Cantillon Feestbier HBL

Formerly brewed at Cantillon
Style: Lambic Style - Fruit
Brussels, Belgium

Serve in Flute, Stem glass, Tulip, Tumbler

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750 mL bottle 2006 vintage Bonus appearance points for dressing the beer up in a tuxedo. The beer is golden orange with a subtle haze and 1/4" white head. The aroma offers gooseberries (yes I know what gooseberries smell/taste like), mushrooms, melons, earth. The flavor offers a lot of oak. Sour, tart, earthy, notes of pepper, subtle vegetables. Notes of white wine. Very interesting, intriguing, and enjoyable. Delicious, but at a steep price. Serving type: bottle Reviewed on: 06-09-2012

750mL 2006? Bottle. Tuxedo bottle (?). Needs a better picture since this one looks ridiculous. Bright low haze gold pour. Higher carbonation. Acid cut head. Nose is wet mushroom and some dirt. Heavy earth and soil moving to some heavy papaya and jackfruit. Nice though. Taste is bright cantaloupe and mango. Palate is massively lactic and super intense. No acetic. Sharp and tangy. Delicious overall. Really funky and different. Taste is bracing acidity. Super lactic and mouth watering. Spicy acidity. Nice. Refreshing. Bracing. Lemon juice heavy. Super leathery with big lemon. I like it. The nose requires ignoring dirt and wet mushroom in order to discover tropical fruitiness.

UPDATED: FEB 1, 2013 Thought this bottle was beyond extinct, so lucky to have an opportunity to try this. Pours a cloudy cantaloupe color with a small amount of off-white head on the pour. What the hell? The nose on this beer is bizarre, as someone else at our tasting picked out, there are some very prominent pepper and giardiniera notes to it. Wow that’s weird...not bad by any means, just very unique. Flavor actually mirrors the nose quite a bit, only it is exceptionally tart. There is lemon and a somewhat "green" flavor there as well. Light mouthfeel, gentle carbonation, and heavy acidity...almost stomach churning. Glad to have the opportunity to try this. It’s a polarizing beer I think, but I happen to like it quite a bit because of how unique it is. Nonetheless, I don’t know that I could drink more than my pour.

Served in a Cantillon wine glass. Pours a clear golden color with a short white head. Not too much in terms of lacing. The nose carries some nice woody notes -- not quite oak, but more of a dusty, earthy wood character. Slight to moderate acidity with some green grapes and a touch of stone fruit. Flavor has nice woody notes alongside green grapes and the obligatory gooseberry character. Body is light with moderate acidity and a smooth, dry finish. Not the best Cantillon I’ve had, but very interesting and well worth a try.

Bottle bought by HBL on 2008. Today tasted with friends @ proefzolder Alvinne. Hazy golden color, with very small white head. Aroma vegetal, wood, sourness. Medium body. Taste we expected more, fruits, bit vegetal, woods. sourness

(Bottle at VBPF08 on 2008-05-18) Golden colour. Hazy. White small head. Sour nose with gooseberry and burnt wood. Acidic and dry palte. Sour taste contains gooseberry, burned wood and bitterness. Excellent.

Tasted at the brewery spring 2007, shared by a guy from Heikantse BierLiefhebbers - Warm orange body, very little head; The nose is amazing, very clear green gooseberry aroma, mixed with straight up lambic aromas, those to together seems like the perfect match; The body is WILD, amazingly acidy, very clear GG fruit acids somehow you can fell the hairs of the fruit ,all kind of other acids, super complex, super interesting; Long dryish finish, like the acids of an unripe fruit is drying your mouth, lots of aroma. Amazing beer GG seems like a very good match for lambics, hope this will be brewed at a larger scale.

Sampled from the barrel at the brewery - unblended.
Unclear orange colored, no head. Penetrating aroma of unripe gooseberry with tones of newly cut firewood - very fresh, very complex, very unique! Nice sourness in the flavor, but not sharp as some lambics can be. Gooseberries shows again with a dry woodyness. A very special lambic with a very nice berry character. One of the most unique lambics I have tasted!

Sunny orange colour with small yellowish head, gone fast. Fruity, dry lambic nose, aroma of unripe kiwifruit, green grapes, horseblanket. Very raw fruit acids and lactic acid (point of acetic as well, but very restrained). I get a bit of liqueur, but as to which - Bénédictine? Very earthy flavours, fresh, not quite ripe berries. More tart, you die. HBL-people - sorry. I had the try-out, and didn’t completely like it - that was just too raw. This one is excellent, now.