Speling van het Lot I.iii - Nocturne In't Putteke Van De Nacht
Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen

 

L: Pours a dark purple brown with no head or lacing on the glass. Quite opaque.

S: Starts with sweet roasted malt, a hint of dark chocolate, maybe a note of coffee, followed by cherry, caramel, a touch of stone fruit and Brett and a lot of sour and tart, smells spectacular.

T: Starts with a nice drag of caramel, cherries, roasted malt, followed by lots of funky Brett and tart and sour and continually morphs as you sip, a delightful trip for the tastebuds.

F: Larger body, smooth lower carb, lots of tart and sour.

O: Another delightful beer 8n the Speling Van Het series.

A 750ml bottle at 3 Fonteinen lambik-O-droom, blend n°48, season 16/17, bottled on 20th September 2017, with a best before date of 26th October 2037. Poured into a 3 Fonteinen ballon glass.

Appearance: A clear dark brown colour with a thin beige head that had big bubbles, but left only sparse lacing.

Aroma: Tart, dark fruit, plum, prunes, raisin and a tinge of honey, syrup, toffee.

Taste: Sour, tart, funk, plum and cherry. Almost Oud Bruin like.

Mouthfeel: Light to medium bodied with soft carbonation.

Overall: Interesting and quite different. Although the lambik process was used, the use of dark malts definitely created something nice and unique. A good experiment.

This was served at Sheltonfest so I made sure to get a couple good pours. Very dark brown color, like coca-cola. Flavor was very heavy on the licorice and malty too. Aroma is like a mix of oud bruin and lambic.

really rad beer, something i had never heard of or seen from these guys before, made like a lambic apparently, but with only dark malts and with some honey. its very neat stuff, looks like a dark brown color with a sort of thin texture to it and not a lot of head from the bottle. almost looks like soy sauce. there is some obvious acidity in the nose, a certain sweetness to the grain, short of roasty on the dark side too, some chocolate notes and a little candy syrup or molasses thing. subtle floral character from the honey too, but i dont smell or taste it as much as the recent golden blend, where i found it quite prominent. mellow sweetness throughout when i taste it, a very light bitter note from the grain, and really cool fermentation attributes, with good bacterial acidity but less obvious funk, oak, and general complexity than we are all used to in their more traditional lambics. i get a little brettiness too, but its newer, and lost to the sour and the heavier grain a bit i think, but there is still a lot going on. dry cocoa, fruit vinegar, prune, dried apple, and some astringency. its fuller bodied but not heavy to me, it would be quite light for the color though if it had much carbonation, but its close to still, which makes it sag in the feel for me. overall something very interesting and different, i like what the honey contributes, and i appreciate a brewery famed for traditional lambics doing something so original here. dont miss the chance to taste this if you can, its one of a kind.

edit: if they made this only once, its ageing incredibly well. recently got to drink a bottle from 2017, which i think was the only one, now more than five years old, just amazing how its evolved, still big umami, raisin and leather, but its soft and delicate now, the acid seems swallowed up by the wood to some degree, and the lambic fermentation profile seems to be more evolved now, familiar but also so different with these savory dark grains. either i didnt appreciate this enough the first time, or its changed dramatically since then, i have to increase scores here rather dramatically, this is epic, approaching unforgettable now, the honey is amazing in it, port wine and brandy notes through it, root beer, its just wild and amazing, soft feeling for being so sour too, killer bottle, so lucky to have been able to share this friends new and old. what a gem! need to track down the others in this darker series, pretty sure this is the darkest of the three blends...