Why the hype about Cantillon (in the US)?

I should have said whiskey in general. Look at what people are paying for other $30 range bottles that were widely available 3-5 years ago. Or cars, or purses, or toys. The new Nintendo NES suddenly became hard to keep in stock even though you could buy them on Ebay for $15 forever

 

There is no doubt that hype is surrounded by Cantillon, and back before people thought sour/funky beers were gross, you couldn't give that stuff away.

However, having had a good chunk of their stuff and other "guezeries" in comparison, many of their beers are just flat out fantastic.

You add that in, get Shelton Brothers to corner the market on it here domestically, add the hype and it becomes what it is.

Now if someone can get me some De Cam and some more Drie Fontinen over here I'd be pretty darn pleased.

There's also plenty of other lambic/gueze Belgian producers who make good stuff that you can find here too. But that's basically the reason Cantillon is what it is state side.

 

I remember being in a beer shop in Brussels and chatting with the man working in the shop. I was buying their Cantillon and he was telling me how fantastic Cascade was. Make of that what you will, but it’s hard to repress human nature.

 

We had a drop of 2 Cantillon beers a few months ago and they went quickly. The 750 was $30, the 375 was $14. Reasonable, I reckon. That being said ,Hanssens and Boon do it for me, cheaper and just as well.

 

I’d buy it at those prices, but still at the same rate I buy beer at those prices, which is not often.

Boon MORE THAN does it for me, but I don’t see it as often as I’d like.

 

The Gary's by me seems to keep the Mariage Parfait and Kriek as regular shelf items, if you have an outlet close by.

 

Thanks. Which one is that? Madison is 9 miles from me and Bernarsville is only a bit further. Been meaning to check out one or both and will probably do so this coming week. Those are the closest.

 

Michael, do you happen to know the prices for these items?

Cheers!

 

Mine is in Closter, in north Bergen County.

Not off the top of my head- at this point they're just items I've noticed on the shelf but haven't bought them yet.

 

Loons gave me the chance to land a personal white whale, so that's pretty awesome.

 

Oy. Ok. Thanks for the tip. Maybe I’ll check out the others and see if they carry them too.

 

Yeah, I love Cantillon Kriek and Rose de Gambrinus, but I never fret about them in the least. From a 20 some year perspective, the furor over these idiosyncratic beers is sometimes comical.

 

They make some great stuff, and I would be happy to buy some of it. Just like I love some 10 Year Rip Van Wink and 15 Year Pappy, but a lot of people think because they are harder to get/more expensive then they have no equal. We have all seen this over the years with popular beers. Once they become widely distributed they suddenly aren’t as good as they used to be. Take Founders. Just 5 years ago they were still selling KBS bottles for $10 or more each. Now places can’t get rid of it. Granted they produced a TON more since they had an investor, but where are all the people who couldn’t get any?

 

It's definitely not just hype and scarcity. In my opinion, Cantillon makes, by a pretty wide margin, the best fruited sour beer available. They are leaps and bounds ahead of anything made Stateside in that respect, and their closest competitors over there are Drie Fonteinen and Tilquin, which they also easily surpass. Cantillon Kriek is one of the best beers ever made.

Cantillon are also innovators. No one was doing lambic with apricot or grapes or tea or vanilla or cognac barrels before them (and that list goes on). People love novelty and they love pushing boundaries. I think people also have a lot of respect for Jean Van Roy as a person and the ethos that he espouses.

I love the likes of Crooked Stave, Jester King, Russian River, Side Project, Casey, Funk Factory, etc. but the masterful balance, subtlety, and complexity featured in Cantillon's fruited sours makes them all look almost one-dimensional in comparison (a bit of an exaggeration, but Cantillon really is more balanced and complex than any sour offering from any of these breweries, and probably any brewery in this country that isn't Hill Farmstead). Again, I love all of these breweries.

That said, Tilquin, Girardin, and Drie Fonteinen all make better gueuzes than Cantillon's Classic Gueuze, in my opinion. I've done the blind tastings to bear that out for myself.

Boon, Timmerman's, Lindeman's, Oud Beersel, De Troch, Bellevue, and Hanssen's aren't really even in the conversation for best of any style of lambic, even if I do really like certain offerings from most of them. Availability and cheaper prices have nothing to do with being better tasting. I enjoy these because getting Cantillon is nigh impossible, but I don't fool myself into thinking they're the same as or better than Cantillon's fruited sours (though as I stated, I do buy Tilquin and Girardin gueuzes, and I have passed on Cantillon Classic Gueuze in the same store simply because I don't think it's better than the cheaper, more available versions).

 

Never seen in it in the U.S. Visited Cantillon a month ago and loved everything I drank. For $22 euros I got 3 14oz bottles and 1 bomber to take home. Plus for $18 Euros I drank a bomber of Saint Lamvinus. Sure I'd like the prices to be cheaper but compared to 14oz bottle of Drie Fontanenen's gueze and the $50 bottle of Hommage I've passed on in the states I felt Cantillon had very fair prices and from this day even while in Brussels I only found Cantillon at their Museum of Geuze. Also I enjoyed my Cantillons over Drie Fontenin. So cheers to Cantillon, wish I could have a bottle of their beer everyday, even enjoyed Cantillon more than Westevelerian XII.

 

As I stated in post #8:

"I have had a few Cantillon beers and I greatly enjoyed them. For my palate these beers had the qualities of being complex and pleasantly balanced. There was no one ‘thing’ that defined these beers; for example they were not just super sour. There were lots of different and ‘funky’ flavors that played well together to create a sublime drinking experience."

I would assert that you and I are in 'brutal agreement'.

Cheers!

 

After reading through the posts in this thread, I've made up my mind that I am going to do my damnedest to get tickets for Zwanze Day 2018.

 

You should be fine going to Schera's in Elkader if you jump on tickets sooner rather than later as they go live. Get there early if you don't want to be in the back of a one-hour line to get in. I'm sure you'll love it if you love complex sour beers. Just don't expect them to pull an Upland or a Destihl and have your face ripped off by sour; Cantillon is not about that life.

 

Thanks - I appreciate the info! Any idea when the tickets will be available? This year's Zwanze Day coincides with my weekend off, and I'd really hate to miss out.

Santé!