Ancient brews of Belgium
GEOFF GRIGGS
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Beer
The concept of beers made with fruit might seem strange, but long before hops were adopted as the norm, brewers used all manner of herbs, spices and fruit to balance the natural sweetness of grain.
Throughout history, brewers have used fruit in their beers and with good reason. All fruit is seasonal and the softer varieties berries, cherries, grapes and the like, highly perishable. Fruit is a nutritious food resource and before the advent of refrigeration, fermentation was one of the very few options available to preserve the annual harvest.
In and around Brussels, Belgium's capital city, a handful of artisan brewers and blenders still use fruit when making the unique and ancient beer style.
As early as the 1400s, the town of Lembeek, to the southwest of the city, had its own Guild of Brewers. The town seems likely to have given its name to the lambic family of beers.
Lambic (pronounced lom-beek) is made with pale malted barley, raw wheat, water and hops. Unusually the hops have been deliberately aged so as to lose their pungent aroma, flavour and bitterness, but they retain their antibacterial qualities. However, the most remarkable aspects of lambic brewing are the unique fermentation and ageing techniques involved.
Lambic is the only style of beer where brewers do not inoculate their wort with specifically cultured yeast strains. In rustic brewhouses often with tiles missing from the roofs on brewing days lambic brewers deliberately open their windows and shutters. Overnight wild fruit yeasts from nearby apple and pear orchards float in on the breeze, land in shallow open vessels full of sweet, malty wort and initiate a magical "spontaneous" fermentation.
The following day, the brew is transferred into unlined oak casks where it begins a sequence of fermentations that can last for many years. With at least 70 micro-organisms at work, the beer develops a myriad of flavours and aromas.
Available in only in a few local cafes and bars in Belgium, unblended aged lambic is profoundly still and wine-like, with musty, leathery, cidery notes. More commonly, the aged lambic is blended with fermenting young beer to create gueuze. The colour of onion skins, this beer has a complex toasty, earthy, sweet and sour character and a delightful, soft carbonation.
By adding ripe soft fruit to casks of aged lambic, brewers prompt a further fermentation. Raspberry (framboise) and cherry (kriek) lambics are the most traditional cherry stones impart delicious almondy notes but in recent times, peach, blackcurrant, banana and even tea-flavoured examples have also appeared.
Here in New Zealand we have access to traditional "oude" (unsweetened) examples from Boon and Cantillon, or more modern (sweetened) variants from Belle Vue and Timmermans.
With their spritziness, wine-like tartness and lack of bitterness, they are an excellent option for those who don't appreciate the bitter taste of hoppy lagers and ales or as an alternative to sparkling wine. Wonderfully food-friendly, they should be an option on every restaurant drinks list. Cheers!
- The Marlborough Express
