Lambic

A straight lambic pours pale yellow to deep gold, hazy when young and clear with age, with little or no head and almost no fizz. It tastes sour first: a sharp lactic tang in young beer, rounder and more complex after a year or two, when the wild Brettanomyces yeast adds funk. There is almost no bitterness; the sourness balances the beer, and the finish dries out as it ages.

Where it comes from

Lambic comes from the Senne valley and the Pajottenland, in and around Brussels, where farmhouse brewers have made it for centuries. No brewer adds yeast: wild yeasts and bacteria start the fermentation, and the beer ferments and ages in old oak barrels. The hops are aged three years or more, so they protect the beer without making it bitter.

Each lambic comes from a single batch and shows the house character of its brewery. Cafés in the Brussels area pour it young, about six months old, from the cask. Sweetened with raw sugar at the table, it becomes faro. Blended across ages and refermented in the bottle, it becomes Gueuze.

How to serve it

Pour it at 4–10 °C. In Brussels cafés it comes still, from a pitcher. It suits mussels and other shellfish.

Next to its neighbours

A lambic tastes simpler and more variable than a Gueuze, and it stays flat where the gueuze sparkles. Add cherries or raspberries and you get a fruit lambic.

Lambic in numbers

Classic example

Cantillon

Original gravity

1.040–1.054

Final gravity

1.001–1.010

Faro

Lambic sweetened with raw sugar when served

Food

Mussels; mascarpone with fruit; rich chocolate cake

Classic examples

Cantillon Grand Cru Bruocsella; draught lambic in Brussels cafés from Boon, De Cam, Cantillon, 3 Fonteinen, Lindemans, Timmermans and Girardin

BJCP style

23D Lambic

Sources

Checked October 29, 2026.

1. 23D. Lambic, 2021 Beer Style Guidelines — Beer Judge Certification Program
2. Belgian-Style Lambic/Gueuze — CraftBeer.com, Brewers Association