Can someone explain Lambic beers to me?

Well, I mean, they are fermented from wild yeast and whatever the hell else is floating in the air of downtown Brussels.. There is bound to be some interesting flavors. You picked a big one for your first.. You get used to them and they are amazing.

Had a 2010 Classic Gueuze last night and it was wonderful.

 

Do you have a taste for other sour foods? E.g., yoghurt? If you don't like sour flavours, no need to push yourself into drinking sour beers.

edit: On the other hand, if you do but didn't like that beer, simplest thing is to just try a different one.

 

Give Jolly Pumpkin beers a try. They are a good balance between the malt, the sour, and the oak flavors. If you don't like these, then perhaps you don't like sours.

 

You should give AWA's a shot. Especially ones like Jester King's Atrial, MvB and Aurelian Lure. Or even some fruited Berliner's from Degarde

Not sure if you have access to those but they are worth seeking out. I much prefer AWA and Berliner's to Lambics.

 

OP, I don't think you got a bad bottle. Some gueuzes taste like how burnt plastic smells to me. Some much more subdued(Boon Oude Geuze).

 

Lambics are an acquired taste like uni and Eppoisse. Some do very well with some age on them. It kind of mellows out some of the flavors. Cantillon - especially the Gueuze Lambic - can be notoriously, mouth puckeringly tart and is not to everyone's taste. A few years in the cellar will smooth that out a bit. That said you could have had a bad bottle - there are a 1001 ways to abuse the beer between Brussels and the UK.

 

That doesn't sound good to me at all..other descriptions like, barnyard, horseblanket, cat urine (or any other critter for that matter) really turn me off...at least people are being honest

 

I'd go to your local bottle shop and pick up a few bottles of some shelf gueuze and kriek. Boon, tilquin, de cam, etc and try those out. After a couple bottles I think you'll see what all the hype is about. I wasn't at first and now I can't get enough. You have to go into it understanding that it isn't like anything you have tried before and that it's a funky tartness in every bottle.

 

Listen, if you dont like sours, your wallet is going to love you.

 

Could be you needed a bit more background knowledge as to what to expect

Here's a reasonable starting place about Gueuze and Lambic:

https://glassandbottle.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/beer-101-lambic/

although it won't necessarily answer the specific questions you raise.

For those particular questions try digging into the reviews. Go to the beer's home page on here and sort by top reviewers. Those are often the reviewers on here with the broadest range of experience, etc.. That may help you find an answer to whether it was the bottle or you. For me personally from my first bottle of the Cantillon Gueuze it was "love at first taste," but then I'd visited the brewery and tried a couple of their beers, including a 1 year old lambic direct from the cask where it was aging.

 

Might be, but chemical analyses over time indicate that suff like ecoli and other human related particles get killed of the fermentation process taking place in the barrels.

 

Try here as well. You'll see two links on lambics to peek at.

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/style/

 

the maracaibo especial and Madrugada Obscura are good. if you like saisons, the I/O saison is fantastic though not very sour.

 

Bam Noire, La Roja and Bière de Mars.

 

Gueuze is one of the uber-beers of the sour world. If you're not a fan of sours, they're not a place to start.

Jolly Pumpkin and Crooked Stave make more accessible sours, especially if you haven't even dipped into the gose / Berliner weisse end of that pool. Surette Provision Saison, Vielle, Fuego del Otono, and Oro de Calabaza are readily accessible, at least in my experience, as far as going down the sour path.

Either you decide you hate them, or you get to the point where you find Duchesse de Bourgnogne to be almost cola-sweet with mild tones of vinegar and tartness...

 

I gave a few sours a try and somehow missed out on using your very accurate (in my case at least) "tasting" note. I felt as if I could achieve the same result by drinking straight from a bottle of Balsamic vinegar.

As a side note, I am working on developing a Duchesse De Bourgogne salad dressing recipe.