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TYPES OF LAMBICS
Lambics are beers produced only in one particular area of Belgium, the Senne River Valley, south and west of Brussels. Most important of all, they're beers that are spontaneously fermented by the airborne wild yeasts and bacteria present in this valley and nowhere else.
Spontaneous fermentation is the major difference between lambic and other styles of beer. Another important difference is that lambics are wheat beers using unmalted wheat, rather than the malted wheat found in German and American wheat beers.
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Lambics use anywhere from 30 to 40 % wheat, with the remaining grain being malted barley.
Here are some of the most popular types of lambics:
• Lambic
Although not so common anymore, a still, uncarbonated lambic can occasionally be found on draft in a café or in bottled form. These are usually young lambics of less than a year in age, perhaps only six months old. Several traditional breweries and blenders offer aged lambics in bottles.
• Faro
If several casks of young lambic are blended and sweetened with dark candy sugar, they're called a faro. In the bottled version, a faro is pasteurized so that there is no additional fermentation in the bottle.
• Gueuze
The height of the blender's art is the production of gueuze, a blending of lambics from casks that are at least one and three years old (or one and three "summers" in age, as lambic makers say), often with a two-year-old added for good measure. This blending creates an additional fermentation in the corked bottle, as the yeasts alive in the aged lambic eat the sugars present in the young lambic. The result is a slightly higher alcohol beer (an average of 6 % alcohol by volume versus 5 % for other lambics) and, most important, carbonation.
• Fruit Lambics
A specialty of lambic makers is fruit lambics. Typically, lambics of one "summer" in age are chosen, and whole fruit is added into the casks. The fruit macerates in the beer, adding flavour, aroma and colour, and creating a secondary fermentation from its sugars. Additional flavours come from the wild yeasts and bacteria on the skins of the fruit. Cherries and raspberries are the fruits most traditionally used.
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