One of the most memorable beers of my life appeared after we’d had a few. It was about a decade ago on a cold November day in Brussels following the first snow—a perfect day to brew lambic. I had arrived at Cantillon that afternoon, at the moment fifth-generation Owner-Brewer Jean Van Roy was shoveling sodden green heaps from the hopback. He was near the end of the brew day and soon would be relaxing with those (two) of us who showed up to witness the magic of brewing spontaneously fermented beer.
I recall drinking faro, the rustic, lightly sweetened lambic that once slaked thirst in every pub in the city, poured from a traditional ceramic pitcher. We tried other beers, lost to memory. But I mostly remember how, after Van Roy had discussed his beers with gusto, he went to the cellar to retrieve a five-year-old bottle of the brewery’s gueuze. In this type of lambic, stocks of different vintages are blended together. As lambic ages, it changes, so blending young and old batches creates a beer of surpassing complexity.
Of all the permutations of lambic, “my preference is for gueuze,” Van Roy said, “and for such a beer, between two and five years.” He presented the bottle as an example. It was electrifying, with the lemon-rind character typical of the brewery, wood sap, earth, a hint of vinegar, and joyful, roiling effervescence. No beer can approach gueuze in complexity or, when the balance is just right, accomplishment. It was the first profoundly good gueuze I’d tasted; it was a world away from what anyone was doing in the United States, and it changed the way I thought about beer.