Lambics

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A style of beer brewed through spontaneous fermentation, often sour and fruity in flavor profiles
2. Referring to a traditional type of Belgian beer made without additives, primarily using wild yeast
3. Describing a fermentation process unique to certain regional ales, characterized by their complex and tart taste

Etymology: The Belgian beer "lambic" takes its name from a distillation vessel. Its ancestor is the Ancient Greek "ámbix", a cap or still-head used in distilling, which passed into Arabic as "al-inbīq" (the alembic, the still). Medieval Latin turned that into "alembīcum", and Old French made it "alambic", a term for the apparatus used to distil liquids. Nothing about a stout or a sour is in the picture yet; the word was originally about the still itself. The beer connection runs through Dutch. In the Flemish-speaking Pajottenland, southwest of Brussels, the spontaneously fermented beer was called "lambiek" in Belgian Dutch, and the word was borrowed into French as "lambic". English took the word from French, so "lambics" is simply the plural form used for the beers themselves. The path from a distilling vessel to a wild-fermented ale runs through a sound change and a regional name, not a deliberate coinage.