It’s autumn in Sydney, which means spring in Europe, and for a bunch of loopy antipodean road cycling fanatics like ourselves, it’s classics season, heralding the beginning of 6 months of periodic sleep deprivation. The combination of a cool autumnal breeze and late night visions of the Ardenne forests need something long, flavoursome, and easily replenished, so here I present a version of a lambic based punch. (Lambic beers are, of course, more closely associated with the cobbles than the forested hills of the Ardennes or the… ummm… Italy of the Giro, so this particular recipe might have been more timely had I published it a month or so ago.)

It’s best to think of beer cocktails in the same way you might a martini. Different gins will drastically alter the character of a martini and the same rule applies to beers. Experimentation is key. In keeping with this, I have named the brands of the beers I’ve used, but it’s worth noting that if you live outside of Sydney you’ll find the Batch Brewing Alice wheat particularly hard to come by.

The Batch Brewing beer is a little stronger than your average wheat and I’ve found that, if you are using a lighter flavoured wheat beer, adding a touch of an IPA will give the desired robustness to the bitter beer profile. In this kind of recipe a witbier is often used to accompany the lambic (Hoegaarden for instance), and in that instance I definitely recommend bolstering the punch with 100-200ml of something fresh and bitter.

A beer brewed on Tasmanian Galaxy hops would be particularly good for this purpose, as the strong passionfruit and citrus notes will add to the fruit flavour, as well as increasing the bitterness.

There are a number of lambic sangrias/punches floating around, but I’ve opted for a higher alcohol content than might otherwise be found. A solid slug of a dry-ish gin is added for a fresh herbal juniper note,  I’ve added some of the maraschino preservation liquid too, which gives it a touch of extra sweetness and a Krieg-esque aftertaste.

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Flemish Punch

330ml Lindeman’s Framboise
300ml Batch Brewing Alice wheat beer
70ml maraschino cherry preservation liquid
90ml dry gin
70ml Cointreau
Juice of half a lemon
Orange slices
Mixed berries

Mix beers, gin, Cointreau, maraschino preservation liquid and lemon. Adjust to taste and stir over ice. Add fruit and stir again, being careful not to break up any soft berries.