Cantillon Rosé de Gambrinus: Difference between revisions

Cantillon Rosé de Gambrinus is a traditional raspberry lambic (framboise) bottled regularly by Cantillon. Its fruit content is generally around 200 g of raspberries per 1 L of lambic.  The fruiting process for Rosé de Gambrinus consists of taking pre-frozen raspberries and placing them in stainless steel tanks with an average age of 20-month-old lambic for a maceration period of 1-2 months.  It is then transferred to a stainless steel bottling tank until it is ready to be bottled. A quantity of young lambic is added equal to one-third of the volume of the fruited lambic before bottling to obtain secondary fermentation.<ref name = CantillonBrochure> Brasserie Cantillon - Tour Brochure (English) </ref>

The history of raspberry lambic at Brasserie Cantillon dates back to as far as 1909 when inventory taken by Paul Cantillon “indicates that the cellar contain[ed] more raspberry beer than kriek”.<ref name=GrummelslinkseJune> Van Roy, Jean-Pierre. (2016a). Grummelinkse – June 2016. Musée Bruxellois de la Gueuze. Brussels, BE.</ref>  Fruited beers disappeared from the brewery’s lineup during World War I, but during the 1920s Kriek was produced again and raspberry lambic reappeared for a short time in the 1930s.  Shortly after World War II, as lambic became less popular and many breweries turned to sweetening their beers, the tradition of making raspberry lambic at Cantillon disappeared.  However, in 1973 Jean-Pierre decided to begin producing the beer again when a friend of the brewery, Willy Gigounon, showed up at the brewery with  150 kilograms of raspberries.  

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the brewery sourced raspberries from within the Pajottenland from a farm near the small village of Liedekerke.  Harvested in July, the farmer would hire a group of students to come to the farm and pick the berries to fill buckets full of 20 kilograms at a time. Jean-Pierre notes that the farmer would “weigh them to nearest gram”<ref name=GrummelslinkseJune> Van Roy, Jean-Pierre. (2016a). Grummelinkse – June 2016. Musée Bruxellois de la Gueuze. Brussels, BE.</ref>  and that due to Belgium’s rainy summer climate, the buckets would also be filled with quite a bit of water.  

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|03/03/2020||Season 19/20||375 mL||European labeling||[[File:Cantillon Gambrinus 03 Mar 2020.jpg|frameless|30px]]

|03/03/2020||Season 19/20||750 mL||European labeling||[[File:Cantillon Gambrinus 03 Mar 2020.jpg|frameless|30px]]