Pierre Zuber, the man behind Delices et Caprices has sadly passed away. I had the opportunity to meet him (and several generations of his family as I recall) in 2015 as part of the European Beer Bloggers Conference. We took in his delightful shop as part of the pub crawl one evening but ended up staying most of the night there.

Pierre greeted us and then ambled around with a polypin of some rare unfiltered lambic, pouring for everyone, chatting to everyone, just like it was his living room and he’d invited a few friends around. I suspect most people who arrived at Delices et Caprices for the first time left as friends of Pierre.

For some years I had been searching for a bottle of Fou’Foune, Cantillon’s rare apricot lambic. The shelves of Delices et Caprices proved as bare as the others. I enquired as to whether he might have a bottle. There was a short pause while he summed me up, apparently I passed the audition and he said he would have a look. A good ten minutes later and he returned with a bottle. Then he asked me how much I would like to pay. I deferred to him but was very happy with the price.

His knowledge was great but his views not opinionated.

A gentle man and a gentleman. He will be missed by all who knew him.