strange-steve
Quantum Brewer
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- Apr 8, 2014
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I haven't been about the forum recently, just got back from Belgium last night. Spent a few nights in Brussels then a couple in Bruges and it's really depressing to be home :-(
I went to the Cantillon brewery and it's one if the most amazing places I've been to. If you're not familiar with their beers, they are one of the most celebrated sour beer brewers in the world and one of the few remaining traditional lambic breweries. They still use the original mash tun, coppers and coolship from 1900, inoculation the wort overnight in the attic with the windows open before transferring to wooden barrels to ferment for up to 3 years. A fascinating place and the tasting in the tap room was awesome too. Some pics...
This is the bar, mash tun and bottles maturing.
The old grain mill (still in use) and the copper boiler.
The attic area where the wort is cooled overnight, and also where the hops are aged for 3 years before use. Also a few bottles of 40 year old gueuze.
The fermenting and maturing room, row after row of barrels fermenting away, as well as the blending area and bottling line.
And finally the tasting room. These beers are kriek (blended lambic aged on cherries for 3 months), straight unblended young lambic, rose de gambrinus (a lambic fermented on raspberries), Iris (a gueuze dry hopped with hallertau).
After a visit to a place like this and tasting their amazing beers (this was my second visit here) I find it incredible when people tell me they don't like sour beers. The only explanation I can think of is that they have only tasted bad examples, much like tasting a Greene King IPA and saying you don't like IPAs. Don't give up on a style after one or two tastes because lambics can be really beautiful!
More to follow later...
I went to the Cantillon brewery and it's one if the most amazing places I've been to. If you're not familiar with their beers, they are one of the most celebrated sour beer brewers in the world and one of the few remaining traditional lambic breweries. They still use the original mash tun, coppers and coolship from 1900, inoculation the wort overnight in the attic with the windows open before transferring to wooden barrels to ferment for up to 3 years. A fascinating place and the tasting in the tap room was awesome too. Some pics...
This is the bar, mash tun and bottles maturing.
The old grain mill (still in use) and the copper boiler.
The attic area where the wort is cooled overnight, and also where the hops are aged for 3 years before use. Also a few bottles of 40 year old gueuze.
The fermenting and maturing room, row after row of barrels fermenting away, as well as the blending area and bottling line.
And finally the tasting room. These beers are kriek (blended lambic aged on cherries for 3 months), straight unblended young lambic, rose de gambrinus (a lambic fermented on raspberries), Iris (a gueuze dry hopped with hallertau).
After a visit to a place like this and tasting their amazing beers (this was my second visit here) I find it incredible when people tell me they don't like sour beers. The only explanation I can think of is that they have only tasted bad examples, much like tasting a Greene King IPA and saying you don't like IPAs. Don't give up on a style after one or two tastes because lambics can be really beautiful!
More to follow later...