Guezue blind-tasting results

This past weekend, myself and two friends did a blind-tasting of five different guezues. My motivation for this was that I wanted to figure out what my favorite "shelf guezue" is and to see if the Cantillon that I've traded for and purchased is actually better (in my own opinion anyways).

The five beers were:

Drie Fonteinen Oude Guezue
Cuvee Rene
Boon Mariage Parfait
Cantillon BIO Guezue
Oude Beersel Oude Guezue

Regarding tasting sour/lambic beers, of the three of us, we had one experienced palette, one semi-experienced palette, and one very rookie palette. We created a system to have it be completely blind for each person - each of the three of us came into the room and changed an element so that the person who poured wouldn't know which number was assigned to each beer, and then the bottles were taken away and the assigned number was changed. In short, nobody knew which was which.

We all tasted each beer and took our own notes. We ranked them individually per our own 1-5 ranking. We discussed those results after we were finished and it was pretty interesting! The beers received the following votes from the three of us (remember, 1 means it received someone's 1st choice, etc.)

Drie Fonteinen Oude Guezue: 3, 3, 3
Cuvee Rene: 2, 5, 1
Boon Mariage Parfait: 5, 5, 4
Cantillon BIO Guezue: 1, 2, 1
Oude Beersel Oude Guezue: 4, 4, 2

So if you combine all of the scores, the beers received these total points (lower is better):

Drie Fonteinen Oude Guezue: 9
Cuvee Rene: 8
Boon Mariage Parfait: 14
Cantillon BIO Guezue: 4
Oude Beersel Oude Guezue: 10

I thought is was really interesting how consistent the two outliers are: Cantillon and Mariage Parfait. The Cantillon was so incredibly balanced. It was easily distinguishable from the rest regarding the blend, balance, mouthfeel, flavor, etc. And the Mariage Parfait was noticeably the worst - thin, dry, dull, and lacking any pleasant flavor, aroma, etc. I was also surprised how much I enjoyed the Cuvee Rene. It was my number 2 choice following Cantillon. I actually thought the two tasted very similar in many ways, although the balance of the Cantillon was better.

My only regret was not grabbing a Tilquin as well, but I already brought 12 bottles to the weekend event including all of the guezues, and I couldn't bring myself to spend another $12 on another bottle. I was happy that I did in fact prefer Cantillon the most, as it justifies all of the trading, online ordering, and cellaring I've done. And it looks like I'll be picking up a few more bottles of Cuvee Rene in the near future!

I would highly recommend you try a blind-tasting like this - it was a ton of fun!

 

Actually the Oude Beersel ranked second to last in our tasting. It certainly wasn't a highlight out of the bunch. I don't have my own tasting notes with me here at work, but I remember it being pretty lackluster without any stand-out positive or negative characteristics.

 

I think the 3F had way more over the top funk and barrel character, which may very appealing to a lot of people. But IMO the Cantillon was just so balanced and was perfect in every way. And yes, it was a great time!

 

I was surprised by this as well. Granted, it was only a sample of three people. If there was a larger number of opinions, that could easily change. Although credit has to be given to Cuvee Rene actually getting a #2 ranking (me) and a #1 ranking (from the semi-experienced palette). The newbie to guezues was the one that ranked it last with a #5.

 

Yes, I made sure of that. They were all 2011.

EDIT: Bottled on dates in the year 2011.

 

Holy shit, yep I definitely misspelled that about 300 times in my post.

 

Honestly I didn't include those for the same reason as Tilquin. I had brought 12 bottles for the weekend event already and just didn't want or need to bring anything else. The reason I mentioned that I regret not bringing a Tilquin is that I enjoy that one. Although I've never had it side by side with other gueuzes.

Some of my favorite American sours are Beatification, Sang Noir, The Dissident, Juliet, Mother Funker, and Le Terroir. Those are some that come to mind.