Amuse-Gueuze 2015

Lambiek is hot.

As someone who grew up in Louvain (the lambiek producing region Pajottenland is situated at one end of the province of Flemish Brabant, while Louvain is located at the other end, about 30km away), I´ve always been familiar to lambiek : my grandmother liked a geuze – before the kriek was born, she used to add a sugar lump or a bit of grenadine syrup – and it felt as traditional as my grandfather drinking a trappist of Westmalle or Orval. But when I started to enjoy a beer, lambiek somehow wasn´t an option anymore, as even this short distance to the source it was difficult to get (not considering the industrialized versions of geuze and kriek which I didn´t like at all). After my studies I moved abroad, and whenever I returned to Belgium showing my region to friends, I made a point in going to Pajottenland to drink a lambiek. 

Since a few years, craft beer is fashionable, a lot of microbreweries have started up, even in regions and countries without any real beer tradition, and for quite a few of these new beer fans USA is the model to follow. Apart from an ever increasing desire to put more hops into beer, some traditional beer styles which were (almost) forgotten in their home countries have been recovered by the American craft brewers. The quality of these reinterpreted styles – many of them “sour ales” - is not always wonderful, but it has certainly made the beer geek look out for the “original” stuff. While lambiek brewers and blenders – the so-called lambiekstekers - have had difficult times in the past, now they sometimes have to warn for speculation with limited editions of their brews.

Even in the home country of lambiek the attention has grown, and this might explain the success of an organisation like Amuse-Gueuze. Amuse-Gueuze has already had 2 editions in Antwerp, the home town of organiser Karen Blerau. The third edition moved to the home province of the lambiek beers and took place in Louvain in March and I just couldn´t miss that, could I? 

The concept is straightforward : a gastronomical dinner including an aperitive, 4 salty stages and a final sweet stage is paired with 6 different lambiek. The restaurant welcoming this 3rd edition of Amuse-Gueuze  (3 consecutive evenings) is Het Land aan de overkant, a restaurant which already puts in place the concept of beer-food pairing, only this time all beers are lambiek and they have been chosen by Karen Blerau´s team of beer sommeliers.

On 14^th March, the dinner started at 19:00 in Het Land aan de overkant. The 50 dinner guests were invited to Oude Geuze of Oud Beersel, which was accompanied by 3 amuse : a mousse of halibut with vegetables, olives with a fresh lemon stuffing and crusty skin of poultry. This lambiek, the least complex of the event according to beer sommelier Jeroen who would be our beer server of the evening, managed to pair wonderfully with the smoked aspect of one amuse, the fresh citric aspect of the second one and with the crusty earthy aspect of the third one. 

We then could take seats at our assigned tables. The starter was a salad of smoked eel and daikon with a vinaigrette of hibiscus, pomegranate and beetroot.  This same beetroot was the star of Mikkeller´s Spontanbeetroot which accompanied the dish. Although this sour ale is sweeter than the standard lambiek, it smells beetroot and matched perfectly with the dish. 

Next we enjoyed a dish of young leek in a sauce of goat milk.  It was served with an 18 month- old Oude Lambiek of Oud Beersel which had an explicit apple aroma. The texture is dense, and the nose resembles a true Calvados. The pairing here was intended to offer a contrast, but I personally think this pairing was the least convincing of the evening.

The following dish contained octopus and fennel in a bouillon of vegetables. We obviously compared the dish with the many pulpo dishes we have tasted in the Mediterranean countries we have travelled extensively through. Let´s say this preparation was OK, and mainly because of the bouillon. Jeroen told us that the PR guy of Brouwerij Timmermans was with us today and that its Oude Kriek was to accompany the dish. Although Timmermans has returned to making the real lambiek (because of the recent boom in demand?), you can tell this Oude Kriek is still an early brew, and the least appreciated lambiek of the evening. The nose is 100% artificial, the mouth first gives the cherries then the acidity, and with every sip it tasted sweeter. Unlike other Oude Kriek which present an explicit almond flavour – because of the cherry pits.

For us the next lambiek-food pairing got 10/10 : saucisse de Toulouse with hazelnut butter and herbs accompanied by Oude Geuze of 3 Fonteinen! The spicy element of the sausage, cumin, combines perfectly with just the right acidity of this Oude Geuze.  Furthermore, it is a very complex lambiek which explodes right from the start but leaves the mouth dry afterwards.

Dessert was a light crema catalana with mango. Another stoned fruit is used in Cantillon´s Fou´foune 2014 : 300 g of apricots from the South of France to the litre and only 3000 l of this lambiek are made annually. The apricots are everywhere, and the aftertaste is dry. The explicit almond flavour is present. A really nice pairing once again.

To terminate this inspiring lambiek-food pairing of the 3^rd Amuse-Gueuze, we had coffee and petits fours…and we got a bag with some treats home. 

The next edition of Amuse-Gueuze should take place in Ghent in September-October 2015. If you feel like enjoying good food and good Belgian beer, you should check it out! For more information : www.amusegueuze.com