Night of the Great Thirst

Nacht van de Grote Dorst or Night of the Great Thirst is a biannual beer festival held to promote and celebrate one of the most unique Belgian beer traditions: Lambic. The 2014 edition of this festival, held on Friday April 25th, marked its ten year anniversary and was the biggest to date.

Saint Ursula church in Eizeringen with some festival tents

Some background
The first Nacht van de Grote Dorst was held in 2004 as a protest against the Federal Food Agency (FAVV) in Belgium who wanted to close down a number of lambic breweries because they thought that fermenting beer in open coolships were unsanitary. The main problem was that the FAVV food inspectors were unfamiliar with the age old brewing process of spontaneous fermentation.

Fortunately, since then the FAVV has backed down and the relationship is now good between the lambic brewing community and the food inspectors. But the original festival turned out so successful that the organizers decided to hold it every second year from then on, in order to celebrate and promote the lambic way of life.

The festival is arranged by HORAL (the High Council of Artisanal Lambic Beers) together with the famous lambic café In de Verzekering tegen de Grote Dorst in the village of Eizeringen, just off Ninoofsesteenweeg (N8) - the long straight road that heads west out of Brussels to Ninove:

Eizeringen is located about 15 km west of central Brussels

Café In de Verzekering tegen de Grote Dorst, Flemish for "In insurance against the great thirst", is located opposite the Saint Ursula church and has the look and feel of a 1940s era Flemish café, there is no modern technology visible inside - even the bills are tabulated on a piece of paper. As mentioned in an earlier post, the café is only open on Sundays and church holidays when the owners - the brothers Kurt and Yves Panneels - have time off from their regular day jobs. For them, the café is a labor of love, a way to keep an old tradition alive.

The festival is usually held at the café, but this year the organizers had acquired the use of the entire church square as well as the church lawn, for erecting big party tents and movable toilets, as it was expected that some 3,000 visitors, from all around the globe, would show up. Apparently, the café had been turned into a gallery for famous Belgian cartoonist Erwin Vanmol, displaying his drawings of beer related topics.

Getting there
In the late afternoon on Friday April 25th, a friend of mine and I got on the bus (line 128) at De Brouckère, a few blocks from Grand Place in Brussels, and enjoyed a scenic 30 minutes bus ride west, passing along the way the red brick stone buildings of the old Eylenbosch lambic brewery in Schepdaal, before getting off the bus at Eizeringen Kruispunt. From there it was just a five minutes walk to the church square.

The festival
I arrived about an hour before the 7 pm opening, so I got the chance to look around the festival area to find a suitable table but also speak with some of the volunteer helpers before things got hectic. It seems that most of the inhabitants of Eizeringen had been called upon to help organize this event, helping with the selling of tokens, the pouring of beer, carrying stuff around, cleaning up etc.

All the beer stands were in the big tent on the church square

In order to get beer you had to purchase a small 15 cl tasting glass, with the Nacht van de Grote Dorst logo printed on it, as well as some tokens to pay with at the different stands. Beer prices varied from 1 token for lambic from cask to 8-10 tokens for a bottle. Some of the rarer bottles could cost as much as 20-30 tokens. Because you had to buy a full bottle to taste a beer it made sense to join a group of people to share with, so my friend and I invited a couple of American visitors, sitting on the neighboring table, to share the bottles we bought. And they did vice versa for us, so that we managed to taste more beers than if we had been on our own.

This year the festival had outgrown the small café so guests either had to find seating outside or stand around the tall tables inside the big beer tent. The latter becoming very packed a few hours into the festival, making it difficult to get more beer. Another novelty this year, one I'm not particular fond of, was the stage next to the big beer tent where live music was played from 8 o'clock. For me, such a festival is all about meeting like minded people and enjoying good beer, so loud music really is a nuisance. I hope the organizers will skip that part of the program for the next festival, just let us talk - that will be noisy enough.

The food was catered for by a butcher that has been at several of the previous events at De Grote Dorst, he had a big food stall on the church lawn where burgers, meat and that traditional dark blood sausage of Flanders were grilled and served. It was really tasty beer food!

... and the beers
At the 2014 festival lambic based sour ales from all the traditional lambic producers in Belgium were available, mostly in bottle but a few also offered lambic or kriek from small casks or bag-in-box systems. With 14 different brands, each with multiple beers, I certainly didn't stand a chance to get through the entire selection in one night. Here follows a summary of lambic breweries and blenders that had beers at the festival.

Brouwerij Boon
Brouwerij Boon is a lambic brewery and blending business in Lembeek, founded in the 1970s by Frank Boon who still runs the company. Frank Boon is one of the reasons we still have traditional lambics; together with Jean-Pierre Van Roy of Cantillon and Armand Debelder of 3 Fonteinen, Frank Boon worked hard to promote traditional lambic in an era when some of the biggest names sold out and started making sweet fruit based ales. Boon brought along the famous Geuze Mariage Parfait and Kriek Mariage Parfait to the festival, and I swear I also saw a few bottles of Oude Geuze Boon VAT 44, released for the Tour de Geuze 2013, though it wasn't listed in the official program.

Geuzestekerij De Cam
Founded in Gooik in 1997, this is a small lambic blending business run by Karel Goddeau on his sparetime (his real occupation is as a brewer at Slaghmuylder!). Gouddeau learned the art of blending lambic from Armand Debelder (while he tought Armand how to brew), and today makes some of the best oude geuze available. For Nacht van de Grote Dorst, he sent along De Cam Kriek Lambiek and Oude Lambiek, but unfortunately none of the excellent Oude Geuze.

Cantillon
Founded in 1900, when gueuze was all the rage in Brussels, Cantillon is a small, family owned and operated brewing and blending business in the Anderlecht area of Brussels. It is also a working museum in the sense that visitors can go on tours to see all parts of the brewery, from the mechanical mash tun on the ground floor to the shiny copper coolship just underneath the ceiling. Since 2009, the brewery has been in the hands of the 4th generation of the Van Roy-Cantillon family, the dynamic Jean Van Roy. Cantillon sent along a number of exciting beers to the festival, such as the Vigneronne made with white wine grapes and Saint Lamvinus made with red (Merlot), Fou'Foune made with apricot and the rare Lou Pepe Gueuze - a geuze made with 2 year old lambic only. To complete the line-up, there were also bottles of the regular Gueuze, Rosé de Gambrinus and Grand Cru Bruocsella.

Brouwerij de Troch
This old lambic brewery, founded and based in Wambeek since 1795, was the first to add fruit to geuze and is mainly known for their Chapeau series of fruit beers which is largely exported to the US. For this festival, Brouwerij de Troch sent their Oude Geuze and Kriek.

Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen
Beersel based Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen, headed by HORAL co-founder Armand Debelder, is one of the most traditional lambic producers in Belgium, refusing to offer geuze on draught since that is historically incorrect (as Armand likes to say, "You won't find good Champagne on tap, so Geuze shouldn't be either"). For the festival, 3 Fonteinen sent along several fairly new creations, such as Intense Red, a kriek relased for Tour de Geuze 2013 and made with 400 gram cherries per liter beer and the brand new Golden Doesjel, made by blending 75% of Doesjel and 25% of Golden Blend. 3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze Vintage 2007 and Schaerbeekse Kriek 2005 were also available at the festival.

A bottle of 3 Fonteinen Golden Doesjel
- at Nacht van de Grote Dorst 2014

Hanssens Artisanaal
Located on a farm in Dworp, this small lambic blending businesses is run by a husband and wife couple on their sparetime. When lambic brewer Jean Hanssens retired in 1997, his daughter Sidy and her husband, John Matthys, decided to keep the old business alive and established Hanssens Artisanaal. They stopped brewing but has kept up the blending business, purchasing their lambic from other brewers. Hanssens was the first blender to start using the Oude Geuze and Oude Kriek denomination for its beers. Both of these were brought along to the festival, along with the weird strawberry lambic - Oudbetje

Brouwerij Girardin
Located in Sint-Ulriks-Kapelle, Brouwerij Girardin is a small family business but still one of the most important lambic breweries in Belgium, not mainly because of its own beers but because they sell lambic wort, for aging and blending to others; both 3 Fonteinen, De Cam, Hanssens and Tilquin buy their lambic from Girardin! Of their own beers, Girardin sent along the Oude Lambiek, Kriekenlambiek, Gueuze Black Label, Faro and Framboise to the festival.

Brouwerij Lindemans
This old family brewery in Vlezenbeek stopped making traditional geuze when the market folded in the midt 20th century, but the new EU designation of traditional lambic and the awakening interest in old style geuze caused Brouwerij Lindemans to start up production again in 2005. Lindemans may be best known for the sweet Lindemans Kriek, the first sweet kriek to become popular in the early 1970s. But Lindemans now also make some decent sour ales - two of which were available at the festival: Oude Lambiek and the Oude Geuze Cuvée René.

Brouwerij Moriau
There was a stand for Brouwerij Moriau at the festival, a lambic brewery in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw that was known for their Moriau Geuze but which closed in 1992. Recently, the beer has been revived by the Boon brewery which blends and release the Moriau Geuze.

Mort Subite
Named after the famous bar À la Mort Subite in Brussels, the De Keersmaeker brewery in Kobbegem was famous for brewing the Mort Subite sour ales until acquired by brewery giant Alken-Maes in 2000. Though the old Keersmaeker name is largely forgotten, the brewery still exists and do make sour ales in addition to sweetened beers (such as the terrible Mort Subite Xtreme series). For the festival, visitors were offered bottles of Oude Geuze and Oude Kriek - decent, unsweetened sour ales.

Oud Beersel
As the name implies, Oud Beersel is the oldest lambic producer in Beersel, founded in 1882 and in regular operations until 2003 when the aging brewer retired without a heir. Fortunately, two fans took it upon themselves to revive Oud Beersel and in 2005 the business re-opened but only as a lambic blender, the brewery equipment having been sold. Today, Oud Beersel is run by Gert Christiaens who travels to Boon for brewing the lambic which is then aged on oak in the cellar at Oud Beersel. For this festival Oud Beersel Oude Lambiek, Oude Geuze and Oude Kriek was on offer.

Gueuzerie Tilquin
The newest lambic blending business in Belgium, Gueuzerie Tilquin, was founded in 2009 by Pierre Tilquin, a young brewer from Wallonia who had studied under Armand Debelder at 3 Fonteinen and Jean-Pierre van Roy at Cantillon to learn how to brew, age and blend lambic. Located in from Bierghes, just south of the Flanders Walloon border, Gueuzerie Tilquin has grown quickly in fame and production volume with lambic bought from Lindemans, Girardin, Boon and even Cantillon (Cantillon usually never sell their lambic but made an exception for Tilquin). Tilquin Oude Lambiek, Oude Geuze and Oude Quetsche 2013-2014 were on sale at the festival.

Brouwerij Timmermans
Founded in 1702, Brouwerij Timmermans is the oldest lambic brewery in Belgium and one of the most spectacular, located in the heart of Itterbeek in a white painted brick building with what must surely be the biggest coolship in the world. The brewery was sold to the John Martin Group in 1993 and stopped making traditional geuze for a few years, until re-introducing the Oude Geuze in 2009 and the Oude Kriek in 2010 - both bart of the Timmermans Tradition series. For the festival, Timmermans offered several Tradition beers, such as Oude Gueuze, Oude Kriek and Blanche Lambicus - the last one a wheat lambic.

In addition to the above Belgian producers, the festival had an exclusive guest from America. What, you may think, an American brewery at a Belgian sour ale festival?! Yes, really - Allagash was present!

Allagash Brewing Company
Portland, Maine, based Allagash Brewing Co has been inspired by Belgian beer styles ever since its founding by Rob Tod in 1994. A few years ago the brewery acquired its own coolship, one of those shallow, open metal tanks where wort is cooled over night and inoculated by yeast from the ambient air - to undergo what is known as spontaneous fermentation. Which is exactly what traditional lambic brewing is all about! Allagash sent along three of their Coolship beers to the festival and they turned out so popular that Allagash was the first beer stand to run out of beer! Fortunately, I had been sensible enough to get a bottle of each, shortly after the festival opened, so I got to try all three of them.

A bottle of Allagash Coolship Cerise
- at Nacht van de Grote Dorst 2014

- Allagash Coolship Red (5.7%): This is their version of a framboise, made by steeping raspberries for four months in a two year old, spontaneously fermented sour ale. It poured a reddish amber color and smelled and tasted strongly of raspberry, but with some funky notes and a good acidity.

- Allagash Coolship Cerise (8.1%): This is their version of an oude kriek, made by steeping sour cherries for four months in a two year old, spontaneously fermented sour ale. It really tasted of sour cherries with notes of cherry pits.

- Allagash Coolship Resurgam (6.6%): This is their version of a traditional geuze, made by blending a two year old spontanesouly fermented beer with an 18 months old and a 6 months old ("jonge lambik") before refermentation in bottle. The one I tried had been bottled in May 2011, making it almost three years old, it tasted of sour fruits, lemon peel and had some funky barnyard notes in the aftertaste - very tasty and refreshing.

Concluding remarks
A little before 10 pm, the beer tent was so crowded that I found it hard to get through to the beer stands to get more beer, and there were queues for the toilets, the food stall and to buy more tokens, so I decided it was time to call it a day and catch the next bus back to Brussels.

My overall impressions of Nacht van de Grote Dorst 2014 is that this is an excellent addition to the much older Weekend of Spontaneous Fermentation festival in Buggenhout, the two festivals differ both in style and popularity so they complement each other really well. I will probably return for Nacht van de Grote Dorst 2016, but intend to do like this year - be there at the opening and call it a day as soon as things get too crowded for comfort.

Visitors queuing for tokens at Nacht van de Grote Dorst

More photos can be found at Flickr in this album.

Counting down to Tour de Geuze 2013

For those hooked on sour beer not much comes up to the high standards of the Belgian lambics, those spontaneously fermented beers that have been brewed in Pajottenland and the Zenne river valley, just outside modern Brussels, for centuries. Lambics can be enjoyed young but they really prove their worth when blended across several vintages to create geuze or when steeped with berries, such as cherries and raspberries, to create kriek and framboise. Bottles of geuze can be cellared for decades and will often still come out sparkling and fresh.

3 Fonteinen / De Cam Millennium Geuze from 1998
- still sparkling and fresh after 15 years!

A visit to a lambic brewery is like walking back in time (the Cantillon brewery in Brussels even doubles as a museum!), with brewing equipment and traditions unchanged for generations. In most cases, it's next to impossible to get inside a working lambic brewery, the aforementioned Cantillon brewery being a notable exception, because the brewers fear anything that can possibly upset their local flora of wild yeast strains. But on one Sunday, every second year, the members of HORAL open their doors to visitors: It's time for Tour de Geuze!

HORAL and Tour de Geuze
HORAL or Hoge Raad voor Ambachtelijke Lambiekbieren is the "High Council for Artisanal Lambic beer" and consists of members from Pajottenland and the Zenne valley in Belgium. This organization was the brain child of Armand Debelder, the owner of 3 Fonteinen, who initiated HORAL with five other lambic breweries, including Boon, De Troch and Timmermans, on January 10, 1997.

Armand Debelder of Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen
- founder and leader of HORAL.

A member of HORAL must either be a traditional lambic brewer or a "geuzestekerij", a geuze blender - using real lambics to produce geuze. There are currently 11 members of HORAL: Brouwerij Boon in Lembeek, Geuzestekerij De Cam in Gooik, Brouwerij De Troch in Wambeek, Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen and Brouwerij Oud Beersel in Beersel, Brouwerij Girardin in Sint-Ulriks-Kapelle, Geuzestekerij Hanssens Artisanaal in Dworp, Brouwerij Lindemans in Vlezenbeek, Brouwerij Mort Subite in Kobbegem, Gueuzerie Tilquin in Rebecq-Rognon and Brouwerij Timmermans in Itterbeek

Three of these, prefixed Geuzestekerij or Gueuzerie, only blends geuze, using lambics bought from the other members or from Cantillon, which is not a member of HORAL.

As mentioned in the introduction, every second year HORAL arranges a special tour to allow ordinary people to visit its member breweries and blenders. The first Tour de Geuze was held back in 1997, the next one - the 9th so far - will be held this year, on Sunday April 21st, 2013.

Tour de Geuze 2013: April 21st
On the Tour de Geuze visitors are free to come by car, scooter, bike or any other means of transportation to visit those breweries that are open for the tour. The following 8 HORAL members are open this year and can be visited between 10 am and 5 pm on April 21st:

- Brouwerij Boon, Fonteinstraat 65, 1502 Lembeek
- Geuzestekerij De Cam, Dorpstraat 67A, 1755 Gooik
- Brouwerij De Troch, Langestraat 20, 1741 Wambeek
- Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen, Hoogstraat 2A, 1650 Beersel
- Geuzestekerij Hanssens Artisanaal, Vroenenbosstraat 15/1, 1653 Dworp
- Brouwerij Oud Beersel, Laarheidestraat 230, 1650 Beersel
- Gueuzerie Tilquin, Chaussée Maieur Habils 110, Rebecq-Rognon
- Brouwerij Timmermans, Kerkstraat 11, 1701 Itterbeek

Giradin, Lindemans and Mort Subite will not be open to visitors on this Tour de Geuze.

The route this year, connecting all breweries and blenders, is 62 km long - so you really need transport to get around. If you don't have your own wheels, you can sign up for one of the HORAL buses. Tickets for the HORAL buses will be made available for orders on the Tour de Geuze website, on February 21st.

Here's a Google map showing the route of Tour de Geuze 2013, with each of the stops clearly marked with a letter:

Map of the stops at Tour de Geuze 2013

The stops marked on the map are A) Tilquin, B) Boon, C) De Cam, D) De Troch, E) Timmermans, F) 3 Fonteinen, G) Oud Beersel and H) Hanssens.

2013-02-21 update:
Tickets for ten different bus tours have now been posted on the HORAL website, at €15 per ticket. No single tour covers all 8 breweries and the De Lambiek museum in Beersel, so you will have to decide which places you prefer to visit and then choose the relevant tour. But be quick, some of the buses are almost booked full (#2, #3 and #6 have just a couple of tickets left) only a few hours after the tour alternatives were posted!

After some reflections I booked a seat for myself on bus tour #3 because two of my favorite lambic breweries - Boon and 3 Fonteinen - will be visited on this tour. And it skips the lambic museum, which I plan to visit on a different trip anyway. Bus tour #3 will depart from Halle railway station at 10:15 am on April 21st and visit Tilquin, Boon, De Oude Cam, Timmermans and 3 Fonteinen before returning to Halle railway station at 5 pm.

21st Weekend of Spontaneous Fermentation

Belgium is well known for a wide variety of beer styles and for its many beer festivals, one of the more special and longest running festivals is the Weekend of Spontaneous Fermentation which was held for the 21st time on May 26-27, 2012.  This is an account of my second visit to this unique sour ale festival.

Kerk Sint-Gerardus Majella in Opstal, Buggenhout

How to get there?

Opstal is a small village on the outskirts of Buggenhout in East Flanders, about 25 km or 40 minutes drive north west of Brussels. It is not necessarily easy to get to Opstal, I don't know about the buses but you can either share a cab or take a train to the nearest train station and walk from there. Taxis are rare to find in the countryside, so don't count on finding one if you get off at a small railway station.

Feestzaal Beukenhof on Broekstraat 18

The nearest train station to the Feestzaal Beukenhof on Broekstraat 18, where the festival is held, is the one in Heizijde - a little over 2 km or 20 minutes walk away. If you're in Brussels, go to the Bruxelles-Nord train station where you can catch several trains an hour to Heizijde. From Heizijde start by walking north along the Klein-Antwerpenstraat which changes into Kakemanstraat, follow this road until it ends and then turn left onto Varentstraat. Follow this road into Opstal and finally turn right on Broekstraat where the festival area is located just past the church, on the other side of the road. The train ride should take a little over half an hour, so all in all it will take you close to an hour to get from Brussels to the festival.

I ended up sharing a taxi with three friends, to cut the travel time and expenses. It still took us a good 40 minutes to get there, because of outdated GPS data and a confused driver who failed to read the road signs (taxi drivers in Brussels seem lost as soon as the leave the city, so always be alert). We arrived a little later than planned, almost half an hour after the opening, for a grand total 60 Euro. 

So, even though taxi is the fastest and easiest way to get to the festival, always make sure to have plenty of time to get there for the 3 pm opening.

The Weekend of Spontaneous Fermentation

Weekend der Spontane Gisting, as it's known in the local Flemish dialect, or The Weekend of Spontaneous Fermentation is an annual beer festival arranged by an organization called De Opstalse Bierpallieters - "the beer tasters of Opstal" - in Opstal, Buggenhout. This 2-day festival is always held on the last weekend of May, 2012 being the 21st time it was held.

Casks of young lambic and kriek lining the wall.

What makes this festival so special is that it focuses exclusively on one of the most remarkable beer styles that exists in the world today, a type of beer that has died out in most other countries, that of spontaneous or wild yeast fermentation. 

Spontaneous fermentation is actually a pretty wide category and not really a beer style. The common theme is that you don't use a regular "tamed" yeast culture, such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae (for top fermented ales) or Saccharomyces carlsbergensis (for bottom fermented lagers). Instead, the brewer relies on the ambient air of the brewery to provide the untamed, wild yeast to start the fermentation. This is a much less controlled way of fermenting beer, with many potential problems such as infection due to the open cooling vats (coolships), but it also produces some of the most amazing beer styles you can immagine:

• Fruit lambic: Usually dry, fruity and colorful beers.
• Most often made with cherries (kriek) or raspberries (framboise / framboos).
• Other fruits used may be peaches, currants or strawberries.
• Some brewers sweeten their fruit lambics to make them easier to sell.
• Faro: This is a type of geuze with brown sugar added for sweetening.
• Faro was very popular in late 19th century Brussels but is now almost gone.
• Geuze / gueuze: A blend of several years, refermented in the bottle.
• Many geuze blenders use a blend of 1, 2 and 3 year old lambics, where the young lambic provides sugar for the bottle refermentation and the older character.

The geuze, in particular, has made a revival thanks to its dry, fruity and often sparkling - Champagne like - character. Thanks to its production and long maturation, the geuze is known to cellar well for up to 20-30 years!

The Weekend of Spontaneous Fermentation 2012.

The atmosphere and the beers

In 2012 the festival was held on May 26-27 at the Tapperij Beukenhof in Opstal. Like the year before, the entrance was free, so you only had to pay for what you tasted - and the prices are really reasonable, with twenty year old bottles of geuze going for only 15-20 Euro!

This has to be one of the most relaxing festivals in the world, every visitor is seated by one of the many tables and all orders are placed by holding up the hand, just like in school, so that one of the staff notices and comes over to your table. The beer menu is numbered so you just have to point to the items of interest and indicate if you want more than one glass, in case you want to share a bottle. It works really well, as it removes the concept of queues and gives plenty of space on the floor, allowing guests to pass freely to the restrooms or in and out of the festival.

Parallel tasting cask lambics from four different breweries.

The visitors to the 21st Weekend of Spontaneous Fermentation were treated to a great mixture of young and and old sour ales. Like last year most of the lambic brewers of Belgium and some of the blenders had sent in casks with lambic and kriek.

In all there were 12 different lambics served on cask, including very nice ones from 3 Fonteinen, De Troch, Hanssens, De Cam and Cantillon, as well as 8 kriekenlambieks.

It's smart to start out with the young lambics as they tend to be simpler and less acidic than some of the aged oude geuze bottles. As for the amount of alcohol, don't worry - most lambics are just 5% abv and the tasting glasses are 15 cl - so take your time and do parallel tastings to see how the lambics differ in fruitiness, sourness, bitterness, woodiness and other characteristics. It's both fun and educational to compare notes with table neighbors.

When through with the cask ales it's smart to gang up with some of your table mates to share bottles, many of them are 75 cl and best shared with 3-4 others. There are some 37.5 cl bottles too, but that is still a lot to drink if you want to get through a large number of beers in one sitting. So, sharing bottles is a great way to get through more beers and to make new friends.

One of the older bottles I tried was the 1993 Sélection Lambic Gueuze from Belle-Vue, a beer that hasn't been made since 1999 (probably because Belle-Vue was bought up by InBev). Unfortuanetly, this 19 year old geuze was way over the top, oxidized and with a strong lemon acidity making it almost undrinkable. 

Cantillon Zwanze 2010 - still a winner.

A far better choice was the 2004 vintage of Boon Oude Geuze Mariage Parfait, still fruity and fresh and really well balanced sour ale for just 10 Euro. 

Among the younger sour ales, the Cantillon Zwanze 2010 is always a winner with its wonderful floral (elderflowers) sourness - a refreshing beer I can drink bottles of alone. 

Another bottled highlight was the Girardin Fond Gueuze Bierpallieters 2009, the official Jubileumbier for the 2011 festival. It combined lemon sourness and a mild brettanomyces character with mild oak and dry leaves in a wonderful way. Too bad we were not allowed to buy any bottles to bring home this year.

For those who can't drink sour ales for an entire day, the festival has made an exception to the rule of only having spontaneously fermented beers on their menu: The two local Buggenhout breweries, De Landtsheer and Bosteels, are both represented with their world class beers. De Landtsheer with their Malheur series - including the 10, 12 and Malheur Bière Brut - while Bosteels come with Kwak and Tripel Karmeliet. 

Finally a few words on the food. The festival doesn't serve warm food or any large dishes of cold food, so it's common to bring snacks and food on your own, but they do have a very nice cheese and salami platter and also some sort of sandwiches (which I haven't tried).

Conclusion

After my second year at The Weekend of Spontaneous Fermentation I feel stronger than ever that this is one of the best beer festivals on the planet, it's small, it's quiet and it has the best selection of young and old sour ales you could ever dream of trying. Thus, I have already reserved the last weekend of May 2013 for another visit to Opstal. 

Photos from the festival can be found at Flickr: 2011 and 2012.

Visit to Cantillon

World famous lambic brewery Cantillon in Brussels, Belgium, is also famous for being a keeper of traditions. The brewery acts as a living museum, with equipment from the early 20th century still in daily use, allowing visitors to experience the history of lambic brewing and gueuze blending.

The iconic Cantillon sign outside the brewery. 

Early history - the founding

Located in Rue Gheude 56 in the Anderlecht district of southwest Brussels, just a couple of blocks from the Gare du Midi train station, Cantillon was founded at its present address in 1900 by one Paul Cantillon.

Paul was the son of a Lembeek brewer and had purchased an old warehouse, dating back to 1874, to start blending gueuze which was all the rage in Brussels in those days - most cafés would blend their own gueuze from lambics bought from lambic breweries in Pajottenland - just outside the city.

Initially, there were no plans of brewing lambic at Cantillon. It was Paul's sons, Marcel and Robert, who took this next step. They set about purchasing some second hand equipment and manufacturing a copper mash tun, and in November 1937 the first lambic wort flowed into the coolship at Cantillon - a new lambic brewery was born, and inside the city of Brussels.

In 1962, the twenty year old teacher Jean-Pierre Van Roy met a lovely young girl, Claude Cantillon, without realizing she was the daughter of Marcel Cantillon, then owner and head brewer of Cantillon. Claude and Jean-Pierre fell in love and eventually married, in 1967. The same year they received a son and a future brewer, Jean. Two years later, his father-in-law told him "either you take over or I close the brewery". Jean-Pierre duly did, learrning the art of brewing lambic from his father-in-law.

A copper brewing kettle from 1937 still in use at Cantillon.

Recent history - sticking to traditions

When Jean-Pierre took over the brewery in 1969, he decided to stick with the Cantillon name. For several decades, Jean-Pierre battled an uphill struggle to keep the lambic tradition alive in Belgium, at a time when most other lambic brewers either closed or started producing sweet, fruit beers.

The classic Cantillon Gueuze 100% Lambic Bio.

Only in the last 10-15 years, after the US market discovered his amazing traditional gueuze, tart and sour, has he been repaid for his labor. Cantillon is now recognized, across the world, as a keeper of Belgian lambic traditions.

In September 2009, Jean-Pierre brewed his last batch of lambic, leaving the brewing and gueuze blending to the great-grandson of the brewery's founder: His own son, Jean Van Roy. Jean has learned the art of lambic brewing and gueuze blending by his father's side, over the last twenty years, even introducing some of his own ideas - such as the famed Zwanze series - before taking over as the new head brewer of Cantillon.

Jean Van Roy has shown a greater will to experiment than his father, creating a number of new sour ales and even introducing Roman-style ceramic amphoras for maturing lambic instead of the traditional oak. As of 2012, the Cantillon brewery seems to be in very good and capable hands with the fourth generation of the Cantillon-Van Roy family in charge.

Public Brewing Session

Twice a year, one Saturday in March and one Saturday in November, Cantillon hosts a Public Brewing Session, where visitors can come in and watch the entire process of brewing a traditional lambic. On November 12, 2011, I attended one such brewing session and here follows a few photos and a brief account of that experience.

Brewing a lambic is a time consuming enterprise, because of the unusually long boiling times of 3-6 hours, so the brewing day starts early. At cantillon at 7 am. So get up early if you want to witness it all. Here's a typical brewing schedule:

Hot water and ground malt going into the
mash tun at Cantillon. Notice the leakage!

07-09: Mash-in
Witness the ground malt getting mixed with hot water and poured into the mash tun to extract the fermentable wort. Pay attention to all the cranky mechanics used to close and open ancient valves, and look for sudden leaks that are handled by placing a bucket on the floor.

09-12: Transfer to brew kettle
Witness the filtration and hopping of the wort as it gets ready for transfer to the brew kettle.

12-15: Boil-in
The hopped wort is boiled in two large copper brew kettles for at least three hours, reducing the liquid from 10,000 litres to 7,500 in order to raise the gravity of the wort, break up starches and reduce the bitterness of the hops.

15:30 Coolship
After the long boiling, the wort is pumped to the coolship upstairs, just underneath the ceiling, where the wort is allowed to cool overnight and become germinated with the wild yeast - Brettanomyces bruxellensis - living in the walls of the old brewery. The next day, the cooled wort will be transferred into big oak barrels, formerly used for aging red wines in Bordeaux or Rioja, for primary fermentation, which may take a couple of months, and then aging for up to three years.

The coolship at Cantillon is located right under the ceiling.

The Cantillon Public Brewing Sessions are very popular events in Brussels so the small brewery will quickly feel swamped by people, so it's smart to be there when the brewery opens at 6:30 am and take the very first tour, before the line of people with cameras gets too long. If you do that, you can sit down at the brasserie section and enjoy some of their lambics and gueuze while watching new visitors line up for the later tours.

Cantillon is also open for visits outside the Public Brewing Sessions, both the brasserie and the brewery / museum (self-guided tours). On Mondays to Fridays they're open from 9 am to 5 pm and on Saturdays from 10 am to 5 pm.

A bottle of Cuvée Saint-Gilloise and gueuze cheese at Cantillon.

Photo sets from my visits to Cantillon can be found at Flickr: May and November 2011.