Lambic

Lambic is a very old style of beer traditionally brewed in Belgium and one of the more curious styles of beer available anywhere in the world. Unlike any other beer brewed commercially Lambics and Sour ales are fermented spontaneously, i.e. they are not dosed with a brewers strain of yeast. The spontaneous fermentation introduces other bacteria that consume much more of the sugars in the beer leaving in some cases an extremely tart beer.

Lambic are brewed with aged hops to have lost most of their bitterness to avoid competing with the sourness, they are left to the open air to be inoculated with wild yeast and aged in oak barrels for a year or more before bottling. All this makes them truly unique.

Lambics can be split into various sub catagories, we have:

Straight Lambic

This is lambic from a single batch and not blended with other aged or newer batches. Served with no carbonation and displaying a true version of the breweries wild yeast character.

IBUs: 0 – 10
SRM: 3 – 7
OG: 1.040 – 1.054
FG: 1.001 – 1.010
ABV: 5 – 6.5%

Gueuze

Gueuze is a blend of young (up to a year) and 2 and 3 year old batches. This blend gives the beer the complexity of the aged beer with the bouquet of the younger beers. The Gueuze is bottled and the remaining fermentables in the younger beer ferment in the bottle and lightly carbonate the beer.

IBUs: 0 – 10
SRM: 3 – 7
OG: 1.040 – 1.060
FG: 1.000 – 1.006
ABV: 5 – 8%

Fruit Lambic

This style of beer can either be unblended lambic or a Gueuze style of beer with the addition of fruit to the aging vessel (barrel) the wild yeasts consume the sugar in the fruit and the flavour qualities remain. Many commercial beers of this style use sugars or syrups to add the fruit character and sweeten the beer but are not considered traditional.

IBUs: 0 – 10
SRM: 3 – 7
OG: 1.040 – 1.060
FG: 1.000 – 1.010
ABV: 5 – 7%