded by a Ghent-based home brewer who seems to have allowed his love of blending lambics get out of control. With a cursory search I wasn't able to find from which breweries the base lambics are sourced, but the tasting evidence suggests it's the good ones.

I should probably be more suspicious of exotic lambic blends than I am, but when something like Peper Lambiek appears on a menu, curiosity takes precedence. This isn't a subtle beer, and the aroma of crushed black pepper is very real, very fresh and very loud. It has seemingly been added in quantity, but the base beer is a match for it, so the foretaste delivers a properly serious oude geuze flavour: dry, waxy and punchily sour. Normally, I'm looking for a spice element in this, but here that's covered over by the pepper, tasting as real and fresh as it presents in the aroma. The result is a complementary savoury quality which works extremely well with the excellent base beer. The combination might not be to everyone's taste, and there's an undeniable air of gimmick about it, but as a fan of spicy gueze, I thoroughly enjoyed this extra-spicy take. A great idea, expertly executed.

That gave me the confidence to return for Koffielambiek. I was sceptical, and chose it mainly because I haven't seen it done before. Adding coffee to a light-bodied, highly attenuated beer like this tends to result in a nasty stale coffee taste, with none of the oily warmth, fruit or flowers that coffee can bring to strong dark beers. And that's pretty much what happened here, like someone simply dumped a shot of cold espresso into the beer. That didn't completely spoil things: the coffee is most apparent in the aroma but is barely present in the flavour, where the base lambic holds its own, maintaining a clean and sharp sourness, with a hint of gunpowder. This one is good despite, not because of, the blender's creativity. Now we know. I will still be trying more of Pomphuizeke's creations, as and when they come my way.

I paid special attention to the Tommie Sjef bar, as this might be the last time I get to try the beer. Beers from the Dutch master of wild fermentation are prohibitively expensive out in the real world, and while I'm sure the prices are fully justified by the quality of the product, I've never been tempted to drop a roll of tenners on a 75cl bottle. Borefts is the one place I've found them available for sampling at reasonable prices, and this was my last chance.

Flint is the name which caught my eye first, and the beer lived up to it. Though all of 7.9% ABV, it's very much in the straight gueze style, amber coloured and intensely sour. The name is well chosen as there's a massive earthy mineral quality to the sourness, but there's nuance too. I found soft notes of lychee and pineapple in amongst the acidity. What tends to bother me with strong examples of this style is a certain flabbiness: too much heat and density which masks the sharp and clean sourness. Tommie has completely avoided that, resulting in a beer which tastes far lighter than it actually is, and is much the better for it. This is the kind of masterful take on straight-up geuze-style beer that I come to the brewery for, though you still won't catch me shelling out €30+ for a bottle of my own.

Next I tried Spróng, Dutch for "jump", made with a favourite novelty beer ingredient of mine, sage. Usually, sage is about as subtle as a foghorn, with its highly aromatic oily savouriness. Here, it has been employed judiciously, and while it does taste unmistakably of sage, it arrives late, after a burst of light and lemony sunshine, alongside the standard bold tartness and minerality. Once again the ABV is in the upper reaches -- 7.4% -- but also once again there's no heat or unwelcome malt weight. It is deliciously and inappropriately refreshing.

Tempting as it was to stay at Tommie Sjef and complete the range, there was much more to try. For example, sharing the container bar with Tommie was French brewery Levain. The first one of theirs I drank was Macération Savagnin, spontaneously fermented, with the addition of white grape pomace. 6% is a much more reasonable ABV, although the beer didn't compare well with the neighbour's. There's a lack of complexity, for one thing: a certain wild and funky edge, but not much. Some may say subtle; I would say bland. A savoury salinity leads on to a tangy vinegar finish, and it might have got away with that if there had been enough good stuff happening in the middle. Oddly, there's not much of a grape flavour, only a mild lemon zestiness which may or may not be related. For what it is, this beer underperforms, both as a wild-fermented ale, and a grape one. I gave the brewery a second chance, however.

Macération Trousseau is similar, but with red grapes instead. Both beers were barrel aged but this is the only one of the pair which tastes it. There's far more complexity on show, including sweet lychee and cherry fruit notes, floral perfume and more than a hint of pink Champagne's strawberry and lychee. The slightly severe vinegar tang found in the previous beer does show up here, but it's more forgivable what with the other features on show. I think this is sufficiently interesting to satisfy the chin-stroking sour beer intellectuals, but most of all it's fun, from the pale pink colour onwards. Perhaps the slightly higher strength of 7% ABV, as well as the choice of pomace, has something to do with the difference in these two beers.

The other French brewery at the festival was another wild specialist: Sacrilège. Cuvée Pepins is a grape ale, and you can take your pick of ABVs: 6% in the festival brochure, 6.2% on the brewery blackboard and 6.9% on the internet. It's that sort of wild, I guess. Regardless, this scarlet number is light and effervescent, and has very kriek-like characteristics, centring on a zingy cherry tartness. It's done with Carignan grapes, they tell us. A pinch of saltpetre spice in the finish adds the necessary extra dimension, so while it's far from complex, it is very well made, balanced and enjoyable. My preference is for grape ales to taste of grape, but I'll take cherry as a substitute in most any context.

Yet another wild beer specialist came all the way from Alberta. Blind Enthusiasm is up front about the influence of Belgian lambic on its way of doing things, sticking rigidly to the methods of the classic producers. With typical Canadian politeness they don't label the beers as lambic, but from what I tasted, they could absolutely pass.

At the basic level there's Single Barrel Spontaneous, flagged as uncarbonated so presumably an attempt at copying young straight lambic. It has the clear dark gold colouring and a perfect lambic tartness which is almost cider-like. The unrefined and rustic quality continues with a pleasant earthiness, invoking mature blue cheese, and a puckering wax bitterness. To my mind, it was absolutely the sort of thing you might find on cask at a specialist lambic bar in Belgium today. Only the well-hidden 7.5% ABV keeps it from being a beer to sink several glasses of, before returning to the harvest. So they've got the foundations right; now what?

A blend of 2, 3 and 4-year old versions of the above gives us Grand Manifesto, again 7.5% ABV. This is a clear gold colour and has an attractive nitre aroma: the damp brick cellar effect which is another of my favourite gueze features. It's quite dense and a touch syrupy, the strength being not so well hidden as it was in most of today's strong sour beers. Still, that provides a platform for lots of flavour, dominated by an almost Chardonnay-like oakiness, a modicum of sharp green apple, and lots of lovely peppery spice. My overall impression was that, while not brilliant, it is convincing. I've seen the eyewatering prices of good Belgian geuze in Canada, and I would be quite happy to switch my allegiance to Blind Enthusiasm if it were local.

And of course they do fruit beer too. Again it's very much after the Belgian style, although raspberry with rhubarb is a new one on me, I think. That's Mega Rhazzle, clear pink and all raspberry in the aroma. The sourness of the base beer dominates the flavour, and I suspect that covers up the rhubarb's contribution, because I didn't get any rhubarb flavour. The raspberry side is subtle and well-integrated, allowing the proper lambic tartness and spice to be the beer's main features. This is another spot-on recreation of how the likes of Cantillon and Tilquin make this kind of beer.

I don't know if I will ever encounter Blind Enthusiasm again, but I highly commend them, and especially where the alternative is a high-priced Belgian import. Further evidence, if it be needed, that there's nothing particularly special about the Pajottenland biome. Good beer of the lambic type is a question of skills, not bugs.

Two rather less involved English beers to take us out. Alas, none of the country's excellent wild beer specialists were present. I made do with Words of Wisdom, a gose by Cloudwater. Like most gose, it's not really a gose, with an ABV of 9%, plus added raspberry, mango and lime. Still, it's a pleasant slice of summery fun, balancing the citrus zest with tropical juice and managing to keep the raspberry from dominating the whole thing. I don't quite understand what they got from making it so strong: while that didn't add any unwelcome heat or otherwise harm the flavour, it flashes up an unnecessary warning light. This kind of thing is better done at half this strength, for more carefree drinking. It's not a connoisseurs' beer and shouldn't have to be sipped.

And then there was Scoop. For the brief periods that this was available, Azvex had to dedicate one of their team to pouring it continuously until the keg ran out. Having been surprised that it sold out on day one, I trooped along on day two to find out what the attraction was, beyond its arresting bright blue colour.

I'm still at something of a loss there. This is one of those pastrified pseudo-sour beers, loaded up with lactose for a creamy, yoghurt or fromage frais effect. The "fruit" element is that blue raspberry flavouring, most familiar from Slush Puppies but also found in bubblegum, assorted other candies, and absolutely not anywhere in the natural world. And that's it. Some electric-blue food colouring seems to be all you need to get the Borefts hoards queuing up to buy it. Blind Enthusiasm, directly across the room, must have been furious.

It's almost time for last orders, but not before we find out what our host and its compatriots brought to the party.