Cantillon Crianza Helena

Description

Cantillon Crianza Helena is a gueuze bottled in 2008. It is a blend of 40 month lambic from a new cognac barrel, 30 month lambic from a bordeaux barrel (for sweetness), and a 15 month young lambic. It is labeled as 5% ABV.

History / Other Notes

This gueuze was bottled on behalf of the owners of De Heeren van Liedekercke to mark the occasion of the birth of their daughter. Both 37,5cl and 75cl bottles were available for on-site consumption at the restaurant and 75cl bottles were also available for takeaway. Cantillon provided De Heeren van Liedekercke with unlabeled bottles; the label design and it's application was performed later.

Unsubstantiated Stories

Some have claimed that Jean Van Roy has said that he did not bottle the beer in 37,5cl bottles. This story seems to originate back to the same place and has not been validated.

Label

Label Translation

The label for Crianza Helen contains both a description of the beer and the bottle's contents on the left side and and the lyrics to a folk song by Walter Evenpoel about the Pajottenland and lambic called Vivan de Gees.

Left-side Label Translation:
Crianza Helena
This geuze is a spontaneously fermented beer, composed of 100% biolambic from three different vintages, each present for 1/3. March 5th 2005 – first use of a cognac barrel. January 26 2006 – first use of a Bordeaux barrel. March 13th 2007 – from a young, living barrel. Aged in oak barrels. Our exclusive selection of barrels imparts a willful flavor pattern to this Cantillon geuze. Unfiltered. No sugars. Spontaneously fermented in the bottle. Lambic is brewed with 65% malted barley, 35% wheat, hops and water. Brasserie Cantillon, Gildenstraat 56, 1070 Brussels Bottled on June 26th 2008. Best before date: at least 30 years after bottling. Open in June 2009 at the earliest.

Right-side Label Translation:
Long live the geuze!

An ode to our region,
the Pajottenland, its dialect
and to the geuze…

Life flies by, passes you like a train;
It’s too short to argue or be sad.
There is so much beauty to be seen around us:
the fields, the pastures and the waving green.
The Pajottenland tastes like a beautiful, tender strawberry
and it flows from the bottles filled with foaming geuze.

Let us drink to tomorrow, to yesterday and to soon,
let us drink to life, long live the geuze!

The lambic is aging in Lembeek and Gooik,
in Sint-Ulriks-Kapellen and in Beersel, in Anderlecht too.
After two years in the barrel and another two years in the bottle
you get a divine drink, a real delicacy.
Take some radishes and some head cheese or prime ham
and wash it down with a liter of geuze!

Let us drink to tomorrow, to yesterday and to soon,
let us drink to life, long live the geuze!

Pieter Bruegel could already see it in his time
he’s drawn it, painted it with zeal:
the bagpipe players, the dancers, the fun.
We carry on like that but in our own way
We roll down the mountain with Mieken or Trees
And quench our thirst with a kriek or a geuze!

Let us drink to tomorrow, to yesterday, and to soon,
let us drink to life, long live the geuze!

Long live Helena!