Aaaaand we’re back!

Thanks to everyone for their outstanding suggestions and well wishes for my journey (and marriage!) We had one hell of a trip, but are now back to slowly reentering normal life, and sorting through the mountain of pictures.   For our first post back, I figure we’d start things off with a bang, and highlight one of my favorite places we visited: Drie Fonteinen.

Located in Beersel, just south of Brussels, Drie Fountain is run by Armand.  He specializes in blending ultra-traditional geuze and lambics.  These are sour beers, fermented using only local, naturally occurring yeast.  The resulting beer is sour, and aged for 1-3 years, then blended back together.  The final product is a tart, musky drink, with a phenomenal depth and complexity.   Once bottled, the beer can be aged again for yeast on end, as it continues to evolve in the bottle.

Armand is a joy to be around.  He exudes a warmth and enthusiasm that is reflected in his beers, and he excitement is palpable.  He made us feel at home almost instantly, and after a few minutes, began spinning yarns of his recent marriage, coping with the epic loss of his aged beer stores, as well as pouring his first great beer for his father.  If I could have snuck Armand back in my suitcase, he’d be here now.

But the beers- oh the beers.  We tried a variety of his geuze offerings, at different ages.  The favorite was a very special bottle of 2002 geuze which Armand opened for us, as well as some other belgian beer tourists.  The bottle was carefully laid on it’s side in a special pouring basket, so as to keep the sediment at the bottom.  Once the pouring started, it didn’t stop, which would have allowed the sediment to mix back into the beer.

It a balanced sour, with a lemony finish, and complex depth that keeps giving.  Another treat we tried was Faro – a lambic beer is kegged with a generous helping of fresh candi sugar, which ignites fermentation, carbonating the beer.  Too sweet for my taste, but interesting.   It served here using british style hand pumps.

Next door to the store front is the Drie Fonteinen restaurant.   Run by Armand’s brother, they offer outstanding food, as well as their beer offerings.  The geuze-steam mussels there were hands down the best mussels we had in Belgium.

Then, hiding at the end of the beer menu, we found a surprise.  (Warning – don’t look to closely at those prices, lest your head explode.)

A Geuze bottle from 1997?!  Yes!  It arrives at the table, already poured, but still covered in cobwebs.

The extra time actually mellowed the sour ale, giving it a bit less of a sour punch – letting the malt character show through a bit more. Phenomenal.

I think I’m going to like Belgium.

Tags: Belgium, Drie Fonteinen, geuze

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 at 9:44 am and is filed under brewery tour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.