Best Easier to Find Fruit Lambics

Hanssens - Oude Gueze is relatively easy to find, and one of my favorite beers. They make one with cherries and it's one of my least favorite beers.

Victory - Kirsch Gose
Depending where you are at in Illinois see if you can road trip to a place with a lot of New Glarus. Their fruit beer, sours, and oud bruins are some of the best out there.

 

drie oude kriek is easy to find in a lot of places, and is very good. all of the great blueberry (especially) peach and apricot lambics are incredibly hard to get a hold of.

 

Upland may still have their Blueberry available and Peach will be available after the pickup window ends from the latest lottery.

 

Lindeman's has a bad rap overall, but a couple of their offerings, Faro, Cassis, and Cuvee Rene, are not as sickly sweet as the more popular Framboise. Worth trying at least since they're pretty easy to find and on the least expensive end of the scale.

I'll also second Hanssens fruit lineup as being accessible but make sure you aren't spending too much on theirs, they are far too hit or miss to be worth much of an investment. Drie Fonteinen on the other hand is pricier and harder (but at all not impossible) to find, but well worth both the time and effort.

Free Will makes a few fruited lambics (including peach) that are very easy to get and not terribly expensive, just not all that great; but if you're dying for peach and don't want to give up to much that' could be a way to go (I'm happy to help you myself, if you like).

And since non-lambic fruit beers have already been brought up, I'll take that one a step further and suggest fruited meads, especially from Schramm's.

 

Drive up to Wisconsin and get New Glarus fruit beers. They're not called lambics on the bottle, but they are

 

New Glarus fruit beers aren't lambics in any way, shape or form

 

I posted this as soon as he said it, and then got to thinking about it and deleted it. It's kind of an odd way of looking at it since they are so very different from Belgian lambics in their sweetness and level of fruit content, but I don't really see where the brewing technique of NGs (fermented openly in oak) really differs. I don't know if NG uses koelschips, but I also don't know if their use is required for the term "lambic" to apply.

 

No, no they are not. not in any way shape or form are they lambics.

 

They are not ways, in any shape, form or lambic

 

Again, this was my immediate reaction as well, but I couldn't find anything specifically that makes them not lambics. Can either of you back that up further, or is it just the same gut feeling I initially had? (text conveys emotion poorly, I'm legitimately curious)

 

Lindemans seems to be pretty easy to find.

 

Mikkeller's Spontan Apricot, Cranberry and Peach is pretty good...actually all of the Spontan series I've enjoyed. They are costly though.

 

I believe @Sweffin was refering to the Fruited Wild Ales that New Glarus produces...but unfortunately they only bottle like 300 in each series.

 

Just thought that with two identical responses, we should mix things up a little on the third try

 

If cherry is 4th on the list, by chance, I've seen these on the shelf at a few different Binny's and other shops:

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/47/5961/

 

Lambics are only authentic if fermented by Wild Yeast Strains found in the Lambeek area of Belgium, I believe.

 

For Wisconsin Belgian red:
This beer is brewed with whole Montmorency Cherries, Wisconsin Farmed Wheat and Belgian Roasted Barleys, lagered in oak tanks and balanced by Hallertau hops we aged in our brewery one full year.
Over a pound of Door County Cherries in every bottle makes this beer uniquely "Wisconsin." So unique, in fact, that we applied for a patent. Expect this beer to be ruby red, with a medium body that is highly carbonated and intense with cherry flavor and bouquet. Serve your friends Belgian Red in a brandy snifter or champagne flute and toast life with beer from the land of Wisconsin

Maybe my initial response was a bit of a knee jerk reaction, but I would still stand by it, that I would never try and tell someone that any of the year round fruited offerings from NG are even remotely close to a Fruited lambic (not fruit syrup)

 

This may help with this discussion:
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articl...-brewery-is-hell-bent-on-not-taking-over.html

Dan Carey thinks of them as lambic inspired beers. FWIW

 

This is a great suggestion and tasty beer for the price.