Cantillon Rosé De Gambrinus

Brewed by Cantillon
Style: Lambic - Fruit
Brussels, Belgium

Bottle, shared by NachlamSie. Pours a hazy bright orange with minimal whitish head. The aroma is a distinct earthy sourness, with notes of cheese, slight sweat, muscadine, raspberry, cumin. The flavor is refreshingly sour, with dry earthiness and mild acidity. There is a faint fruity hint of the raspberries, but not overtly so. An assertive cheese tone lasts into the aftertaste. Pretty good.

Bottle: Orange base, strong pink influence, slightly hazy, small to moderate light pink head, fizzy, dies quickly, spotty lacing.   Tart oaken nose, subtle raspberry, somewhat immature in nature.   Tart on the tongue, bordering on sour.   Raspberry is apparent, but not in the sweet sense.   Becomes more noticeable as it warms.   Moderate to full body, mouthfeel is average.   Dry, tart finish.   Very little raspberry at this point.   Wished the fruit aspect was a bit stronger.   Otherwise clean and fairly tasty.

After trying this one I believe it’s more endowed for honours as the ’champagne of Belgium’ than their notably fierce and addictive Gueuze. Honestly this lacked a little too much of the Cantillon lambic character and was a little too crowd pleasing to be a classic. My wife even liked it as it was "as close to a Rosé sparkling wine as beer has ever been". Thats not to say I didn’t like it!!!
Poured into a flute; a wonderfully alluring peachy orange body, slightly hazy, with no head at all to cap it off. Tart mix of cherries and raspberries, spoiled fruit and musty sour-dough, lemons and vanilla in the intriguing but not enticing aroma. I love the first mouthful of these beers as it rips the finer layers of skin right off every corner of the mouth. Talk about acidic. This one is really dry with feint notes of peaches under layers of soft cherries and raspberries, ripe lemons and grapeskins. It’s well attenuated alright, having a thin body, extremely dry palate and a mouthfeel similar to an aged rosé champagne. Finish has a little musty, slightly cheesy note before tart, drying fruit turn to acidic dryness and disappear. I liked it, but I didn’t expect such a clean, sour and dry example of lambic as what I tasted here. Refreshing like champers but not really my thing. One to try again fresh. (37,5cL, Bottled in 2004, Int’l Beer Shop, W. Leederville)

Bottle. To many people, I am aware that this review may rightly reflect as much about me and my social environment as the beer. But, my palate is still not able to adapt to such things at this point, and it yet surprises me that this seriously pleases anybody. I want to like it - and I find it a touch more apalatable than say, a rodenbach grand cru. But to me, it still has an undesirable manure farmy fruit tart aroma, and the beer tastes like almost nothing but sour acidic vinegar, cider vinegar. The fruit is barely detectable, and provides the faintest tinge of puckering sweetness, almost no sweetness at all. I can barely manage to drink a small amount of this. I may keep trying, and more power to the people who like this, but it’s completely bizarre to me. I don’t think lindemans is a wonderful or terribly authentic product but, at least I can drink that, so it has a higher rating. It also occurs to me that possibly my bottle wasn’t very good - a significant portion of the beers I bought at Oliver’s in Albany NY seem to have been infected or bad... but in this case I just think this is an extremely sour beer made for a small minority of people who are pleased by this... I will likely not ever be one of those people, and I don’t see any reason to be embarrased about that.

2004...my first serious lambic. Yikes...is this what they are supposed to be. Pours a very nice looking pale orange/pink with hardly any head. Smelled extremely tart/sour...with a bit of yeast funk and fruit. Tasted extremely sour and had just a bit of fruity raspberry...but nothing in the brew could possibly contend with that sourness. Mouthfeel was actually quite smooth and dry. Not my favorite...but I guess lambics are going to take some getting used to.

2004 "vintage". Beautiful burnt orange tones, and the aroma reminded of tinned orange juice - with a bit of raspberry. The tart acidity predominated, so it must not have been young. So when does a lambic lose the fruit dominance? This went well over three days using a champagne stopper. Excellent for a before dinner drink. Not recommended to accompany desert.

2004 bottle opened at cellar temperature. Poured a murky reddish orangish pinkish body with a small head. Aroma is very tart, very acidic, some raspberry, some barnyard, some other minor fruit notes. The extreme tartness and sourness muted a lot of the fruity flavors making this interesting but limited. Unfortunately, the cost was not at $13/bottle.

Wet hay, and an acidic fruitiness leave the orange/pink colour. Wonterfuly acidic citric notes of grapefruit, cherries, and predominately rasberries. Strong acidity, beautiful.