Oude Geuze Platinum Blend
Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen

750ml bottling date 04/07/2021 - blend no 41 - season 20|21

Pours cloudy opaque bright amber orange with a creamy frothy white foam head. Smells fruity like peach, nectarine, apricot, white grape, apple, pear, orange citrus, zesty grapefruit, sour lemon, subtle persimmon, woody oak, a hint of leather, toasty hay, straw, mild bready crackery pale wheat malts, some barnyard horse blanket funk, dusty cobwebs, peppercorn spice, and leafy herbal earthy floral grassy aged hops. Tastes real sour and complex, dry and acidic with vinous fruity notes, old woody oak barrel, multigrain, oxidized white wine, vanilla, leather, toasted hay, straw, heirloom cereal, pale bready crackery wheat malts, subtle cheesy caramel, acetic vinegary barnyard horse blanket funk, dusty cobwebs, bitter orchard fruits, persimmon, peach, nectarine, apricot, white grape, apple, pear, orange citrus, pithy grapefruit, lemon peel, peppercorn spice, and leafy herbal earthy floral grassy aged hops. Feels medium full bodied, creamy with smooth moderate carbonation. Overall a really great oude geuze lambic blend.

 

 

 

#38 poured from a magnum.

Cellared 2 years. Clear bronze body with a pinky finger of white foam. Smells of sour oak, lemon, orange, pear, flowers, soured grains, and moderate barnyard funk. Taste has the same elements but leans into the sour fruitiness way more, hint of peach added. Feel is sour but not acidic really, funk is lesser than it tasted and certainly smelled, smooth and oaky. Given the ratings I was expecting more personality in the funk complexity, almost leans more lambic than trye gueuze

 

2021/2022 Blend. 375 cork and cage bottle served cool into a trappist goblet. Bottled 4/5/2022 and best before 10/26/2042. Listed at 5.6%ABV.

Appearance - Mildly hazy rich golden brew with next to no head. Amber highlights, but otherwise, fairly non-descript in appearance.

Smell - Some oak, some funk, a bit of vinegary qualities a kiss of fruit and grapes. More subdued than other 3F offerings.

Taste - White wine, hints of wood, earthy, musty with some funk and a strong and consistent tart note that holds on for an eternity.

Mouthfeel - not much in the way of carbonation, very flat but works with the long earthy and tart note pretty well.

Overall - Maybe it was a bad bottle or two, but the lack of any form of carbonation and the deep one note flavor it's well executed, but it's not something I'd want to come back to on the regular. A bit of a disappointment from 3F for me as their other offerings have been outstanding, but this just seems to miss the mark a bit. With that said, the skill in brewing this is still top notch.

 

 

So given the inventory backlog, Craft came up with a genius plan to do a big ass 3F tasting at a super affordable price. Then once they got me in there, I dropped like $300, so the system works, good job Ty.

Anyhoo, this is one of those beers. Like most of the lambics that evening, (this was the evening the Raiders got the Chargers coach fired), this is a yellow golden pour, slight cloudiness and 1/5" white head. The aroma was definitely gueuzy, hitting all the Belgian cobwebs and funk for the nose. Dry oak. Definitely pushes the notion of age in a good way. Light smelling sourness.

The taste brings that neat thing about no fruit lambic gueuze where you get the feeling of fruit from the bugs, lemon, pear, apricot, apple, white/green grape feels. Very well done. Man I would really like to have a cellar full of this. Good light white wine impression, far from a hybrid, but that neat aspect of it still kicks. I think I prefer golden blend to this one despite platinum the metal being worth more. Not by much though.

Bottle purchased and drank at The Sovereign in Washington, DC.

This one pours a pale straw yellow color, with a very small head, and not much lacing.

This smells semi briney, with pear, peach, and a citrusy funk, with oak, very old white wine, and a blanketing of horsey funk.

I haven’t had much lambic lately, as it’s not my favorite style. But, despite all that, I still really enjoyed this. The use of 4 year lambic in here really sledgehammers the funk home, as there’s an old dusty white wine thing, overripe pears, lots of oak, and horse blanket. There’s some more accessible flavors that do balance this all out and make everything taste better – peach, orange, and pear. This is also distinctly briney, which I don’t hate.

This is very light bodied, with a lower level of carbonation. It’s a slow sipper, for sure.

I haven’t had this style in a while, so it was nice to have something this good to remind me of the complexity and deliciousness of lambics.

 

 

 

Testing out the uniqueness in blending varieties, techniques and age brings 3 Fonteinen brewers to the platinum level.

Champagne-like, pale chrome and cast in a whimsical haze, the spirited Platinum Blend immediately teases the nose with an acute vinous scent with a dry and dusty mustiness decorated as leather, sea brine and and a mossy sense of both funk and fauna. Scantly sweet, a dry and crackery malt profile brings an arid cereal base taste in the beer's initial sip.

And as the ale rolls along the middle palate, the rush of effervescence pulls the malt from the tongue just as the bubbles highlight a fruity middle palate with nuances of lemon, green apple, lime, pear, white grape, gooseberry and pineapple- all seemingly branch-dried, weathered and vinous. With the suggestion of extended oak-aged chardonnay, the late taste shows a woodsy, grassy and peppery bitterness to ride along side of a bracing acidity to close.

Finishing with a dry after palate of cellar-like conditions, weathered oak and balsa, the sour ale leaves a cleaner than usual piquant acidity on the tongue for a highly refreshing, effortless and characterful gueuze-styled lambic ale.

 

so lucky to have procured a bottle of this, really special lambic no doubt, blended from young, two, and four year old lambic. my bottle is blend number 42 from the 2020/2021 season, listed on the bottle at 6.9% abv. this is wildly mature, super interesting, and somewhat more weighty and grainy and rustic than others of theirs, sturdy without being sweet or objectively heavy or anything, we popped this at midnight for new years eve, and it felt like the perfect occasion. pale rusty orange tinted, a little cloudy from the get go, giving rise to an almost champagne type head, but settling down just as fast to a short quarter inch or so of scattered white bubbles in varying sizes. the nose here is striking, but it gets even better as it comes up to temperature a little bit, super rustic, oaky, and complex, i get white pepper, peach and apricot, orange candy, musty brett and wet lawn, light bacterial tartness and clean citrus, wet dog, old rotting wood, hay and straw, and high end white wine, a good white bordeaux or something. the flavor is amazing, so much old woodiness to this, really one of the more mature lambics ive had, not in the bottle of course, but in the barrel, very cool blend, a little richer and more intense than a lot of their other blends. the absence of fruit is amazing too because it really lets the fermentation shine, still familiar as one of their beers, but a little more evolved brett character and still not very sour at all which rules. definite dried apricot and golden raisin fruitiness, pasture grasses and light herbal character, aged hops, minerals, light malt sweetness still too in the middle, even though this is dry and fast overall. orange zest, high funk, and desert wine notes on the close, impossibly complex. a little part of me wishes i saved this rarity for many years, no doubt this will do well over time, they suggest several decades are possible with their best by date, and it sure seems that way. i bet this will continue to dry out and get weirder. its very unique in their portfolio, and it was a pleasure to toast with in celebration of the new year. wonderful gueuze! hopefully not a once in a lifetime bottle...

edit: just had this in small format as opposed to the large format reviewed above, same blend, same season, but for some reason listed at 6.7% abv, not sure how it could be lower from the same blend, but the beer is appreciably different, sweeter, a little less mature tasting, and perhaps a little longer conditioned in the bottle and brighter feeling. the older lambic in the blend is less obvious, the grain sweetness trumps some of the nuance i remember from the large format, but still spectacular and interesting, surprised as i was by the variance. leaving scores as they are.