While I'm blogging about beer articles I'll point out this one by Stephen Beaumont in Saveur about one of my new favorite styles, Lambics. He spends a good deal of time talking about Brasserie Cantillon, my favorite Lambic producer.
At Cantillon, as at all traditional lambic breweries, scant attention is paid to the rules of modern beer making. Whereas other beers are fermented with carefully controlled yeast strains, lambics owe their fermentation to a wild party of airborne microflora that includes more than 100 identified yeast strains and 50 kinds of bacteria. Since virtually everything in the brewery is thought to have the microbiotic potential to affect this spontaneous fermentation, there is a certain endearing grubbiness to Cantillon. The air inside the brewery makes for an olfactory adventure, perfumed as it is with a musky potpourri of damp wood, wet grain, and a heady mix of barnyard aromas known collectively and affectionately as "horse blanket".The article is definitely worth a read, and has given me a craving for a nice sour Lambic. I may have to splurge for a bottle of St. Lamvinus tomorrow.
