Girardin Gueuze Black Label

Brewed by Brouwerij Girardin
Style: Lambic - Gueuze
Sint Ulriks-Kapelle, Belgium

Serve in Flute, Stem glass, Tulip, Tumbler

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Hazy red/amber in appearnace. Intense sourness with barnyard, musty nose. Quite sour but perfectly balanced. SLightly biting even yet enjoyable. The finish is a hybrid bitter-sour character that leaves me wanting more...

I wish I had read a couple of the previous ratings - especially the ones that told about exploding bottles. Well as it turns this might turn out to be my most expensive beer so far as it cost me a new keyboard - but that did not really bother me that much (old keyboard), it is much worse that most beer of the beer escaped before i could drink it... Well this is what I get from the 126.8 ml i had left: (Black label) Aroma has cobwebs and blue bheese in it (in a good way). Murky orange which looked a lot better in the glas than on my wall. Complex sour tastenotes: Mainly earthy notes topped of with a lactic fruityness (grapes,strawbeerries) the whole beer is wonderfully round and wellbalanced and I sit back with a sour aftertaste that slowly fades away and wish I have had more of this brew.

BLACK LABEL (=unfiltered)! Goden colour with slight orangey shine. For a gueuze, remarkably stable head, dirty-yellow. Nose of 'horseblanket', fresh flowers, sulphur, green apples and drying hay. Very dry is the immediate impression, yet carbonisation all over the place - together with the tannines, the onslaught on the front teeth is complete, no tartar left - if I weren't a dentist myself, mine would be out of work, now. The real taste is purely retronasal; citrus, pineapple, green apple, lime, lactic (no acetic). Yet there is a strain of sweetness - like in 'speculaas' grain-biscuits Belgain style. Mouthfeel is undistinguishable from the taste, as above. Close my eyes, and I'm in a horse stable, the animal still steaming from the exercise, closeby the summerharvest of still hot grain, apples, straw is being stored. Words of my vocabulary are not sufficient. Would I have smoked pot in my younger days, I might have found them. Then, I have not.

UPDATED: JUL 2, 2003 Ushered through the massive barn, the oak from the horse stalls and the leather from the saddles linger in the air, but I am pulled further. . directed down a spiral stone staircase into the cellar, I push aside a large cobweb and step onto the soft earthen floor; aromas unimagined consume my existence. Clean and totally organized this cellar is unlike any I have come across: all of the cobwebs and dust are in perfect order, with a complexity never before seen. I hope I find St. Peter in a barn like this.

UPDATED: JUN 29, 2003 The most complex gueuze aroma I've ever experienced. All sorts of stuff I couldn't ever name. Cheese, dust, cobwebs, musty apples and leather. The flavors are sour and dry. Sour and dry, but not to the level of Hanssens Oude Gueuze. Maybe the best gueuze I've had. If only I had the ability appreciate it more...

UPDATED: FEB 9, 2005 Aroma has oak, citrus and honey. Sour, absolutely dry and oily. Oak, pineapple, citrus and hint of cherry in the flavor. Harsh yet smooth beer, complex and delicious. It’s hard to find better beers. Re-rate: half the contents of this large bottle gushed out before I could pour. What a waste! Bought 1 year ago at the brewery. Delicious aroma of honey, mandarin and lemon. Full bodied, almost milky with oak, melon, lemon, banana even. An explosion of flavors on your tongue. Earthy, a grapefruity bitterness, sugary even, plastic. Every sip is an exploration of flavors and aroma’s. Immensely complex. A great beer, the rating is fully deserved. I will store the 5 bottles I’ve left for many more years.

UPDATED: OCT 27, 2003 Rerate 24/10/03: Amber colour, little pale. A lot of bubbles and a white head. You can smell the aroma when you are filling your glass. Sour aroma. The flavour was quite flat. Little sour, bitter and sweet, but no dominating flavour as a Cantillon.

Treble colour. Very disgusting aroma. I don' know why, but the aroma was really ... bad. Bitter, sour, very good gueuze aroma. Bitter-sweet palate. Excellent Gueuze-lambic

Cloudy, deep yellow with hints of orange. Thin, lasting head and lace. Mouthwatering and insane aroma of green apples, cheese, horsebarn, grapes and others. Smooth, creamy feel, moderate carbonation, very complex and different flavors happening. A bit fruity/sweet at first, with hints of wheat and tons of oaky sourness/acidity but this is so soft and balanced where the sourness doesn't beat you over the head. Hints of cheese and yeast also add to the mix to round out the best gueuze I ever had. Thank you Psychprof.

UPDATED: MAY 21, 2007 Update: 4.5 months later and I was ready for the overflow - the body here is fantastic! Rich and soooper cheesy! Shared one with Hey_K and Frank on 5/24/03. Delicious. Well, Ben Franklin was right...haste does indeed make waste. I unpacked this baby, set it in the fridge for 30 mins...but that wasn"t enough. It exploded all over me and my apartment. I rescued approx. 125 ml out of 375 ml, and now everything in my apartment smells like gueuze. Black label. Very cloudy, dark yellow. Aroma is exceptionally woody, even more so than Hanssens (!), yet ameliorated by subtle fruitiness (grapeskin, sour apple). Flavors are tart, of course, but with a lot of wood and understated funky cheese. Outstanding....but I want to resample when the wares aren’t dripping off of me.

UPDATED: JUL 6, 2007 Bottle. Head is initially small, frothy/fizzy, white, mostly diminishing. Body is hazy light amber, bottle conditioned. Aroma is lightly yeasty (barnyard), lightly malty (toasted bread), with notes of lime zest, cask wood, flowers. Flavor is moderately sweet, moderately to heavily acidic. Finish is lightly sweet, moderately acidic, lightly bitter. Medium body, velvety texture, lively carbonation, lightly astringent. Elegant but a bit restrained.