Gueuze

Gueuze fizzes in the glass like champagne and tastes sour, dry and wild. You may find lemon peel, green apple or rhubarb, and behind them the farmyard notes of wild yeast: hay, leather, a horse blanket. There are no hops to speak of, and almost no bitterness; the sourness balances the beer instead.

Where it comes from

Brewers in the Pajottenland and the Zenne valley, around Brussels, make lambic: a wheat beer that ferments with the wild yeasts and bacteria in the air, then ages in wooden barrels. Lambic on its own is still and flat. A gueuze blender mixes young lambic with old, then bottles it: the young beer still holds sugar, so it ferments again in the bottle and makes the gueuze sparkle. Cantillon, in Brussels, describes its gueuze plainly: a blend of lambics of different ages.

After the Second World War some producers sold filtered, sweetened beers under the same name. Small lambic brewers pushed back, and today the EU protects Oude Geuze as a traditional speciality guaranteed. The rules ask for 100% old lambic of spontaneous fermentation, a weighted average age of at least one year, at least three years in wood for the oldest part, and a second fermentation in the bottle. HORAL, the lambic brewers’ association, has organised the Toer de Geuze, an open day across the breweries, since 1997.

How to serve it

Pour it at 4–10 °C into a tulip glass, slowly, and leave the yeast in the bottle. Try it with mussels, with mascarpone and fruit, or with a rich chocolate cake. Look for oude or vieille on the label for the traditional dry version.

Next to its neighbours

Gueuze is more complex and more carbonated than a straight lambic, with a fuller wild character, though not always more sour. Kriek starts from the same lambic, with sour cherries added.

Gueuze in numbers

Classic example

Cantillon

Original gravity

1.040–1.054

Final gravity

1.000–1.006

Oude Geuze (EU TSG)

100% old lambic of spontaneous fermentation; weighted average age at least one year; the oldest part aged at least three years in wood; refermented in the bottle

Food

Mussels; mascarpone with fruit; rich chocolate cake

Classic examples

Cantillon Classic Gueuze; 3 Fonteinen Oud Gueuze; Oude Gueuze Boon; Hanssens Oude Gueuze; Girardin Gueuze 1882; Lindemans Gueuze Cuvée René

BJCP style

23E Gueuze

Sources

Checked October 29, 2026.

1. 23E. Gueuze, 2021 Beer Style Guidelines — Beer Judge Certification Program
2. Belgian-Style Lambic or Gueuze — CraftBeer.com, Brewers Association
3. Traditional Lambic Beers — HORAL, High Council for Artisanal Lambic Beers