Review: 3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze Cuvée Armand & Gaston (2018)


Lisa Cody it's your birthday, happy birthday Lisa Cody! Last week during a trip to Winnipeg, I stopped by Manitoba's best place to get beer, Quality Inn Beer Store and as always.. I was overwhelmed at their beer selection to the point that I ended up with well over 200 dollars worth of product. I only heard of 3 Fonteinen only a year ago today thanks to Patrick at Outcast Brewing, he was telling me and my awesome buddies over at Hipster Beer Run that he had a 3 Fonteinen bottle share recently and kept the bottles.. he had a serious awesome bottle collection, lucky duck!

I've heard their beer is among some of the best in the world and when I found out that they were going to be one of the breweries visiting for Dunham's Foudres Unis last year, that was one of the breweries that made me decide at last minute "screw money, I want to try new beer!" I'm glad I did because it was an absolutely awesome beer festival, saw some old familiar faces like Hop Citizen, and met some new faces, including Milos.. who I've been following on social media since back when this was just the Cranky Beer Blog.

Today's special review is 3 Fonteinen's Oude Geuze Cuvée Armand & Gaston. I actually tried their regular Oude Geuze at Foudres Unis and I thought it was decent but not overly wowing.. but I was starting to get exhausted and tired of sour beer at that point, so IPAs and lighter styles were really appealing to me by then. This batch states that it's Assemblage No. 11 - Seizoen 17/18. It was bottled on January 11, 2018.. and can be successfully aged up to October 26, 2038!

Appearance: This Oude Geuze pours a fairly dark orange with a bit of a copper hue to it, it starts off with a moderate amount of beige carbonation but gradually diminishes to just a very faint amount of carbonation, mostly around the rim of the glass and some clusters of bubbles near the middle.

Aroma: This beer takes me back to Foudres Unis big time, it's quite sour with a moderate amount of yeastiness in it. There's a light to moderate amount of funkiness to it, notes of fresh squeezed lemon and a hint of woodiness. While I'm not a big fan of sour beers/geuzes, I would absolutely love to see more beers like this in Manitoba just from the pleasant yet tingling aroma.

Taste: As no surprise to me at all, this beer pretty much tastes like how it smells and thank goodness! It's got a hefty dose of sourness that reminds me of sour patch kids but without the sweetness that kids love. It makes my face pucker a tad, but love it! It's got a good deal of barnyard funk to it, a bit of regular ol' Belgian yeastiness in there as well. There's a hefty dryness to the beer but it's not absolutely sucking the moisture off my tongue.. so that's good. There's some lemon, a bit of woodiness (oak) at the end. This is absolutely tasty!

Overall Thoughts: While this may be quite a bit more expensive than most Belgian beers (but I forget how much I paid), I didn't care how much this costed because I needed a sober review of 3 Fonteinen's beer at one point. If you love sour beer, like something that's dry but not too dry and especially love a bit of barnyard funk.. this is for you! This beer is still good for another 19 years.. which unfortunately this beer didn't get to see its full life expectancy, but who are we kidding, I don't think I'll live that long! đŸ€·đŸ»‍♂️




https://3fonteinen.be/en/


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