Originally posted by 77ships
Originally posted by BBB63
Originally posted by Cletus
Why couldn’t this have happened before so many of the other lambic blenders went away due to lack of interest?
^^ THIS ^^ 
For many years lambic was the cheapest beer on the market - cheaper than pale lager or pils. Almost no profit margin and because it is so easy to make some lesser breweries got into the game. It is hard to verify but I am pretty certain that a lot of the old lambic breweries were not that good simply or ok at best. Pils was a more high end of the market product but a bit too expensive that is why people drank lambic. Faro exist because people didn’t like it that is why they put sugar into it. Cheaper ways of producing pils mainly killed it and higher standards of living. In time it became a weird relic of the past. It seems weird but people going from lambic to pils in their eyes switched to craft beers. Where it remains it was an old mans game and drinking it was about as hop as wearing your pants up to your knees. It was like the whole country switched from Bud Light to Samuel Adams. It may not seem like that going from delicious lambic to industrial swill from our point of view but these people were drinking lambic due to more necessity / price than quality.
Pretty well said.
I do believe that the quality lambic brewers always were alive and well (and some that read the market of the moment right).
And in percentages, how many Americans liked lambic, say, back in 2008? And which percentage of Belgians? I’d dare to bet that the latter one was much, much higher. |
Go visit Cantillon and you’ll see why they don’t make more beer - they are out of space. That and, as has already been said, they can’t just brew beer when they want, they need the right weather conditions (temperature etc) before they can commit to a brew which means they are totally at the mercy of nature; I remember Jean-Pierre telling me, sadly, that he KNOWS there is global warming because he has seen the number of available days to brew diminish over the years.
Saying all that, IMO their beers have gone more commercial since Jean-Pierre handed over to Jean although, happily, the last one I tried was almost back to old-school Cantillon in sour lemon character... maybe they have reigned back some US distribution and the quality has improved because of this? |
There are a lot of limited releases going on in the beer world. I think Cantillon is one of the few breweries that does it because they can’t make more then they already do. It’s not a commercial thing, it’s a space and money thing. |
|
|
The individual perception regarding availability overseas does not necessarily have to correlate with what Cantillon brews in terms of one-off’s as well as quantity. |
Originally posted by Cletus
Originally posted by 77ships
They don’t want to charge ebay prices - they want to sell more stuff locally - they cannot make more beer - there is zero extra space and the number of lambic they can make due to the necessary environmental conditions needed is pretty limited - they had about 20 brew sessions this year - even here in Belgium it is nice like we get a lot of the rare ones - Mamouche was 2 bottle limit at brewery and is almost nowhere else to be found. I have never even seen a bottle of Blabaer. Mainly most are cut off from the rare releases because he is sick of peopel ebaying it and charging crazy prices - he sold Zwanze 2010 for 6 euro - Nomad was like 7.
It is pretty cool that lambics are so appreciated locally in Belgium. Why couldn’t this have happened before so many of the other lambic blenders went away due to lack of interest?
People didn’t want sour products in the 70s & 80s. This period killed off a lot of producers and blenders unless they went the sweet route. Now things have changed and local (European) demand for the real (sour) lambics is back up. Many producers want to satisfy their local market first which is why they don’t send much to America. We have the same problems over here! Why hasn’t my local bar got Cigar City god dammit. |
Originally posted by MagicDave6
Originally posted by joeneugs
From what I’ve heard, the US market has helped keep lambic brewers like Cantillon in business for many years while pale lager took over much of Europe. Now that interest in lambic has caught on over there with a larger public, there’s probably less of it to export. Although Jean has gone on record to say that he will continue to supply the US.
I have to say thats probably the most misguided interpretation of beer sales in europe iv ever seen.
Well, I’m just repeating what Jean Van Roy said himself on an episode of the Brewing Network.
|
Just an FYI to the folks still mentioning eBay as part of their response/rationale/argument: it’s no longer allowed for beers to be sold on ebay. As of this morning, there was not a single bottle of Cantillon listed on ebay. |
|
|
The ’llons are all gone bro. |
|
|
Originally posted by jmikolich
There is all these people throwing down big money to acquire their one off beers and for years they continue to make 200 bottle releases...
Is that they can’t maintain quality for a larger batch?
They can’t get materials for larger batches? (Fruit,barrels)
Are they out of space?
It seems to me that since they can’t even keep their product on the shelves anywhere in the US they could easily capitalize and just ship/make more or are they fighting with shelton brother for how much can be imported?
Just seems to me they should be laughing all the way to the bank at the amount of people who will go nuts over their beer
The Japanese are importing way too much of Belgium, and Lambic is one of the targets. |
