New tricks from the old guard

It had been many years since I tasted any beer from  3 Fonteinen. Once upon a time it was one of the top lambic houses in Belgium and then in 2009 disaster struck when a faulty thermostat destroyed about a year's worth of stock. And unlike most beers, with lambic you can't simply throw together a replacement batch and have it on sale in a few weeks. The company became a blendery, though plans have been hatched to start distilling and brewing once again.

Recently, the missus brought a bottle of 3 Fonteinen Doesjel back from Brussels. This is a blend of 1, 2 and 3-year old lambic and I'm guessing it dates from the post-catastrophe era. It's 6% ABV and a lovely orange-gold colour. The first surprise is in the aroma: sour, of course, but there's a distinct and intriguing sweetness too. On tasting this unfolds into a juicy, pithy jaffa flavour backed by a mild, short-lived, tang of sour funkiness. An odd combination for an old lambic and one that left me feeling something was missing. I expected bigger sourness and perhaps some old wood. Instead, the fruit flavours put me in mind of Cantillon's Iris, except it's nowhere near as good as Cantillon's Iris. Disappointing, in short.

From one first-string gueuzerie to another. You wouldn't have thought one of the most po-faced and serious of the lambic breweries might produce something as frivilous as this garishly-labelled beer. Yet here it is: Framboise Girardin. Proper grown-up lambic, with raspberries.

From the half champagne bottle it looks gorgeous, a crystalline blood red. The aroma is pure raspberry: sweet without a hint of sourness. Nothing sugary when you taste it, though. The raspberry is still present in a big way, but it's the dry crispness of raspberry seeds. You can just about tell there's a sour beer underneath -- a bit of an acid burn in the nostrils and the faintest catch at the back of the palate -- but otherwise it's all about the raspberries, while avoiding any trace of sugary sickliness. It's the sort of beer that reminds me why people thought of putting fruit in lambic in the first place, and makes me wonder why more of them aren't better at achieving this kind of balance.

Jurassic Marque

Brasserie des Franches-Montagnes (BFM) from Jura is one of the breweries recommended by Swiss commenters on this blog (hi Laurent!) so I was very pleased to find some in Palais des Bières in Geneva. It's an odd little bar-cum-shop in the basement of a shopping centre selling mostly Belgian beers, with a handful of British and others. And all at outrageous prices: this pair cost me a bit over €6 each. They'd want to be tasty.

The first one I opened was La Meule: 6% ABV and proclaiming itself a bière de garde, one of those catch-all styles that can mean anything as long as its brown-ish and hazy. Which this is. The secret miracle ingredient is sage, for extra farmhouse rusticity, I suppose. The herb leaps out of the aroma combining with fruity citric smells as well. On tasting it's quite dry and rather funky: I detect the presence of brettanomyces in spades. After the initial shock there are some beautiful Jaffa orange notes and a touch of aftershave spice. It reminds me of something and I wave away the late sage flavour which isn't part of the recollection. Orval. It tastes a lot like Orval, only with sage in it. A horror to Orval purists I'm sure, but an undeniably interesting beer and one which I quite enjoyed.

The second one was La Cuivrée. This is a brighter red-amber shade next to its stablemate, topped with a fluffy ivory-coloured head. I get a zingy aroma of fresh hops but they're not so apparent on tasting. Instead its a highly attenuated beer: thin and with a touch of sourness masked somewhat by the fresh hops. You know what comes next: sour; fresh hops... it's an Iris clone. Well, maybe a bit. It's not quite as zingy as fresh Iris, nor as puckeringly sour, but if I was in an Iris-free zone and craving it, La Cuivrée would certainly help take the edge off.

And while we're up the Jura, another brewery from Laurent's comments: Trois Dames. I came across a few of their beers totally by chance in Bavaria Brasserie, a beer hall in Lausanne where I was expecting little other than draught Paulaner but found a fantastic selection of European beers, though not much local. We only stayed for the one so I made it Pacifique, a 5% ABV US-style pale ale.

It took a while to pour as the foam had to be let subside in the too-small branded glass. A hazy orange beer is what eventually emerged under the head. There's a bubblegum mish-mash of fruity aromas, separating on tasting into soft fruit like lychees and nectarines. The sweetness becomes more apparent as it warms, bringing out sticky honey flavours that don't sit well with the busy fizz. This is one to drink cool. From a bigger glass.

It would have been nice to see some of these on draught, but I guess that's the absence of a pub culture for you. Places like Brasserie Bavaria are a welcome substitute. And there's always the €6 take-home bottle...

The main event

Stupid Belgian railways. Our (mostly my, actually) dicking about with ticket machines and timetables meant it was heading for 7 by the time we reached Brussel Zuid. There was light in the sky over Place Bara as we crossed on our way to Cantillon, and the party was already in full swing inside, with M. Van Roy a one-man welcome committee at the door. After coffee and croissants, we had the unusual privilege of a real life tour guide taking us round the brewery. Mashing had just begun and the mechanical tun was turning over the grist being poked down from the grain mill above.

Back at the tasting room we got our morning glass of gueuze. I think I was the only one not bemused by the concept of drinking beer before 9am. I mean, it was a Saturday. As the other tours went through we staked a claim in the tasting bar to soak in the atmos. Lots of atmos in Cantillon, and here it had just started to smell of wort. As it began to pour from the mashtun we went for a taste. Porridgey, funnily enough. I'd never really noticed the wheat character of Cantillon beer, but here it was -- very pronounced, and slightly steaming.

The clock was heading for 10. Time for another beer. I fetched us a bottle of Iris, served from an unmarked bottle in a basket. Even the bar is old school at Cantillon. As the beer was sunk, so the eyelids began to droop, and most of the group decided that a nap was the best way to make the most of the rest of the day. Not me though. It was a gorgeous bright morning in Brussels and I went for a walk, up to Beer Circus to find out if it opened for lunch (it doesn't on Saturdays) then watched the world go by in Parc du Bruxelles before it was time to see what the sleeping beauties were up to.

We reconvened in Grand Place and lunched in one of the many shameless tourist traps fine dining establishments on Rue des Bouchers. Mrs Beer Nut decided she's seen enough brewing for one day so went off in search of chocolate while the rest of us schlepped back to Anderlecht. When we got there, the boil was done and the hot wort was being pumped into the shallow cool ship in the attic -- raw lambic as far as the eye could see (which wasn't very far, what with all the steam). Wafts of afternoon air were being blown over the tray, carrying the magic beasties which would, when the temperature had dropped sufficiently, begin working wonders on the liquid. Suitably awed, we decided it was time for a beer.

We took a position by the stove, watching the old barrel staves being thrown in as fuel and realising too too late that swiping one for homebrewing purposes would be a nifty idea. Oh well. David was buying this time out, and fetched us a bottle of Rosé de Gambrinus -- the raspberry lambic. Yet again, I just don't rate the fruity Cantillons above the plain gueuze. Still, the acidic tartness delivers a short sharp shock to the tastebuds, and then a fresh fruit-flavoured juiciness finishes the whole thing off. A good beer, no question, but not good enough to claim a place in my 20kg of beery baggage. Plain, wonderful, Cantillon gueuze made up (almost) the sum total of my purchases.

At 4.30, our day's work was done. Saturday night on the town in Brussels was beckoning.

I'm not Jack Bauer

"Please do not practise your French here. We are Flemish and we hate the French".
So said the faintly-bearded nipper behind the ticket desk at Brussels airport station to Mrs Beer Nut's request for two returns to Bruxelles-Central. Welcome to Belgium. Having finally soothed his hurt sense of semi-national pride, we acquired the tickets. For Brussel-Centraal, of course. It was 9pm last Thursday and herself was over for a meeting the next day. With nothing better to do with the 24 hours, I tagged along.

For the second time, we checked into the Grand Sablon, a decent and conveniently-located hotel, though sadly no longer offering free wi-fi. It does lack quality pubs in the immediate vicinity, so we plumped for the Café Leffe at the bottom of the street. By 10 we were perusing the menu in the clean, brightly-lit, but rather soulless pub-restaurant. The menu is quite short but mercifully not limited to AB-InBev beers. I opted for a Kasteel Bruin, having never had it before, and feeling the need for a warmer after coming in from the icy streets of sub-zero Brussels. Thick and syrupy are the operative terms here. It's 11% ABV, very flat, boozy as hell and offers the same sort of warmth as Benylin. Not recommended. Then, in typical Beer Nut style, I ordered the other beer in the same range: Kasteel Triple. Just as well I did, too: it's really quite good. The aroma is orangey but the flavour has all this and more: honey and caramel as well as a slightly astringent sourness, all based on a heavy bready body. Redemption, then, for Kasteel.

As midnight approached, the Café Leffe waiters began taking in the menu boards and putting the chairs on the tables. We took the hint and departed.

Next morning, I hit the snowy streets at 9.30. First port-of-call was the legendary Brussels throwback brewer, Cantillon. I was in no rush so spent three quarters of an hour ambling southwards to the brewery near Gare du Midi. I'd been here once before, four or so years ago, and while there was nothing happening that day, it was all go inside last Friday. The bottling line was running full pelt and three-metre-high palettes of empty champagne bottles were becoming similarly-tall stacks of fresh Cantillon beer. I wandered around on the self-guided tour and came back for the tasting. It had been a long time since I drank Cantillon Kriek and I think I've lost my taste for it. The sweet cherry juice interrupts my enjoyment of the sour gueuze beneath. Tasting finished, I was heading for the door when one of the lads from the bottling line asked if I wanted to try what they were bottling. Yeah, I kinda did. Turns out it was three-week-old Iris, and it was stunning: the fresh tannic Goldings with which it is dry-hopped stood out a mile. They aim to let this bottle condition for three or four months before sending it out, but demand is such that these days it leaves the brewery much younger. Comparing it to the maturer variety, that's no bad thing, in my opinion.

11 o'clock had come and gone when I left with my purchases. My plan was for a crafty one up at Bier Circus while I waited for places to start serving lunch. A quick spin on the metro and some wandering had me there by 11.40. No consideration for morning drinkers here, unfortunately, as it doesn't open its doors until lunch is ready at noon. Down the street I found somewhere much more understanding of my needs. Seven other blokes had beaten me to the tiny bar called Treurenberg that morning. I had the critical eye cast over me before they returned to their papers and pils. I wanted something light and quick and saw "Pale Ale" on the menu. Expecting John Martin's I reckoned that would do admirably. A sip told me that that's not what I got -- it was much more tannic with big heavy slabs of toffee. Tasty with it, but a surprise nonetheless. Turning the glass revealed it to be a substance called Whitbread Pale Ale. It seems to me to be another of the Belgian-brewed English-style ales, but I can't find a record of anyone in Belgium brewing it. So it could be American, or it could be British (nope, Belgian, says Laurent). Still good, though.

That saw me through to noon when I made for the Bier Circus. Years ago I had visited it in its old delightfully dingy premises. Now, with big windows on two sides, it's anything but. The bright sunlight and tiled floor give it an unfortunate clinical feel. The beer list is still first rate, and includes a couple of cask lambics. I picked out the beer which has been top of my Belgian hitlist for a while: Hercule Stout. It's very opaque and rife with suspended floaty bits. The beige head lasts all the way, and the reason for the round dimpled mug is very apparent on lifting it: this is one of these beers that does all the work in the nose before sipping -- powerful sweet and roasty aromas waft from the surface. At 9% it's not surprising that there's more than a touch of treacle about the flavour, as well as more of the stouty roasted grains. This is complicated by a yeasty bitterness right on the end. The whole is a velvety smooth beer and I rather enjoyed it, even if the flavour doesn't quite live up to the aroma's promise.

I had ordered stoemp as my fuel for the afternoon and was very surprised that instead of a big bowl of mash, vegetables and sausages swimming in gravy, my stoemp came in a neat terrine, with sausage and bacon on the side, accompanied by a stemmed glass of onion gravy. Weird. I had been sitting opposite a blackboard offering Brigand IPA so that's what I finished here with. It's the perfect shade of red gold, but the alarm bells began ringing when I could detect no aroma from this at all. The taste is sharp and tripel-like in its yeastiness, but with very little hop character. A fail.

I sat over it anyway, and then decided a head-clearing walk was in order, so at 1.15 I set off again, past the beautifully snow-bound Parc de Bruxelles, and on to a shop where I could continue my mission without taking any more beer on board. Alas it didn't work out that way. Beer Mania is several things. Mostly it's a beer shop boasting some 400 Belgian brews. It also sells some basic home brewing supplies. And right at the back there's a café in which you can try any of the stock, for a mark-up, of course. I wasn't going to. I really wasn't. Except then I found they had their own house beer, contract brewed. And then I noticed how desperately cool the handcrafted glass is. Sold! Mea Culpa is a blonde ale of 7.5% ABV. It's a little darker than one might expect, with a spicy aroma and a pleasant rough, grainy character. Light, tasty, and great fun to drink.

Back to the shopping trail, then, and I picked up some handily-portable cans of Rodenbach in a convenience store as I headed back down to the old city. The next destination, reached at 3.30, came recommended by Boak & Bailey, suggested to them by Andreea. Poechenellekelder is situated over the Mannekin Pis's left shoulder and is an oddly-shaped small pub, with far more levels than there ought to be, in this drinkers' opinion. Puppets dominate the bric-à-brac, and the smallish menu is complemented by lots of specials blackboards. I went for one such: N'ice, the winter ale by La Chouffe. I think I'd be hard pressed to tell this blind from plain old La Chouffe: it has a lot of the pepperiness, with only a sharper, drier character singling out the flavour. I was disappointed by the beer, but cheered up by a phone call from the missus saying that her meeting had ended early and she was on her way to Grand Place. I finished up and headed out. We met at the Brewers' Guild building -- a lacklustre chain brewpub if memory serves me -- at 4.

She was paying for dinner so that came with a bottle of Bordeaux. However, there was time at the end to nip across from Rue des Bouchers to Au Bon Vieux Temps for a couple of swift ones before making for the airport. Well, she had a couple of swift ones; I had to sacrifice some time to collect the baggage up at Sablon. On my return I sunk a fairly quick Westmalle Dubbel, noting that the pub still insists it's the only Belgian trappist available on draught -- Chimay Blanc comes this way too.

Seven o'clock passed as we were on the train, and we were through security by 8. Time for a farewell beer. The airport bar concession is controlled by AB-InBev, but they're not as charitable towards outside beers here as in Café Leffe. And even though the departure area bar sports Leffe parasols, not even that is available. Canned Hoegaarden or canned Stella are your lot. We went with the former, obviously.

Slightly behind schedule we boarded our flight on the stroke of 9pm.

Belge-yum

Saison Dupont is one of those beers that gets mentioned now and again in connoisseur circles as a reference point for its style. I happened to pick up a bottle for the princely sum of €1.60 last time I was through Amsterdam and I opened it yesterday. Pouring was a struggle, with uncomfortable quantities of foam disappearing down the sink before I got a glass near. This undid any settling work that had happened over the past few months, and the pale amber beer was rife with suspended yeast bits which never really got round to calming down again.

For all the fuss, it's quite an ordinary beer at the end: a little thin and laced with mildly sour, typically Belgian, ale flavours. One of the best features is a warmth that rivals much stronger beers, despite it only having 6.5% ABV, but there's no real dominant or domineering flavour. I guess there would be something wrong with a traditional rustic "farmhouse" beer that was mind-blowing, however I still enjoyed this, understated and all that it is. I'd pay more than €1.60 a bottle anyway.

From saison to lambic, and one from the Cantillon stable. I do love the way their small bottles feature both a cap and a cork -- ain't nuthin' getting out of there until you're ready for it. Standard Cantillon Gueuze is one of my favourite beers and I spent a while trying to figure out what makes Iris different. It's sharper and earthier but I couldn't figure out how this was achieved. A little research tells me that Iris is made using fresh hops, rather than the dried, aged, tame ones in the Gueuze.

It's still far from anything you'd call "hoppy", though: the end result is still sour and lip-smacking, but instead of a smooth and genteel buzz, the effect is much more intense. Blending is everything with gueuze, rounding out the intense flavours. I'm sure Iris is blended too, but the edges are very much still on here. On balance I think I'd go back to the mellower version next time.

Last up is something darker and stronger. My bottle of Pannepot Grand Reserva is dated 2005 (it's the same beer Alan enjoyed a couple of months back) and claims 22 months of wood aging, 8 of them on calvados barrels. All that sitting about has created red-brown ale with just a faint fizz to it. The aged boozy apples are definitely present in the aroma and into the first sip. Otherwise this is quite a sweet candy-caramel ale with definite fresh wood overtones amongst the echoes of cherry liqueur chocolates. The fruit and sugar sweetness go a long way to hide the 10% ABV: it's neither a warmer nor a cloyer. If it wasn't so intense I might even go so far as describing it as light. However, it's definitely a taste sensation, and not the kind of thing I associate with Belgium at all.

Another observation from the Obvious File, perhaps, but it's great that Belgium's beers continue to educate and surprise me, even after I've had quite a few of them. I'll keep going, I think.