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→From Framboise Lambic to Rosé de Gambrinus
In the 1970s ad 1980s, raspberry lambic was much more pale than we are accustomed to today. To enhance the color, Jean-Pierre mixed the raspberry lambic “with a certain portion of kriek” along with a small portion of vanilla<ref name=GrummelslinkseJune> Van Roy, Jean-Pierre. (2016a). Grummelinkse – June 2016. Musée Bruxellois de la Gueuze. Brussels, BE.</ref> as evidenced on the pink Famboise Cantillon label. This color ended up being the inspiration for what we now know today as Rosé de Gambrinus<ref name=GrummelslinkseJune> Van Roy, Jean-Pierre. (2016a). Grummelinkse – June 2016. Musée Bruxellois de la Gueuze. Brussels, BE.</ref>, but the name did not come from the Van Roy family. An artistic friendship would eventually lead to the renaming and relabeling of this beer.
[[File:Label-Cantillon-RoseDeGambrinus375-2.jpg|left|thumb|250px|Artwork by Raymond Coumans]]
The history of the famous label for Rosé de Gambrinus dates back to 1980 when Jean-Pierre Van Roy suggested to Belgian watercolorist Albert Borret that “he get together a few artists and organise an exhibition at the brewery to celebrate the second anniversary of the Brussels Gueuze Museum”.<ref name=GrummelslinkseSeptember> Van Roy, Jean-Pierre. (2016a). Grummelinkse – September 2016. Musée Bruxellois de la Gueuze. Brussels, BE.</ref> A total of eight painters and two sculptors attended this exhibition, two of whom were Raymond Goffin and Raymond Coumans who were close friends. Because of the brewery’s financial situation at the time and because the museum society was not as well established as it is today, both Goffin and Coumans offered to produce three drawings each to be put up for sale by the museum society.
The friendship struck up among the brewery and Coumans would eventually lead to Coumans inspiring the name of the beer and producing its famous label. In 1985, Jean-Pierre was in the cellars of Cantillon drawing Framboise Lambic from the barrels to be put into the bottling tank. Coumans entered the cellar and was “marveling at the colour of the raspberry lambic coming out of the barrel”<ref name=GrummelslinkseSeptember> Van Roy, Jean-Pierre. (2016a). Grummelinkse – September 2016. Musée Bruxellois de la Gueuze. Brussels, BE.</ref> and into the copper buckets.
:: - “But Raymond, that’s a name used for wine!”<br>
[[File:Cantillon Gambrinus Playboy March 1998.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Cantillon Rosé de Gambrinus in Playboy Magazine, March 1998.]]
Then, in a very formal manner he said, “it will be called Rosé de Gambrinus and I’ll make the label for you.”<ref name=GrummelslinkseSeptember> Van Roy, Jean-Pierre. (2016a). Grummelinkse – September 2016. Musée Bruxellois de la Gueuze. Brussels, BE.</ref>
The label depicts King Gambrinus, modeled on the mythical German king Gambrivius, who is said to have learned the craft of brewing from the Egyptian gods Isis and Osiris. Gambrinus is credited in European lore with having invented beer, and he is cited in English, British, German, and Belgian drinking lore as well.<ref name=Birm> Birmingham, Frederic-Alexander. (1970). Falstaff’s Complete Beer Beer Book. Ward Books. New York, NY.</ref> On the label, one can see King Gambrinus seated in a garden with a naked woman seated on his lap. This woman “is holding a goblet of beer in her left hand and will give it to her attentive escort if he is worthy of what is about to happen”.<ref name=GrummelslinkseSeptember> Van Roy, Jean-Pierre. (2016a). Grummelinkse – September 2016. Musée Bruxellois de la Gueuze. Brussels, BE.</ref>
This label and name was first put on bottles of Cantillon raspberry lambic in 1986. Starting in 1990, Brasserie Cantillon began working with Wide World Imports Inc to export their beer to the United States. Unsurprisingly, the original label for Rosé de Gambrinus was unsuitable for shelves in the United States and thus needed to be reworked for federal approval. Maurice Coja, head of the U.S. import company, sent back a proposed label on which he had clothed the woman on the label in a black bra and mini-skirt. Upon seeing the reworked label the original artist, Coumans, remarked: “Tell the Yank where he can put his suggestion, and also tell him that I’ll draw the woman’s clothes on myself”.<ref name=GrummelslinkseSeptember> Van Roy, Jean-Pierre. (2016a). Grummelinkse – September 2016. Musée Bruxellois de la Gueuze. Brussels, BE.</ref>