Girardin Gueuze Black Label

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

Bottle (no gushing): Estery nose was welcoming. Champagne-like texture with a lively carbonation. Some stickiness in the finish, but drying, too. Very bright and bold aromas from start to finish. Tart and tangy-fruity flavors (cider, grapes, pear and sugar-free Red Bull curiously enough). Zingy sourness toward the finish. Leathery and earthy in the aftertaste. Tasty.

A great geuze indeed...just behind Cantillon on my list but deserving of praise nonetheless. Flavorful sour malt...I found Cantillon to be a tad smoother which made the difference here.

RateBeer Summer 2003: Murky light orange color with a small head. Sour aroma with a bit of horse-blanket and old wood. Tart and sour. This is the first gueuze that I truly enjoyed.

Im not quite sure that i have the capacity to explain what’s going on in this beer, but Oakes wasn’t kidding around when he said this might be the grand-daddy of all lambics. This just edges out Cantillion in the frantic Geuze taste off i had in Brussels.

BAM! An enormous explosion when i removed the cork. Gueuze all over my room, luckily my computer and guitar were spared. Very strange, i had been very careful during transport... Anyway, the rating is based on the remnant. Cloudy orange coloured, no head. Very nice complex aroma, tart with cheese, some sourness and a bit fruity (but it’s different when your whole room smells like it...). Flavour is pretty sweet for a geuze (which i like). Smooth finish.

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.

Dusty deep gold. Nose lightly dark, a bit sour, fruity and tart, kind of smells like vaguely moldy citrus and, in yet another one of those "I never thought I’d say this" moments, I mean that in a good way. Flavor very dry, quick sharp bite of sourness, good farmyard depth to it. Some sour fruitiness, very dusty and musty. Not quite as flavorful as expected, I do enjoy the fact it’s not Cantillon-esque with overpowering sourness, but it’s a bit more subtle than I’d like. Crisp and incredibly dry at the end. Gueueze-wise, really quite incredibly drinkable. I wouldn’t have thought a gueuze could be a session beer, but this is close.

Honey colored brew with lots of lively carbonation. Nose hints at peaches and apples while the flavor is reminiscent of Granny Smiths and grapes.. Tart with a slight funkiness.