So I just popped the cap on my first bottle of Cuvee Rene and was surprisingly greeted with a cork underneath! Now, I have never seen anything like this and it seems a bit superfluous to me. Is there any reason for this other than aesthetics? Anyone run across any other beers packaged this way?
Everything from Lindemans and Cantillon is like that. I may guess is that they put the caps over the corks to stop corks from popping out randomly, I did have a cork pop out on its own about a minute after I remove the cap. I am not sure of any other reason, besides any other way to date the beer, Cantillon has the year it was bottled on all their corks.
It actually provides an additional seal that should keep oxygen out of the beer better than just one or the other. If it gets waxed after that, well you've got something sweeter than you.
Any good wine key or "waiters corkscrew" should be able to handle crown caps, corks, waxed bottles, etc. An under-appreciated tool everyone should own, but sadly a lot of people don't know how to use it.
After working at a wine and beer bar, I will always have one of these in my house. Simple, cheap and it's super-effective.
The 4 375ml Cantillon brews I've had recently....when I popped the caps off, yes. There was seepage. An inherent problem of the 375s? I've had 750s of theirs before and I don't recall seeing this.
I believe that the first bottle of Cantillon I had, a 750 of Classic Gueuze, did have a seepage problem, but I believe all the other that had that issue were 375s.
