Brasserie-Brouwerij Cantillon
Brussels, Belgium
There came a time last year where all I was craving was either psychotically fancy wine or Cantillon. I couldn’t deal with drinking anything in between. Looking back, this was a pretty terrible place to be, but in hindsight the feeling was real. On a recent European trip, a good Cantillon or similar beer became the defacto way of starting most evenings, the beer’s energetically acidic and complex structures whetting our appetites and priming our palates for the wines to come. Cantillon, a family brewery located in the center of Brussels that has been brewing wildly since 1900, fits into a similar place as Champagne within my imbibing structures—perfect as both bookends and palate cleansers, and always exciting on the tongue. This is a drink that simply makes one reconsider their definition of beer.
Rosé de Gambrinus
Lambic, Raspberries
$60