The Oude Gueuze Cuvée René is one of the pearls of our brewery. With its golden appearance, sparkling soft-tart taste and sherry-like scent, it is the choice for gourmets.
This Oude Gueuze is an assemblage of old and young lambic, aged in an oak casing. The geuze is then bottled in a beautiful champagne bottle, where a second fermentation takes place in the bottle. After 6 months we get a gold-colored gueuze, sparkling and soft-tart. If you keep this beer in a cool cellar for several years, it will really get extraordinary!
The use of the champagne bottle dates from a distant and vague past, when the lambic brewers had made it their specialty to pick up the empty bottles near large restaurants and other places where a lot of champagne was consumed. For example, the noblest of all bottles has been chosen to house the noblest of all beers.
The Oude Gueuze Cuvée René is created by mixing 1/3 old lambic of at least 3 years old and 2/3 young lambic of at least 1 year old, aged in enormous oak barrels of 10,000 liters (foeders). The young lambic still contains sufficient yeasts and sugars for refermentation in the bottle. This process also produces carbon dioxide, which provides a nice sparkle and foam.
