Lindemans is not the kind of brewer that I had expected to review any time soon on this website. Despite its respectable history as a lambic brewer, Lindemans has been mostly known for its production of sweetened lambics and taking shortcuts in brewing (oak chips instead of real barrel fermentation). As a results of the rapidly growing interest in traditional lambic in Belgium and wild ales in the United States, Lindemans has been increasing its production of traditional lambics in the form of year-round tradional geuze and kriek bottlings, and occasional special brews and collaborations. SpontanBasil is a collaboration between Lindemans and Mikkeler from Copenhagen, Denmark.

Despite being a limited release, I have seen SpontanBasil in local grocery stores since 2016. While some lambics and wild ales sell for prices  comparable to a good wine, I suspect that the almost $30 price tag did not make this beer fly off the shelves, despite its “ridiculously limited quantities.” Or at least, not in Portland. I got a lot more interested when a local store in my neighborhood decided to start offloading this beer by a substantial price drop.

SpontanBasil was made by modifying the traditional geuze process by  adding whole basil leaves to a batch of one to two-year old oak-aged lambic. Appropriately so, the green bottle also sports a green label that blends together the vintage art deco logo of Lindemans and the Mikkeler logo for a classic, and somewhat amusing, effect. Even the bottle cap covering the cork is green. As someone who increasingly seems to prefer the addition of herbs instead of fruits to lambic I was quite eager to sample this beer.

A pour of SpontanBasil in a Cantillon glass shows a clear golden color. The aroma is that of a classic geuze, oak, and a little bit of mild greens. The flavor is fresh and quite sour with mild tannins and what appears to be the medicinal flavor of basil in the aftertaste. Overall, the beer drinks like a good, classic geuze, with that little extra touch.

Since I do not have any other basil lambics or sours to go on I do not have a good idea of how much aroma and flavor one can expect from an experiment like this. I even purchased a little basil (later used for a basil tea) to use as a benchmark.  I have tasted a lot of dry-hopped lambics and sours with a wide variety of herbs and I must admit that I had hoped for stronger basil notes. I also wonder about the rate at which the basil aromas and flavor decrease over time. I know Cantillon recommends drinking its fruit lambics at a relatively young age and perhaps something similar applies to botanical brews such as this. Of course, maybe there was simply not enough basil, or the basil should also have been added during the boil itself.

Considering its rather weak basil character (at least, to my palate), pairing this beer with basil based dishes (as the distributor recommends) seems like a little bit of a stretch to me. But considering that geuze is my favorite beer style, I was still left with a rather good blend of lambics. It appears that Lindemans has a strong interest in adding botanicals to lambics (‘”Botanische Lambiekbieren'”)because, following Cantillon, they also released a lambic with elderflower named BlossomGeuze and recently announced a new bottling of lambic with Thai ginger named GingerGeuze.

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