Cellaring Lambics Horizontally vs. Vertically

No real experience to speak from since I only started a real cellar this year, but I have my corked sours laying on their side just in case. If it's good enough for Cantillon after all these years, then it's good enough for me!

 

I use a hybrid approach and follow the recommendation from each brewery. I store my Cantillon, 3F, Hanssens, and other Belgian lambics horizontally. I store all my American Wild Ales upright whether capped or C&C as the breweries recommend vertical cellaring.

I've only been cellaring lambics longer term for 1 1/2-2 years, but I have never had a leaking issue with any of the Belgian lambics that I store horizontally, including Cantillon.

 

Straight form the source:

Lambic should be aged on it's side. 24 hours before drinking the bottle should be put upright for the yeast to settle at the bottom..

I don't actually do that... My cellar doesn't have wine racks but boxes so I make do. That is how you are supposed to do it.

 

I store my lambic upright because it's easier. Since there's 0 actual evidence either way and I'm a lazy bastard, that's good enough for me.

According to whom? Literally no one in Belgium did that, including 3F, Cantillon, Kulminator, and De Heeren. I never once saw anyone do that, and I drank a lot of lambic.

 

I tend to consume them vertically.

But then end up sometimes cellaring them short term on my insides horizontally overnight, but then I wake up and dispose of the contents vertically, sometimes you have to stand a little further back though to dispose them first thing in the morning, right guys?

But be careful how much you consume, as leakage failures can occur when you go and cellar unintentionally horizontal.

 

Jan Van Roy told me that is the proper way to store Lambic. Also I know some lambic experts stateside and over there that agreed.

It's not particularly practical in a commercial setting. "Hi Joos. I would like a Helena tomorrow. Could you put one vertical for me?" A customer would have to call 24 hours in advance to have a bottle That is part of why I don't do it either. But I stand behind what I have been told. It's an ideal but not particularly pratical way to do it.

 

One thing that's so frustrating about this to me is no one ever defines their terms. "Proper" in what sense? Does it help the taste? Doubtful. Lambic that's been stored on its side for years has the yeast firmly caked to the side, it'll stay there even after everything's been poured. A day upright won't help that, it'll just make there be more in the body. And since the bottles are served in baskets, you're just putting back on the side immediately after turning it upright? What sense does that make? All you'd be doing is agitating the yeast a little bit. If you want to do that just turn it over a few times.

Not to mention this is directly in contrast with what I was told several times, which is "for the love of god don't disturb the sediment". Many places even had corkscrews tilted at the right angle so you could get corks out without putting the bottle upright! The pains people went to in order to keep bottles on their sides were staggering.

I think either you're misremembering this or JVR was screwing with you, because that makes absolutely no sense.

It's perfectly practical at Cantillon, where they serve only a few styles. And I'm quite sure that's not what they were doing.

Anyway, your posts are a great example of why I think no one has actually done any kind of methodical investigation and is blowing hot air.

 

Hey.. no misremembering by me. When JVR speaks tender listens. Hey I am just passing on what I was told. I am not an expert on this stuff. For christs sake I am not even doing what he suggested. I am not blowing hot air. Not everyone has to have the same experience or feeling about this sort of stuff Stupac. You don't have to be right all the time. I am not a scientist. Just a beer drinker who happens to love lambic. So I for one could care less about methodology.

 

I feel like the lambic producers in Belgium have been doing this for a long time and are pretty clear in their opinion that you should keep the bottles on their sides. I'm not sure why we shouldn't believe that they have experience with trying it both ways and decided this is better. I don't think that just because no one with a degree in brewing science has published a paper on it there hasn't been any "methodical investigation".

 

People can do lots of things for a very long time and still be wrong about what they're doing.

And what bothers me isn't "I do it this way because we've always done it this way" but "YOU SHOULD DO IT THIS WAY". When someone's making a strong claim it should be backed up with something. There's absolutely no actual evidence that I have ever seen that says doing it one way produces different results. Hell, I've never even seen someone say "in my experience it tasted better", because people don't even bother doing comparisons. Has anyone anywhere ever done any kind of meaningful comparison between the two? I've never seen it, and without that they're just guessing.

I didn't say you were blowing hot air, that he was (or anyone who makes a strong claim without any kind of evidence). I am a scientist, and seeing this all the time bothers me. I'm not discounting experience, but there's a difference between "I've done the comparisons and preferred these results", which I've literally never seen in any of the dozens of discussions where this has come up, and "Do it this way because I say so", which is stupid. If you do it that way because you like it or because that's the way your family has always done it, then fine, great. But don't pretend that it's better because of that. (Again, this is general "you", not "you, Tendermorsel" who clearly hasn't made any of these claims.)

I know this is a weird topic to go all "YOU'RE NOT SCIENCING RIGHT" on, but it comes up so much and as far as I can tell the only real answer is "a lot of people say a lot of different things but as far as anyone can tell just do whatever and it'll be fine." Does it really matter if someone thinks "oh man well I have to go out and build some racks to store them on their side"? No, in fact that would be cool because building stuff is fun. But it bothers me to see claims that aren't justified circulating. (Political discussions give me aneurysms.)

 

I've never seen any evidence to suggest that they've "tried it both ways", more like "this is the way we do it because this is the way we've always done it".

 

That's my bet, or whatever difference exists is swamped by bottle variation.

I have a basement now, so maybe I'll do this. I'll try to get a case of 3F gueuze (I've wanted to do that anyway) then store some vertically and some on a wine rack. Then every 6 months or so do a blind tasting where people compare. It'll take years to really get results, but that's better than nothing.

If anyone is interested and has space, they should try it too.

 

The world of Lambic and Gueze (and to a lesser degree Belgian beer in general) is an old school non-scientific world. That is the magic of it for me. It's spontanious fermentation. The way the wind blows, particularly wet season, spiders in cantillon, sourcing of the wood used for aging ect ect ect all can effect the character of the beer. Now I openly admit that some of this stuff is probably BS. How but can you quantify that? Do you even want to quantify that? I just listen to people that have been brewing and or drinking this style many years before me.

 

It's actually easier than some might think. I mean, how did people figure out how to make lambic? Trial and error, combined with expedience and materials on hand. Now it's tradition.

How did horizontal cellaring come into fashion? Supposedly organic corks work better when wet, but we're well past that now. (I think, anyway, I assume that natural corks are coated with something.) Maybe people kept doing it after that rationale stopped being appropriate. Alternatively, storing horizontally makes it significantly easier to store many bottles in a confined space and still be able to access them all. Have you seen the racks of conditioning bottles at Cantillon? Can you imagine arranging something that worked that well with vertical storage? It would be awful. So there's some expedience.

Anyway, to quantify it for yourself you just need to ask yourself "which is expedient?" If both are about equal, or you only care about taste, do the experiment for yourself. It's not like it's hard, it just requires time and a tiny bit of effort. The answer will vary between people, as with all questions about taste.

 

Well then get me some gueuze, STAT.