Delete, Protect, bureaucrat, administrator
4,588
edits
Changes
no edit summary
Lambic has been sweetened for more than 200 years. Until the mid 1800’s when pressurized barrels enabled beer to move more freely, beer in Belium was primarily lambic and Faro. Faro is lambic that has been sweetened with brown sugar. Lambic drinkers who didn’t appreciate the tart nature of gueuze would add one or two lumps of sugar. A tool called a ‘stoemper’ was often used in lambic to help the sugars dissolve faster. Of course, in spite of the popularity of Faro and sugar sweetening, traditional lambic drinkers insisted on drinking their lambic “neat,”.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the demand for sweetened lambic continued to grow. “After World War II, consumer tastes became sweeter with the success of cola and soft drinks, and the big brewers in particular played to this trend by bringing so-called ‘capsulekensgeuze’ to the market. “<ref name=“GeuzeKriek”>Jef Van den Steen, [[Books#Geuze & Kriek: The Secret of Lambic Beer|Geuze & Kriek: The Secret of Lambic Beer]], 2012</ref> Belle Vue and other lambic brewers began the process of using pasteurization to prevent bottle conditioning and potential bottle explosions as a result of the residual sugars being left in the beers. Filtration also removed many of the bugs and created a cleaner beverage suited for the soda drinker market.
Sweetened lambic was primarily the result of blending young lambic or other top fermenting beers that contained significant residual sweetness with more tart, aged lambic. As time progressed and fruit lambic became popular in the 1980’s, fruit juices were used to further sweeten lambic (as seen in the De Troch fruit lambics). This was done both to satisfy the market for a sweetened product and because of a shortage of fruit. Lindemans, for example, began sweetening in 1972-1973 because of a shortage of Schaeerbeekse Cherries<ref name=“GeuzeKriek”>Jef Van den Steen, [[Books#Geuze & Kriek: The Secret of Lambic Beer|Geuze & Kriek: The Secret of Lambic Beer]], 2012</ref>. Currently, fruit juice sweetened, pasteurized beverages dominate lambic sales. Some lambic are even sweetened with Aspartame or Saccharin<ref name="Oxford">Garrett Oliver, [http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Companion-Beer-Garrett-Oliver/dp/0195367138 The Oxford Companion to Beer], 2011</ref>, listing 'sugar substitute' as an ingredient on their beer labels.