Fonteinen is surely one of Belgium’s finest Geuze & Lambic blenders.  The first time I had a beer from these guys, I was blown away.  I remember it being  a Kriek. When I opened the bottle the cork shot out a good twenty feet across the floor of the wine shop in which I was working at the time. Bliss!  I poured, and tasted.  I  was hooked.  I mean really hooked.  (I was drinking fine wine, but it was a  beer!)   Tonight  I procured a bottle at my current shop (after closing, on a brutally busy day)  by giving one of my  fellow workers a ride home.  The guy usually pays 20 dollars for the trip to his place.  Tonight he offered me a bottle of my choice for under twenty to give him a ride.  We both won.  He saved on cab fare, and I was able to sample one of the true greats out of Belgium.  A 375 ml of Doesjel.  So,  you want a review. This beer does not need a review.  It is so good that you simply have to FIND it. It is not readily available in the mass market. This is Fonteinen!   Doesjel is a blend of one, two, and three year old Lambics, fermented, and  matured in oak casks by wild yeast carried on the open air.  There is no head.  Good, I don’t want one.  It screams sour.  But, not an acidic wine sour-no.  This is a sour wrought from 60% barley malt, 40% unmalted wheat, hops, and water.  A  pure and simple, yet extra ordinary beverage.  I get the wild aromas, and the tang- not citrus but grain tang. It is good, really good. The very subtle hop integration lends a just right bitter to the sour. The oak treatment lends refinement and character.  This brew is purely balanced, exquisite, and  other worldly WILD! A  classic, vanishing  Belgium style that is  done  now by only  a few.  Fonteinen is one of the very best representations. I get the funk.  I get the sour.  I get the horse blanket. I get the whole deal.  And it is wonderful. Fonteinen in the wine world would be labeled Grand Cru. And it is! Doesjel  is a world class gustatory, palate searing, sensory trip to acid nirvana,  that ultimately speaks  very loudly of the great beer producing country that is Belgium.  May I wake up there tomorrow with an  assiete  of Moules Frites , and a bottle of Doesjel!  And, may this style never go out of fashion.  The world will have lost something very special if this came to fruition.  There really are few things on earth so unique and true to place as Lambic. And, when the top producers are involved-look out.  I need a Fonteinen Glass though. But damned if the beer was not in rare form poured into my Cantillon glass in which I picked up last time at the brewery. A perfect marriage. Merry Christmas! 12-24-09 Thank You for taking me to Belgium on Christmas Eve  here in Boston  Fonteinen! This bottling is from Feb 23 2006.  Here is the link to the brewery: Fonteinen

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 24th, 2009 at 9:30 pm and is filed under The Beer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.