Cantillon Rosé De Gambrinus - Brasserie Cantillon

Reaper16

Alabama

4.5/5  rDev +6.4%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.5

Review #200!
375mL bottle, bottled on 01/20/10, served into a tulip glass

Gorgeous beer. It pours a glowing, translucent cherry red. Very unique looking body. The head is a light, rose petal pink. Not a bright pink, bubble gum or Easter egg, but a more subdued shade. It sits at a 1.5 finger cap of tiny bubbles that loosens up and recedes after two minutes or so.

The fruit is really noticeable in this young a beer. I smell a pulpish, fleshy berry smell alongside the smell of a raspberry pancake syrup. There is an expected level of wild yeast flavors - damp mulch and old flowers and light vinegar - that bring the funk and sourness. As the beer warms I pick up more and more a potpourri aroma. The raspberry has a tendency to turn into tomato as the beer warms, too.

Some reviewers complain that this beer isn't sour enough. I won't be one of those. This hits a wonderful little sweet spot between acid and fruit sweetness. It is very tart up front, acidity lashing the middle of the tongue. When you adjust to the sourness you can appreciate the funk that so informs the sour flavors, a funk so expertly blended that I can't pick out individual descriptors. And then you can appreciate the berry flavors: mildly sweet, earthy. With warmth I can make out a subtle woodsy quality from the barrels. This blows the pants off of any other Framboise I've ever had or likely will have in terms of complexity.

The mouthfeel is light-bodied, with the carbonation staying out of the way of the tartness. It does its job admirably with the best quality being its dryness. Rose de Gambrinus is remarkably dry, as good lambic should be. Drinkability is also stellar. From the opening tartness to the sweet berry to the dryness, this is a satisfying fruit lambic.

Cantillon. Enough said, right? This is the benchmark for framboise lambic.

Serving type: bottle

05-25-2010 04:24:23 | More by Reaper16

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4.25/5  rDev +0.5%

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5/5  rDev +18.2%

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4.25/5  rDev +0.5%

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emerge077

Illinois

4.3/5  rDev +1.7%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

Seldom seen around these parts, I fondly remember picking this up years ago off the shelf and introducing friends to what traditional lambics could be.

375ml split into two goblets.

Deep rosy reddish orange color, slightly murky (likely due to handling). Thin layer of foam with pinkish white hue, it maintains a thin ring at the edge.

Farmy wet pasture aroma, leafy fresh raspberries, oaky sandalwood, authentic and fruity at the same time.

Spritzy and moderately tart, sour raspberry with a dry finish. Seedy and pulpy raspberries, wild sour ones, not at all sweet. Puckering though not extremely sour in the scheme of all things Cantillon. A nice aperitif to be sure, first time I had this it seemed more sour years ago... Chalk it up to a threshold shift in sour tolerance I guess, though batch variation is a possibility too. A classic framboise.

Serving type: bottle

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4.25/5  rDev +0.5%

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