Changes

Culture vs. Chemistry

13 bytes added, 05:21, 9 September 2014
The Process
Given the balance of yeasts found in the Senne Valley is a primary creator of lambic’s flavor profile, and that spontaneous fermentation is equally crucial to the proper production of lambic, any attempt to move lambic production elsewhere creates a tension between these two aspects of lambic brewing which were previously in perfect harmony. It forces the brewer to ask which is more important: the biochemical composition/yeast content or the method of brewing. This is not a question that any lambic brewer in Belgium has to ask, or would want to. The brewer would be forced to ask himself: Which is more important: that lambic tastes like a lambic, or that lambic be made like a lambic?
Spontaneously fermented beers can be produced anywhere, capturing the yeasts that are local to that geography, following the brewing processes similar to those of a traditional lambic. Jeff Sparrow reminisces in [[Books#Wild_Brews:_Culture_and_Craftsmanship_in_the_Belgian_Tradition|''Wild Brews: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition'']] of a conversation that he had with Jean-Pierre Van Roy:
:: ''“But don’t despair; believe it or not, you can spontaneously ferment beer anywhere in the world. Jean-Pierre Van Roy of the Cantillon brewery in Brussels told me so on my first visit. I just didn’t know what to make of the statement at the time. Since then, Van Roy’s revelation has become a great deal clearer. Van Roy told me you must develop a taste for your own local lambic, although he never had to taste one result of his suggestion.”''<ref name=“WildBrews”>Jeff Sparrow, [[Books#Wild Brews: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition|Wild Brews: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition]], 2005</ref>
Delete, Protect, bureaucrat, administrator
4,588
edits