A couple weeks ago I held a Cote d'Or and Lindemans Lambic pairing session with a bunch of friends to test out some ideas for my Cote d'Or presentation at the All Candy Expo, which was this past Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. In this post, I'm going to go through all of the pairings that we tried during the first pairing session. In my next post, I'll go through the final pairings that were presented at the Expo, more in-depth tasting notes, and so on.

A Lambic is a spontaneously fermented beer that can only be made southwest of Brussels in Belgium. As a matter of fact, it's one of the oldest styles of beer in the world. And by spontaneously fermented, I mean that within around a 20 mile radius in that region, there are wild yeast cultures in the air that descend upon the brew all by themselves. The yeast is never actually added, Lambic breweries pretty much just leave the windows open and things happen all on their own. As I learned this past Sunday while I was at 'beer school' in a bar in Chicago with Brian Van Zandbergen, an incredibly knowledgeable beer expert from Lindeman's importer, Merchant du Vin, Lambics are 60% wheat, 40% barley, and are made with "aged" (also known as stale) hops. Most of the Lambics that I tested out in our pairing session two weeks ago were fruit Lambics - such as apple, raspberry, and cherry - all quite sweet, though with varying levels of depth and body. Brian explained that Lindemans, one of a handful of Lambic producers in Belgium, adds their fruit (in puree form) after the fermentation process is complete, so that the sweetness of the fruit is preserved. Another Lambic producer that I tried a couple months back, Mort Subite, adds their fruit before the fermentation process, so you get more of the tartness and much less of the sweetness of the fruit. That said, overall, the Mort Subite line of Lambic beers does not make a very good pairing with chocolate, while the much sweeter Lindemans pairs extremely well. Tartness (in beer, wine, or other spirits) quite often goes sharply against the taste of chocolate.

Anyway, here's a brief rundown of what we tasted during the first pairing session. We were pairing the Lambics below with the Cote d'Or Lait, Lait Intense, Noir 54%, Noir 70%, Brut 86%, and Noir Orange:

Lindemans Pomme (Apple) Lambic: The general consensus with this one was that it paired very nicely with the Cote d'Or Lait Intense, a bar with a layer of dark chocolate encased in milk chocolate, and with the Cote d'Or Noir Orange, a 64% cacao bar infused with candied orange peel. It was not a good match with the darker chocolates, the 70% and the 86%; and it was ok (but not spectacular) with the 54%, and the Cote d'Or Lait.

Lindemans Peche (Peach) Lambic: This one was pretty good with several of the bars in the line, but not remarkable with any one of them. Almost everyone preferred this one with the Lait Intense layered bar, a couple of us liked the darker (70% and 86%) pairing, and a couple of us liked the Lait pairing. Looking at my notes today, it looks like no one really liked this Lambic with the 54%.

Lindemans Framboise (Raspberry) Lambic: This one was fabulous with the 86% (I'm familiar with that pairing from past sessions... and it was still just as good), and quite good with the 70% and medium good with the 54%. I thought it was horrible with the layered Lait Intense, but some people in the group liked that pairing, much to my surprise.

Lindemans Kriek (Cherry) Lambic: So, the Mort Subite Lambic I had a month ago that I mentioned above was also a cherry Lambic. It was incredibly tart and sour and made a 100% terrible pairing with the 86% bar I was hoping to pair it with at the time... so, having not yet been to beer school and not understanding the difference between different Lambic production processes, I thought that the Lindemans Cherry would be terrible as well.... but that wasn't the case at all! As a matter of fact, it was an all-around favorite. It went beautifully with practically everything in the Cote d'Or line, but the star pairing was with the Noir 54%.

Lindemans Cassis Lambic: This one went best with the 54%, but was too odd and tart for the lighter milk chocolates and went bitterly against the 86%. Not an ideal pairing either way.

Lindemans Cuvee Rene Grand Cru Gueuze Lambic: So this Lambic doesn't have any fruit added to it. Gueuze is a blend of one-year and two-year Lambics that then go through a second fermentation in the bottle. The taste is incredibly crisp and tart with notes of green grape skins and granny smith, which, while rather interesting all on its own, made a pretty terrible pairing with the chocolates we were trying. The only one that was somewhat tolerable was the Cote d'Or Lait. But 'tolerable pairings' weren't quite what we were going for.

Photographs of Lindemans Lambic Beers from Merchant Du Vin website.