The lambic family of beers, consisting of lambic, gueuze, faro and kriek, has been making a remarkable comeback. Doomed to be extinct in the early 1970s, as drinks made for old men by old men, these beers from Brussels and surroundings were kept alive by passionate people that at first must have been regarded by locals as ‘quite crazy’. By now, their perseverance has paid off: today, lambic and gueuze are beer specialities highly coveted by beer lovers around the globe.

Apart from its unique taste and production process, there is also a certain mythology that adds to the appeal: lambic as a primordial beer from an ancient past. Lately however, beer connoisseurs are wisening up: not every aspect of the conventional lambic story stands up to scrutiny. In their enthusiasm for lambic, some writers have spread the weirdest tales. Not that I mind: these people were passionately promoting, even saving a very special beer style. Already, a writer like Jef van den Steen is slowly phasing out some of the less well-funded narratives from his books. But there still is a long way to go, and many of the old tales keep circulating. Which is why I’m presenting: eight myths about lambic debunked.

Myth 1: ‘Tax collector Remy le Mercier of the city of Halle wrote down a lambic recipe in 1559’.

This myth started out in 1970, when Marcel Franssens wrote one of the first treatises on lambic as an endangered beer type that needed to be saved.[1] The 1559 beer recipe is often cited as a proof that lambic existed as early as the 16th century, and that the amount of wheat in lambic has remained unchanged throughout the ages.

Unfortunately, while the 1559 recipe is real, it is usually completely misquoted and misunderstood. First, it’s not a recipe for a lambic, the original text states specifically that it describes beers called ‘keute’ and ‘houppe’. In these we can recognise ‘kuit’ and ‘hoppenbier’, multigrain-beer types from Holland, more related to today’s white beer.[2] Second, many writers claim the 1559 text specifies the same amount of wheat as is used today (about 30 to 40%). In reality, it talks about no less than 48.4% wheat, while it even contains 22.5% of oats, a grain never used in lambic, full stop. Forget about it folks, the 1559 text is not a lambic recipe.[3]

Myth 2: ‘Lambic is the last spontaneously fermented beer’

You get what this is supposed to imply: all beers were once spontaneously fermented, i.e. brewers didn’t add any yeast to beer and waited for fermentation to begin out of thin air. And lambic is the last beer made this way. However, this doesn’t stand up to scrutiny: surely, Medieval brewers recognised the enormous amount of foam coming out of fermenting beer? And surely, they knew that it was a good idea to start the next batch of beer with some of this fresh yeast, instead of leaving everything to chance? And that’s exactly what they did. In 1283, the chapter of Saint Paul’s in London sold yeast to smaller brewers, and in Belgium the city council of Tienen named yeast as ingredient for its beer in 1533-1534.[4] Undoubtedly, other similar references can be found. Spontaneously fermenting in Brussels probably was an invention of the 18th or early 19th century; the earliest proof of this process that I know of dates from 1829.[5]

Myth 3: ‘Breughel and Erasmus drank gueuze’

Beer writers like Michael Jackson have often suggested that somehow famous inhabitants of 16-century Brussels, like painter Breughel and philosopher Erasmus drank lambic. They didn’t: it didn’t exist yet. If they drank beers, which is probable, they probably were more into the ‘keute’ mentioned above. By the 17th century, the brewers of Brussels made beers called dobbel, braspenning and halfbraspenning, but still no lambic.[6] The earliest member from the lambic family to be mentioned in a Brussels context is faro, in 1721. Lambic didn’t join the scene until 1794, and gueuze got its first name-check in 1829.[7]

Myth 4: ‘We don’t know where the name lambic comes from’

There have been many attempts to explain the name ‘lambic’, some more convincing than others. Lambic has been read as a form of Latin ‘lambere’ (to lick), Spanish ‘el ambiguo’ (‘the ambiguous one’) or the name of the town of Lembeek.[8] However, the oldest mentions of lambic beer, from 1794 onwards, speak of ‘allambique’ or ‘alambic’, and it kept the initial ‘a’ for another two decades or so. This indicates that the name derives from ‘alambic’, the French word for ‘distilling kettle’, originally from Arabic.[9] The most probable explanation is that drinkers likened it to the product of the alambic, genever: high in alcohol (for the time), yellow and clear. The origin of the name ‘faro’ is shrouded in the mist of time (a beer of that name was known in Holland as early as the 16th century).[10] I’ll get to the explanation of the name ‘gueuze’ in due time.

Myth 5: ‘Creating spontaneously fermented lambics is only possible or even legally allowed in and around Brussels’

Let’s be clear about one thing: Brussels and its surroundings, the Pajottenland and Zenne valley, are the heartland of lambic. It’s where it originated, and where it has been made ever since. That said, there have been other places where lambic has been brewed with some degree of success. Some authors have claimed that the area where it was possible to brew lambic was confined to Brussels and direct surroundings (1839), two miles around Brussels (1860) or ‘along the Zenne from Halle to Vilvoorde’ (1928).[11] However, already in 1812 the faro of Brussels was being imitated as far away as Utrecht (in Holland), and I found brewing records for lambic in Haarlem (also in Holland) from 1820. Though it never became as big as it was in Brussels, they would continue to make lambic and faro in Holland until at least the 1930s.[12] Of course, lambic was also imitated within Belgium itself, most famously by Bockor / Omer vander Ghinste in Bellegem and Van Honsebrouck in Ingelmunster, who continue to do so to this day. So although brewing lambic requires a lot of skill, it is not bound geographically. Not in practice and not by law, as long as you stick to the official method. Or as Jean-Pierre van Roy of Cantillon brewery put it: ‘I’m sure you can brew lambic in Amsterdam or Berlin… if you follow the rules.’[13]

Myth 6: ‘Gueuze was created by putting lambic in champagne bottles’

Today, gueuze is the name of bottle-conditioned lambic, sparkling because of its refermentation. However, some writers suggest that this use of ‘méthode champenoise’ always was gueuze’s defining trait. It wasn’t. There’s plenty of evidence of gueuze in barrels in the 19th and early 20th century, while at the same time lambic in bottles could still be called lambic, and not necessarily gueuze. In fact, gueuze started life as a name for the oldest and finest lambic, aged for as much as five years. Not all lambic was eligible to become gueuze: at the Vander Borght brewery in Brussels, in 1894 only 5% of all lambic was deemed good enough to be sold as gueuze. It was only after the First World War that gueuze in bottles became the norm, and that ordinary lambic disappeared from the market. Because of this development, lambic blending became the very tricky job it still is today: it was much harder to blend a quality bottled gueuze than a run-of-the-mill sweetened lambic in casks.[14]

Myth 7: ‘The wheat is what made lambic stand out from the other beers’

Quite a lot is made of the fact that lambic is made out of wheat, today usually 30% to 40%. In the 19th century, that was even more: a 1829 recipe specifies no less than 58% raw wheat.[15] However, at that time all-barley beers were only just starting to gain popularity in Belgium. In fact, at the start lambic was quite modern for not having any oats, spelt or buckwheat in it, which were popular ingredients for Brabant’s white beers, for beers from Diest and Mechelen, and for the seef that was well-known in Antwerp. In Wallonia, the saison of Liège was known for its gratuitous use of spelt. Both the white beer and peeterman of Leuven and also the grisette of Hainaut couldn’t exist without wheat in it.[16] I’d say it’s a matter of perspective: at first, lambic stood out for having only two grain types in it, only in the 20th century did it become special for not being an all-barley beer.

Myth 8: ‘Lambic brewers traditionally used aged hops’

It’s what you always read: lambic brewers like to use old hops that have lost their aroma and most of their bitterness. It makes sense: hoppiness is not what the brewers are looking for. But for some reason, this was not always the case. A 1826 brewing log for lambic in Haarlem specifically mentions fresh Flemish hops from the previous year’s harvest, while for other beers, they used older hops.[17] And lambic was hoppy: according to dr. Vrancken in 1829, the lambic of Brussels needed 2 pounds of hops per barrel, while only 2 ounces were enough for a barrel of white beer.[18] Brewery engineer Georges Lacambre specified in 1851 that for lambic young hops from Aalst were needed, while for March beer, older hops were good enough.[19] I’m not sure what this means: I guess at the time they figured that first quality beer needed fresh hops. A modern-day equivalent would be Cantillon’s hoppy Iris beer.[20]

Want to know more? Just keep following this blog, or read the previous articles I dedicated to lambic and gueuze.



