They always say save the best for last, and in our last full day in Belgium we had a blast. From castle exploring to experiencing lambic straight from the barrels to dinner with great people, it was an awesome day and we couldn't have capped it much better.
If you're just joining in, you might check the three previous posts that detailed the 8 day trip my wife Jenni and I were fortunate enough to take before I left Flossmoor. Here's Tuesday in a nutshell:
We trained south of Brussels to Beersel. Here, we had a tour set up at
Drie Fontienen and
Boon, courtesy of Alex, the production manager of
Palm breweries. On this day we were meeting up with the San Diego crew, but they were driving from Ghent to Westvleteren to have some Westy 12s in the cafe. Since the tour was set at 3F for 2:30, Jenni and I went early to see the castle.
The Beersel cast
le was very cool. Some better pics can be found at this
site. Regardless, we braved the drizzly day and walked up and down several steps in search of the dungeon. We finally found it and I'm sure Jenni was happy because the annoying accent I was using as I pretended to be a knight running around a medieval castle was likely getting rather annoying. And I don't think she could stand another, "Have fun storming the castle" quote. Anyway, if you need something to divert your Belgian beer adventures, you must see the Beersel castle. They continue to renovate the site and it should be even better next time we go.
A break for lucnh inside the castle.
Jenni and I had a little more time to kill so we walked to Oude Beersel. Sadly, it seemed only open on Saturdays. We popped into two more cafes, Oude Pruim and Centrum Hotel for a beer while we killed time. These two places are listed in Tim Webb's "A Good Beer Guide To Belgium", a must have for the beery traveler. Thanks for loaning it to me Jeff.
Finally made it to the first stop on the brewery tours, Drie Fonteinen. Armand could not have been a better host. We met up with Alex, who is the production manager at Palm Breweries and he had arranged for us to see this brewery. Armand and his wife Lydie do all the work at this small lambic brewery. That, of course makes him very busy, but he graciously gave two hours! of his time to the American tourists.
Jeff Bagby, head of Pizza Port pubs in San Diego was the fearless leader throughout Belgium. Lookin' good Jeff.
Armand is telling us how lambic is REALLY made. He learned the gueze blending skill from his father (he learned it rather well, I must say). He has been doing it for many years and is now brewing and blending in Beersel. They also opened a cafe around the corner, but sadly it was closed that day so we couldn't indulge ourselves. This is me and Vince, the owner of Pizzza Port learning from the master.
3F had a coolship just as in Cantillon, but much smaller. A micro lambic brewer if you will? The fan is to keep the air moving so the wonderful organisms that make lambic special can find the sweet wort.
All lambic brewers seem to have a different way of "bunging" the casks when primary fermentation is finished. Armand just had a glass that perfectly fit in the bunghole. I didn't get a picture, but at the next brewery, Boon, they used cue balls from a billiards set!
Sampling Kriek in the tsting room. Armand pours it on beer engine as there is little to no carbonation and should not be pushed via CO2. Great Kreik.
Back in Armands cellar sampling lambic straight off the tank. This was quite a treat!
Drie Fonteinen is not only making some of the best lambic and gueze beer I tasted in Belgium, but Armand was such a great host during his busy day. Thanks!
Next stop, a little down the road in Lembeek, Boon Brewery.
A view on arrival.
The mash tun at Boon Brewery
The holding tank as the wort moves from Coolship to wooden barrel. Owner Fran Boon told us that if the barrel that the wort is going to is not ready it could sit in this tank for up to 3 days. Fermentation starts and is proof that the spontaneous fermentation from wild yeast in the air really happens.
The most amazing thing here was the barrels used for fermentation. They were nearly 10 feet tall! And he had 84 of them! They have a on-site cooper just for tending to the barrels. Really cool!
Once again, sampling from the casks. That is Frank Boon, another gracious host. He stayed late at work to show us his brewery, which was an amazing tour. The highlight was sampling a vertical of lambic of 1 month, 3 month, 1 year, 2 year, and 3 year. We could see how the lambic aged and get a glimpse into what the brewer/blender goes through as they try to make a consistent gueze. This was something I never would have been able to do on my own. Thanks Jeff and Alex for setting this tour up.
From there, the pictures end, but know that we had an amazing dinner with many bottles of lambic beers with Alex from Palm. Jenni and I had to take off the next morning to get home and pack up our house for the move to Oregon-not done yet as I type, yikes!-so said farewell to our friends from San Diego and hopped on the train back to Brussels. The trip back was uneventful and the beer I muled back made it safely (I can't say the same for the Kindereis-small chocolate eggs with toys inside- that we bought for our kids. Evidently they are illegal in this country and they had to take them. Thanks U.S. for controlling me so much and letting me know I am a bad parent and don't have the sense to take caution with my children. I toast you with the wonderful beers I brought back from Belgium!)
I wish I could better narrated the experiences I had while in Belgium. I hope a few of these pics and words in some way do it justice. I learned a ton, I drank a ton, and we laughed a ton. Thanks for the memories guys. Until we get back to do it again......
The stout is making a comeback at the Station. We are going to have a stout back on tap and see how well it fits in the regular line-up. We will be rotating the stout style to better fit the season. To begin this new house style, we will offer the Milky Way Stout. This has been my favorite sweet stout around for a while so why not bring it back as our lead-off brew. Hopefully we can squeeze in four or five stouts throughout the year.
Just a little info about the upcoming brews and when they will be released...
They always say save the best for last, and in our last full day in Belgium we had a blast. From castle exploring to experiencing lambic straight from the barrels to dinner with great people, it was an awesome day and we couldn't have capped it much better.
le was very cool. Some better pics can be found at this site. Regardless, we braved the drizzly day and walked up and down several steps in search of the dungeon. We finally found it and I'm sure Jenni was happy because the annoying accent I was using as I pretended to be a knight running around a medieval castle was likely getting rather annoying. And I don't think she could stand another, "Have fun storming the castle" quote. Anyway, if you need something to divert your Belgian beer adventures, you must see the Beersel castle. They continue to renovate the site and it should be even better next time we go.
Finally made it to the first stop on the brewery tours, Drie Fonteinen. Armand could not have been a better host. We met up with Alex, who is the production manager at Palm Breweries and he had arranged for us to see this brewery. Armand and his wife Lydie do all the work at this small lambic brewery. That, of course makes him very busy, but he graciously gave two hours! of his time to the American tourists.
Jeff Bagby, head of Pizza Port pubs in San Diego was the fearless leader throughout Belgium. Lookin' good Jeff.
Armand is telling us how lambic is REALLY made. He learned the gueze blending skill from his father (he learned it rather well, I must say). He has been doing it for many years and is now brewing and blending in Beersel. They also opened a cafe around the corner, but sadly it was closed that day so we couldn't indulge ourselves. This is me and Vince, the owner of Pizzza Port learning from the master.
3F had a coolship just as in Cantillon, but much smaller. A micro lambic brewer if you will? The fan is to keep the air moving so the wonderful organisms that make lambic special can find the sweet wort.
All lambic brewers seem to have a different way of "bunging" the casks when primary fermentation is finished. Armand just had a glass that perfectly fit in the bunghole. I didn't get a picture, but at the next brewery, Boon, they used cue balls from a billiards set!
Back in Armands cellar sampling lambic straight off the tank. This was quite a treat!
Once again, sampling from the casks. That is Frank Boon, another gracious host. He stayed late at work to show us his brewery, which was an amazing tour. The highlight was sampling a vertical of lambic of 1 month, 3 month, 1 year, 2 year, and 3 year. We could see how the lambic aged and get a glimpse into what the brewer/blender goes through as they try to make a consistent gueze. This was something I never would have been able to do on my own. Thanks Jeff and Alex for setting this tour up.
Part III in the voyage de Belgium starts on Sunday morning as we boarded the train (which is remarkably easy to use) and headed to a little town called St. Niklaas. Why the Zythos beer festival is held there I will never know, but it was a nice little trip and a pretty good festival. IF nothing else, you could get a lot of great beers all in one place. And they served food, some of it traditional Flemish dishes, for just a couple of tokens. We had a great time sampling. Three of the San Diego crew, Julian, Yiga and Noah pose with Matt Brynildson of Firesone Walker between beers.
We were also lucky to have a friend to guide us around a bit, and that was Carl Kins. I met Carl a couple of years ago judging at the GABF. Carl judges at that event and the World Beer Cup. He has visited Flossmoor Station and I was happy to meet up with him both Thursday at the Pre Zythos fest and Sunday at the Zythos fest-Thanks for the ride from Alvinne Carl!!
Finally, I was also fortunate to see Joris Pattyn on both Thurs and Sunday as well. Joris is amazing and his knowlege and palatte with beers is incomprehensible. I had sent him a couple of special beers from my brewery and the moment I walked in he had two beers from his cellar. Wow! what a greeting. One was a very special beer from Westmalle that I can't get. The other was from a closed brewery, and the beer was 20+ years old, I think. It was actually a "mistake" beer that was double cherried. It has been resting in Joris' cellar for quite some time. I can't wait to try it.
hoofed it across town to see what the EU building was like. While not impressed (and we assumed that would be the case) it was neat to see where the capitol of Europe is located. And we burned some calories in the meantime.
Finally, after a couple of more beers, Jenni played with her night setting on the camera and tried to get the "lit up" Grand Place. Not bad. Trust me, it was gorgeous!
The very old mash tun with the mash mixer that was powered by large pulleys. The lambic style of brewing involves a turbid mash, so it starts out very dry and thick and eventually gets loose and thin. They need a little more than an assistant with strong shoulders.
To clean out the mash tun, you have to take your shirt off. I think I plan to do that next week. It get's hot in that brewhouse!
Jean Van Roy is the 4th generation brewmaster. Fantastic host despite the fact that he was brewing about 100 hl of beer that day.
The most wonderful part of a lambic brewer is that they don't have stainless steel fermentors. All fermentation happens s
pontaneously in wooden casks. Many of them are wine barrels but some are specially built barrels called foeders. At Cantillon, they had rows and rows of barrels. A few still had the funky yeast goo gurgling up from the bunghole. Cool!
So my wife Jenni and I wrapped up my tenure here at FSBC with a whizzbang tour of Belgium. In a few posts, I'd like to let you know some of the things we experienced along the way. Know that we merely scratched the surface on all the things we could have done and experienced as a brewer wandering Belgium.
I guess Jenni is looking a little more excited about the week ahead!
s gone by.
