CANTILLON BREWERY
Traditional Brewery Tour in Brussels
What
is Gueuze beer? In the mid-18th century, Dom Pérignon, a
monk of the Bendictine order, rather accidentally discovered the method
of making Champagne, by mixing together young white wines and allowing
them to continue fermenting in the bottle. A hundred years later a beer
brewer in the Brabant region of what is now Belgium did the same thing
with beer. And the Gueuze was born, sometimes nicknamed the Belgium ‘Champagne’,
though the relation to the sparkling wine ends with the bubbles. Gueuze
is a form of Lambic Beer, with different ages of brew mixed for shades
of deep flavor, some of it with fruit, like cherries or raspberries added,
which is rather a fading art, kept alive at the Cantillon Brewery in
Brussels.
In
the year 1900, Paul Cantillon opened a brewery in the capital city of
Brussels, in the Anderlecht district not far from the main south rail
station. The brewery managed to survive the Second World War and after
its end, was taken over by sons Marcel and Robert. By 1958, when the
World’s Fair came to Brussels, bringing with it the remarkable
Atomium (see Atomium
at Bruparck), the Cantillon Brewery has reached a peak of production,
but Geueze and Lambic beer are perhaps an acquired taste, quite different
from traditional lager, ale or pilsner styles of beers, the taste can
be rather bitter, even with the fruit variety and with the growth of
commercial brewing, the small family brewers fell on tougher times. Cantillon
is the last traditional boutique brewery left in Brussels and still operated
by the Van Roy-Cantillon family.
The
Cantillon Brewery is as much museum as it is a working brewery, with
some original equipment dating back to the 19th Century still is use.
A visit to the Cantillon Brewery includes a self guided tour, with numbered
stops from room to room in the tight spaces of the facility which has
stood in the same spot for 100 years. Spontaneous fermentation beer making
is a lengthy process with the beer aging for long times. After exploring
the Red copper containers, old oak barrels some of them more than 100
years old, and storage rooms filled with dust covered bottles, the tour
returns to the tasting area. Along with the Geueze, the other beers
featured
are Kriek, a fruit beer with Schaerbeek cherries, Rose de Gambrinus,
a raspberry beer, Vignerone, a grape beer, and Faro, a sweet beer made
with caramel, with a very short shelf life, due to risk of explosion.
The flavors of these beers vary from batch to batch so each is unique,
and despite the flavorings, do not expect anything like a dessert flavor.
Visiting the Cantillion Brewery
The
Cantillion Brewery is behind a rather nondescript door in the Rue Gheude
Straat 56, within a stroll from the Brussels South (Brussels Zuid)
train station where the TGV, Thalys and Eurostar trains arrive in the
capital.
The brewery is
open from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday and 10am to 5pm on Saturdays.
Entrance fee is €5 which includes a glass of Gueuze Beer at the end of the
tour, though small tastings of the other varieties are offered as well.
There are a
selection of brewery’s beers by the case, as well as award winning
label illustrations and other branded items for sale. They even offer
a Gueuze
Beer Cheese for the truly smitten. © Bargain
Travel Europe
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Cantillon
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SEE ALSO:
BRUSSELS MUSICAL INSTRUMENT MUSEUM
MAGRITTE MUSEUM AT THE FINE ARTS
AUTOWORLD BELGIUM CINQUANTENAIRE - BRUSSELS
HALVE
MANN BREWERY TOUR – BRUGES
PASSENDALE CHEESE MAKING MUSEUM
