Gotta sweet tooth?  Grab a lambic!  The lambic is a great, fruity summer quaff that can replace any hurricane or piña colada.  ABC offers fruit blended lambics, although there are unblended ones.  A lambic is a Belgian beer native to the Senne Valley where the hot wort is spontaneously fermented by wild yeast and other microorganisms in open barrels placed in the attic of the breweries.  It is a wheat-based beer, which evokes tartness from the yeast and bacteria that inoculate the barrels used for fermentation.  Because of the spontaneous fermentation and there is no way to tell what kind of yeast is floating in the mix, each batch is always different.  Brewers mellow the sourness by blending in fruit.  Framboise (raspberry), Kriek (cherry), Pêche (peach), Cassis (black currant), and Pomme (apple) are among the most popular flavors.

There are other forms of lambics.  Mars is a weaker version derived from the second running of a new lambic batch.  Faro is a lambic blended with sugar resulting in a very sweet, ice wine-like quality (the sugar is added too late in the process to ferment and turn to alcohol).  Gueuze is a blend of old and new lambics with a double fermentation, which produces large, Champagne-like carbon dioxide bubbles that can be kept in the bottle for as long as twenty years.  It is sometimes referred to as the “Champagne of Brussels” and the name comes from the Norman word for wheat.

Lambics can be used in beer cocktails.  One is called a black and red, which is a Framboise mixed with a chocolate stout such as Fort Collins Brewery’s “Chocolate stout”.  Just do half-and-half in a flute.  Another is Framboise and Champagne garnished with a raspberry or Kriek and Champagne garnished with a cherry.  Again, mix equal parts in a Champagne flute.

Most people know about Lindemans brand.  Some ABCs still have St Louis brand. Either way, if you want a sweet summer treat just grab your favorite flavor and enjoy!

Beer blogger Adam Shugan is assistant manager at our Archer Rd, Gainesville, store