Thought I'd post up a nice little piece about this trad Brussels lambic brewer, c&p'd from
it was good to reacquaint myself with some of these excellent, but challenging bers at GBBF. cheers Mike. _____________________________ Beer the old-fashioned way Time stands still at the Cantillon Brewery in Brussels By Jennifer Laidlaw BRUSSELS, Aug 25 — Time has stood still for more than a century at the Cantillon brewery in Brussels, where they still brew beer as they did in ancient Babylon. Hidden on a quiet street near the city's Gare du Midi train station where the high-speed Eurostar arrives from London and Paris, the family-owned brewery prides itself on being one of the last to make beer by spontaneous fermentation.
"We make our beer in the way they were making it in Babylon... what brewers always did until the end of the 19th century," says Jean-Pierre Van Roy, Cantillon's 61-year-old master brewer.
In a country where about 400 different kinds of beer are made, Van Roy says he is keeping a flame alive at a time when most traditional breweries have fallen by the wayside. "We are the very last to make beer like this," he said, sitting in the dimly-lit brewery surrounded by upturned barrels.
"There were more than 100 breweries at the beginning of the 20th century, but we remained a family business that is totally independent," he said.
Van Roy, who works with his wife and three children at the brewery, uses mash-tuns that date from 1900 to make the beer, the sour taste of which contrasts sharply with its deep honey color.
He uses no yeast and lets the brew ferment in open vats, exposing it to bacteria and natural yeasts; quite different from the modern method that bans any exposure to air.
"All the brewing schools in the world have said to future brewers: 'No contact with the air. Air is the worst enemy'. But we go after the air," he said. The special wheat brew, called Lambic, keeps fermenting in wooden barrels.
The Lambic forms the basis for making such renowned beers as Gueuze made from lambics of one-, two- and three-year vintages and Kriek, a cherry-flavored beer.
Each batch is unique and ensures a particularly sour taste, something which beers made by the modern method do not have, Van Roy says. "We are the defenders of a one and only taste in the world of beer: the acidic taste," he said. AGAINST THE ODDS A former teacher, Van Roy knew next to nothing about beer when he took over the brewery from his father-in-law in 1969. "I wanted to throw myself into this challenge," he said. "This old brewery was about to disappear and I said to myself: 'If only we can breathe new life into it, start it running again'."
Van Roy battled against the odds as his Belgian peers fell by the wayside during the 1970s. "I didn't just stay in my armchair. I traveled a lot in Brussels, abroad, I went to squares with my beers. It took me a lot of work, a lot of effort. My children were very young and my wife had to put up with it all," he said. He also looked at novel ways to bring in customers, such as guided tours and a museum, gradually making a name for himself among beer connoisseurs throughout the world. The number of people on the tours has risen from about 3,000 a year when they began in 1972 to 25,000. They come not only from Belgium, but Britain, France, the Netherlands and the United States. "It's not tourists that just arrive in Brussels, take a map and say: 'What are we going to do?' People come to Brussels to see us, that is very important," he said.
Van Roy has built up a network of clients in Belgium and more than other 10 countries. "For years, I knocked on doors to sell a bottle, and now people knock on my door to buy one," he said.
Although people have become more interested in micro-breweries and home-made beers, Van Roy says he does not expect to see an explosion in specialty breweries like his. "The kind of people who drink this beer will remain a very targeted group," he said. "If I had 20 people here and they all said they liked the beer, I would be very surprised."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.