3 Fonteinen

Why it matters

Gueuze is a blender’s product before it is a brewer’s, and this is the clearest surviving demonstration of the distinction: the house spent most of its history buying lambic and blending it, and its reputation was built on the blending rather than on the brewing. It also survived losing most of its stock to a thermostat failure in 2009, which is the sort of thing that ends a business built on multi-year inventory.

Details

Reference beers

• 3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze6% ABV

  A blended gueuze from a house that spent most of its history blending other brewers’ lambic rather than making its own.

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Styles it is associated with

• Gueuze — A blend of young and old lambic, refermented in bottle — intensely complex, bone dry and Champagne-like in its carbonation.
• Lambic — Spontaneously fermented Belgian wheat beer, matured in oak for years — funky, acidic, dry and unlike any other beer.

Traditions

• Belgian spontaneous fermentation — Lambic brewing in the Senne valley: inoculation from ambient air, years in wood, and blending to produce gueuze.