Chapeau Gueuze

Brewed by Brouwerij De Troch
Style: Lambic - Gueuze
Ternat-Wambeek, Belgium

Serve in Flute, Tumbler

Poor effort, actually quite unpleasant. Murky amber with a large head. Aroma of dark sugar and and lambic sourness. Flat flavour, sugar, sharp citrus and finishes sour.

DØE festival, Aarhus, DK Bottled taster, 271002. Amber with white head. Aroma of cellar and sourness. Flavor tangy with cider notes

Bottle. Pours dirty apple. Nose of funk, sweet fruit syrup and apple skin. Taste of candied pear in syrup, fruit skin, candi sugar, rum Dum Dum lollipops, funk and apple skin.

13th July 2006
Warning! Early amateur rating! Sharp and acidic. Slightly vinegary finish. Offset by pleasant sweetness and fruitiness. Dusty undertone. Nice

UPDATED: JUN 4, 2011 Honey/brass coloured, slim white collar. Cheesy old hay, blackcurrant and honey aroma. Overriding impression of Rowntree’s blackcurrant wine gums. Hardly a tang of acidity; bags of brown sugar, bread, honey dabs. Sickly, inauthentic, bit of a mess, but a trip down memory lane all the same.

A: The pour is sort of dark for a gueuze, a darker amber color with an off-white/khaki colored head. S: Oh boy, this is rough. Lots of funk, but not in a good way, tons of cheese, and an almost methane aroma. It’s as though there’s something decaying in the bottle. T: Things don’t improve much in terms of the flavor. Intensely sweet, which is not what I expect from a gueuze, and a strong chemical/solvent flavor. Luckily, not quite as much rotting vegetable character. M: The body is light but sugary and grainy with a moderate carbonation. D: This beer brings shame to the name of Gueuze. Stay away from this.

Very nice yeasty head and golden colour. Aroma of wood, grain, lemon. Taste is sweet and smooth, seems sugary and with not much complexity. Seems like a very commercialized kind of Gueuze. I like it, though, and would recommend it to people who have never tried the style before.

Best By February 2012; Sampled July 2010
A solid pour produces a three-finger thick, pale tan colored head. The beer is a dark amber hue that shows a brilliantly clear, amber color in the light. The aroma smells quite funky, not quite as sweet as I was expecting, and the fruitiness takes on some weird connotations of kiwi, oxidized melon, fermented raisins as well as a sort of green, unripe fruit like character that I can’t quite place. Doesn’t remotely smell like a Gueuze in any way shape or form, I can’t even pick out any acidity in the nose.

Ouch, this is quite sweet, though it is not as sweet as the Chapeau Faro, it is sweeter than many of the other Faros I have had. Fizzy textured from the carbonation, though not enough to keep the sugars from lingering on the tongue in the finish. This has a medium body to it as well. This tastes fruity up front and reminds me mostly of sweet apple cider, though there is an oxidized fruitiness in the finish that reminds me a bit of browned pears and / or raisins. There is a light tartness here that is pretty much the only tie in that this was Lambic; though having said that, I do get the sense that the sugar is hiding a lot of funky Lambic flavors.

While I could drink this if someone made me, it is definitely the worst travesty I have ever experienced from a bottle labeled Gueuze; though I must admit that I have a bottle of Chapeau Christmas Gueuze (with added flavor, what ever that means) still coming up. These fake De Troch Lambics are made that much more interesting by the fact that they can make a good, traditional Lambic when they put there mind to it; I really hope they make more of the traditional products as I have been able to try some very good examples from this brewery.