Cantillon Soleil de Minuit

Brewed by Cantillon
Style: Lambic - Fruit
Brussels, Belgium

Serve in Flute, Stem glass, Tulip, Tumbler

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I love this. Hazy deep orange coloured. Probably the best aroma ever in a beer. It is really hard to remove your nose from the glass. Huge aroma of fresh cloudberries. Even though the beer is now seven years old the aroma has not changed much becoming less fruity as in most fruit lambics. Very acidic and complex flavour with lots of citrus and cloudberries present.

375ml bottle at the <a href=http://www.ratebeer.com/Place/sweden/s target=blank>Akkurat in Stockholm, Sweden. Vintage 1999. Golden orange in colour, dissipating white head, no lacing. The cloudberries in the aroma are spectacular and they provide the sweetness, sour and tart, some wood, light orange zest, acidic. Easy one of the best aromas I have come across. I didn’t think that it could get any better then the aroma until I tasted it. Wow. The cloudberry sweetness balanced with the usual Cantillon funk make this one fun lambic. Apples, cheese, must, acidic. Lightly sour mouthfeel, medium body, medium/high carbonation. Finishes sweeter then most Cantillon lambic, it seems to last forever. Astonishing is the only word I can think of.

UPDATED: AUG 4, 2010 Soleil de Minuit is a simple lambic, really --

There are the cloudberries, slightly sweet, somewhat tart, but still fresh after eleven years in the bottle. Then comes the lambic, easily recognizable as Cantillon - ripe socks, yellow woodsorrel, and antique armoires. The whole thing goes down with a champagne consistency.

-- and since this was available only in magnums, that came in handy!

UPDATED: FEB 13, 2011 Tried it a second time, and it is totally spectacular. Probarbly the best in the world. Cantillon Soleil de Minuit (årg. 1999). Vilken fantastisk doft den hade. Fina aromer och en smak som trots sina 10 år fortfarande är mycket bärig. Ölen var ganska syrlig och hade en eftersmak som måste vara något av det bästa jag har känt någon gång. Det var lite vemodigt att tömma de absolut allra sista dropparna.

75 cl bottle at Akkurat in July 2010. (vintage 1999) In my youth I spent a lot of time in Lapland. Grandma’s cloudberry jam was fantastic, cloudberries are the gold of Lapland. Cantillon Soleil de Minuit was without doubt one of the best beers I have ever tasted, truly an amazing experience. Wonderful aroma and taste of cloudberries, It was difficult to understand that the beer could still taste so much cloudberry. Very sour despite its age, long aftertaste. It was propably the last bottle ever sold at Akkurat. Wow!

Murky orange-brown. The cloudberries are still very present after all these years and have aquired a very "ripe" and exclusive flavour. There is a light funkiness and stableness, a little tart. It is extremely dry in the end, with a very cheekdrying effect. It manages to be incredibly complex and very simple at the same time, a feature which few beers reach. A great beer, it’s sad that it will probably never be made again.

Wow, never thought I would have an opportunity to try this beer. This is without a doubt the pinnacle of my beer drinking career. I will try to do the beer justice with this review. The beer pours a hazy tangerine color with a small white head. Great carbonation still after so long. I’ve never smelled or tasted a cloudberry, so these next two categories will be hard to judge. The nose is incredibly musty with some pretty prominent urine notes, I don’t know why, but it’s incredibly appealing to me. Soleil is crazy sour, probably the most sour Cantillon I’ve ever had. Typical Cantillon funk and lemon rind. Light mouthfeel, gentle carbonation, good acidity, and a moderate finish. Fantastic beer and such a treat to enjoy, I would probably still rate Loerik above this, but that takes nothing away from this. An incredible experience that I’ll never forget. Thanks guys!

This is a breakthrough in brewery (almost..). Combining swedish cloudberries with Belgian beerbrewing is genious! This lambic was produced by the swedish pub Akkurat (norwegian for ’correct’), Jamtlands Brewery in Sweden (correct me if I’m wrong) and Brasserie Cantillon in Belgium. What I’ve heard (I’m a regular at Akkurat in Stockholm) is that some swedish guys sent 300 kilos of cloudberries down to Cantillon and got back around 3000 bottles. They sell this rare lambic at Akkurat for 105 SEK (around $10 USD) and it’s damn worth the money! I have had atleast 10 bottles of this sour, yellowish lambic the last 3-4 months and this is one of the reasons I go to Stockholm regularly (I work now in Oslo, Norway).

Beautiful dark golden, little unclear body with a small beautiful white head that lasts; Super, super deep exceptionally complex, very intense nose. Very interesting balance between sweet and sour. The Hjotron stands out exceptionally clear, with some sweetness (I only know the smell of Hjotron from Hjotron jam, though), behind it there are lots of grapefruit, wood, vanilla etc. IT IS JUST FANTASTIC!; The body is very, very sour and dry and fits the nose perfectly; It moved into a just as sour and dry finish, again with lots of Hjotron in extreme lengths. Very, very well balanced beer, even when this sour and this dry. AMAZING!!!

Bottled: Orange colour. Unclear. White thin head. Is very fruitdense in the aroma. Must be the cloudberry. Has a subtle sourness in the background. The flavour is bloody fantastic. The fruitsweetness and the sourness is perfectly mingled in this one. Could go on and drink this forever. Is light acidic and cleansing in the end. I had both the ordinary and the special Soleil. My rating on 4,6 is a avg. of the 2. 4,5 for the ordinary and 4,7 for the special.