Cantillon: Scarabee (Belgium: Fruit Lambic: 7.5% ABV)
Visual: Pale, lightly hazy lemon juice color body with some small bubbled carbonation and a moderate, short lasting head.
Nose: Oats. Lemon merengue. Horse blankets. Jiff lemon. Tart white grapes. Dry white wine. Tart tangerine. Pomegranate.
Body: Tart. Dry. Jiff lemon. Just slightly thicker than most Cantillons. Tart mandarin orange. Dry white wine. Light chalk touch.
Finish: Pomegranate. Tangerine. Tart white grapes. Tart mandarin orange. White wine. Oats and dry raisins – muesli.
Conclusion: Ok, this is incredible. Spoiler warning. Quite possibly my favorite Cantillon yet. Also spoiler warning.
One thing that really helps it is that, while it is dry and tart, it isn’t on the super mouth puckering side that some Cantillons can get to. Like, don’t get me wrong I find those ones fascinating, but I prefer this style. The very dry texture makes it easy drinking and that, very mild, restraint in sourness means that I can really get into it and explore the range of flavours.
So, at its base this very white wine like, and the aroma had that kind of horse blankets and oats notes that I see in a lot of lambic and made me expect a more rustic touch to the base. Nope, just very white wine like mixed with tart fresh lemon.
What makes it really pop though is bright tart tangerine and mandarin orange like notes that are so refreshing and so different to the usual lambic fruitiness. It pops so nicely as a contrast to the white wine character, and is dangerously easy to drink and refreshing for a 7.5% abv beer.
The closest comparison I can make is like Fou Foune meets white wine, a character that becomes more and more evident as the beer warms, and since I drank it on a VERY warm day I had a lot of time to appreciate its progression.
Then later in the finish, amongst the fresh notes, a slight oat, dried fruit and muesli note calls back to the aroma, bringing more traditional geuze like lambic character into play at the very end.
Very delicious, very different, refreshing – an utter masterclass of Cantillon.
So of course it is the one that is bloody hard to get.
Background: I grabbed this at Zwanze day at Small Bar, I also tried the two Zwanze releases of that day. I didn’t do notes as I was chilling with friends, but I always love getting a chance to try those one off beers. Feel so lucky that we get access to them, and I have one of the places that get them on tap within fairly short distance from me. Anyway, enough on the Zwanze beers, they had an utter blinder of a bottle line up of Cantillon rarities, and I had cash enough to grab one. So after much pain and indecision I grabbed this one as it sounded cool and had a nice label. When you can’t decide between a few beers, might as well go with the pretty one. It is a collaboration between Domaine Geschickt and Cantillon. This is a mix of 2 year lambic and gewurztraminer pomace. Not going to lie, had too google a few of those terms. So it is a wine maker, and it is the remains of the gewurztraminer grapes after they have been crushed. Simples. The grapes are from the kaefferkopf vineyard, which I also googled and has an amazing rep for terroir, so there we are. Also the named means Beetles Head, hence the name and picture. Anyway, all intriguing enough and cool enough image that this was the one I decided to grab after I drained my phone internet allowance with all the googling. Music wise wanted something I knew I would enjoy, but could cover many different styles cos I wasn’t sure what the beer would be like- so went with Miracle Of Sound: Level 12.
