I mostly buy American craft beer these days, as there is a ton of it around and it does tend to be cheaper than fancy-pants imports (and contrary to popular belief, a lot of it matches the greats of Europe anyway). Girardin 1882 Black Label is not an American craft beer; it is a Belgian beer from a style so obscure (and expensive to make) that I only know of two U.S. companies attempting to make an authentic one: lambic.
Most beers are made using strains of yeast that have been carefully cultivated for decades or even centuries. Lambics, by contrast, are naturally ("spontaneously") fermented with airborne yeast; they are left in an open-air container to absorb whatever is in the air, and then they are aged in unclean (and frequently re-used) barrels that harbor more yeast, in addition to bacteria. Most brewers go to careful lengths to ensure such "bugs and critters" never enter their beers, to include vigorously scrubbing the brewing equipment and pasteurizing the final beer. Lambic brewers expect their beer to have wild yeast and wild bacteria in them. They also expect the final beer to be very dry and very sour; some examples are also brewed with fruit.
To be honest, I rarely buy lambic or other sour beers. I find most of them too sour to taste anything else, even if they are brewed with fruit. They are also some of the most expensive beers you can buy. I was pleasantly surprised by this one, however.
The Review
Girardin 1882 is sold in single 375ml (12.7 ounce) bottles sealed with a champagne cork. A lot of the sour beers I have tried make a mockery of the corks, having little to no carbonation. I was taken aback when I opened this bottle: the cork shot off like a bottle-rocket, and left a smoky trail of CO2-mist in its wake. The beer poured pumpkin-gold with a very effervescent level of carbonation forming just over an inch of foam. The foam was sticky and stuck around for a while. I wish more sour beers looked like this.
Trying to describe the way sour beers smell and taste is often tricky. Anyone looking for a laugh should google "what does brettanomyces taste like" or "what does sour beer taste like." Brettanomyces is the primary yeast in lambic beer. Between the yeast and the bacteria, common descriptions include "horse blanket," pineapple, "wet dog," leather, "dirt," lemons, mulch, and (one of my personal favorites) "sweaty gym socks." There are seven species of brett, and potentially dozens of strains of each species. I read a few years ago that almost 80 different species of bacteria have been found in lambic, rivaling the variety found in cheese. So there's a lot going on.
This particular beer is very funky but less sour than most lambics, which I'm thankful for. The degree of sourness in lambics ranges from lightly soured apples to gut-wrenching, tooth enamel-shredding battery acid. Girardin is thankfully more of the apple-cider variety. Granny Smith apples and lemon zest are the dominant sour flavors here, while the yeast gives some aromas of wet hay, wet grass, and....yes, something akin to sweat. More distracting than the sweaty-apple flavor (yes, I just made that up) is mild hint of dirty, wet mulch, but it is fleeting.
The texture of Girardin seems a tad thicker than I recall other lambics being, but not by much. Most lambics are fairly thin and intensely dry, bordering on arid. This is a tad bit heavier, but still substantially dry. The zesty carbonation is a big plus here.
This is definitely not a beer for everyone. "Sweaty apples" won't be very appealing to most beer drinkers, and to the sour initiated it probably won't taste sour enough. I like it quite a lot though. Definitely one of the top three lambic/sour beers I have had, maybe even top two. I still don't think it stands up against Tilquin à L'Ancienne, which is the best sour I've had yet, but it is infinitely easier to find than that beer.
Just don't drink this (or any sour) on a regular basis if you have acid reflex, or you won't feel so good the next day.
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