Every season, the LCBO brings in a batch of about a dozen beers that are outside its normal range. These offerings tend to be very good or excellent beers that are favoured by experienced, niche drinkers. And no niche is quite as distinct or separate than the one that includes sour beers.

Traditionally, this family of beer styles is given a tart punch by wild (or introduced) yeasts and bacteria that are more rustic than conventional brewer’s yeast. The LCBO seems to prefer importing the red and brown sour beers from Flanders, but this month we get a Lambic, the blond beer from the area around Brussels that gets a heavy dose of unmalted wheat in its grain bill.

Lindemans Cuvée René is an old gueuze, a bottle-conditioned mixture of old and young Lambic. This orange-labeled bottle holds a beer that Michael Jackson described in his Great Beers of Belgium as a “beautiful beer [with] a fresh, leafy, dry aroma … a beautifully balanced fruity, lightly tart, crisp-apple palate; and a suggestion of palo cortado sherry on the finish.” I’d add a slight blue cheese funk on the nose and a bit of lemon peel and chalk flavours to those notes. 

Cuvée René was my first introduction to sour beer and I can remember how I was simultaneously shocked and impressed that a beer could taste so tart, bold and complex. Lambics have a reputation for being unapproachable, but I think if you go into it expecting the acidity to be somewhere between white wine and lemonade, they are an easy beer to add to your rotation.  

The original pandemonium over the release — I’m not the only one who made a special trip to an out-of-the-way LCBO to buy a case — has calmed, but the supply that is on shelves now won’t last for long. Luckily, a case will hold up in good shape in a dark, cool spot for two to three years.

Lindemans Gueuze Cuvée René, $4.95 for a 355 ml bottle, LCBO #224824