Today is Valentinte’s Day, the perfect day to tell you about my newest beer fascination:  lambics. Lambics hold a very strong root originally brewed in the Pajottenland, a regions of Belgium (southwest of Brussels); fits into several popular modern craft beer categories as well. Some recent categories I have seen lambics fall into are sours, fruit, farmhouse, wheat, and saison ales. According to lindemans.com, "A Lambic is 30% wheat and 70% malt spontaneous fermented beer seasoned with hops. The most typical difference between the brewing process of a conventional lager beer and a lambic are the following: to brew a spontaneous fermented lambic, no yeast is artificially added to the wort, but the wort is exposed to open air."

While exploring the world of different lambics, I found A FANTASTIC Frambroise (Raspberry) Lambic Beer Sorbetto on www.yummly.com, and it’s perfect for Valentine’s Day. Treat your significant other to a sweet, pink treat for dessert tonight.

The recipe is as follows:

6 cups of fresh raspberries

1 tsp lemon juice

simple syrup (1 cup sugar/1 cup water)

1 cup of Framboise Lambic

Place the raspberries and lemon juice in a food processor. Puree until smooth, pour through a fine-mesh strainer into a bowl, pressing on the solids to extract the raspberry puree. Discard the seeds.

Whisk the chilled simple syrup into the raspberry puree. Put mixture in fridge to chill.

Pour the beer into a medium saucepan and place over medium heat. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat slightly, and boil for 1 minute. Watch the pan carefully so it doesn’t boil over. Remove from the heat and cool.

Gently whisk the beer into the raspberry mixture. Process in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.

In a medium saucepan, combine the water and sugar. Place over medium heat and bring to a boil, whisking often to dissolve sugar. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 4 minutes, while continuing to whisk until sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat and cool, then transfer to a container, cover and refrigerate until cold, at least 1 hour.

If you’re planning on simply sipping on a lambic, Serve at 40-45 degrees F and pair with chocolate desserts, light seafoods and steamed mussels. Or, even better, mix it with a chocolate stout—it’s better than chocolate covered strawberries.

What will you make your honey this holiday?

Nadine Sweeten, ABC Fine Wine & Spirits Beer Consultant, Sarasota

Follow me on Twitter @abcbeernadines