Old spice

As part of the blog's 20th anniversary celebrations, I picked my oldest bottle of geuze out of the stash for drinking. I bought this HORAL Megablend 2015 in 2017 but hadn't got round to opening it. At the time I said I might be opening it in 2021 because I'd heard it wasn't then ready for drinking. A full ten years is probably enough time to find out whether it ever made the grade.

It's old enough to still bear the name of 3 Fonteinen on the label's list of nine producers who created it, a lambic house which left the HORAL group not long after. It finished up at 7% ABV and was a deep amber colour in the glass, suggesting that oxidation may have taken place. The aroma has a mineral sharpness mixed with a heavier, richer, cereal side. To taste, it's not very sour but does have acres of gunpowder and Szechuan pepper spice, which I adore. Usually, you get your spice with a sterner sour acidity and sometimes a rub of waxy green bitterness (if you're lucky), but here that seems to have mellowed away, leaving a smooth and friendly fellow. Oxidation? Yes, a touch, but it's more pale sherry than wet cardboard, and confines itself to the finish, so that's OK.

I think it's safe to say that this has reached maturity, if not gone some way past it. It definitely shows signs of age, although these are both positive and negative -- as is par for the course with top-end geuze. On balance, it's very good, regardless. I have repeat bottles of the subsequent vintages stored in the same wardrobe. Now the debate is whether or not to open them sooner than their own 10th anniversaries.