Gueuze....Oh sweet Gueuze. If I have a beer vice then I owe 90% of my predilection to gueuze. It is a love-or-hate style. Even those who love it could only indulge a little. For me this is the perfect style and I could drink at least one glass every day; natural, packed with flavor and of course the 'funk'.
'Funk' is a term that the beer community should be proud of. 'Funk' means a lot of different things. In one way it is a subspecies of 'cool'....and rightfully so. On the flip-side, 'funk' can be a downer, as in 'funk like a skunk' or Six from Blossom using the adjective 'funky'. In another sense it is a lifestyle; a modus operandi (see video).
For beer geeks though, 'funk' is a concrete, universal and necessary component of beer nomenclature. The other day I was at Cantillon and I ran into a fellow beer lover who was in town specifically for beer-tourism. We were downing some unblended lambic straight out of the barrels. I was really blown away by how much 'funk' was present in this one sample. So I said to my new acquaintance "Tons of funk in this one" and he knew exactly what I meant....
The look of absolute understanding on his face somewhat perturbed me. So I searched to see if anyone had taken the time to define the term. Here are a few I found:
Are these adequate definitions? What do you consider 'funk' to mean?
A big disappointment for me in the world of funk was the importation of St. Louis Gueuze into Ontario. I mean, the LCBO had the willingness to import a Gueuze and chose this? So I ran across Fond Tradition and seriously questioned even bothering with so much as a sniff. Boy am I glad I gave this brewery another shot.
Big funk on the nose. Barnyard and citrus at the same time; an awesome deep sour citrus. Very fine and plentiful carbonation. Taste is mad sour. Puckering. I like.
More to come with Geueze including my visit to Moeder Lambic and Cantillon.
No comments:
Post a Comment