Belgium - Brussels Lambic tour

I am a good beer fan. One of the first beers I tried and liked was Stella Artois a Belgian pale lager. This beer opened the world of beer for me. Many years ago I tried my first Lambic a Lindemans framboise (raspberry) which is also Belgian. It was such a nice blend of fruit and beer that I knew tho would be the beer to look for. Turns out Lambic is hard to find especially in America and many people have no clue what it is. There are a few berry infused beers in America but nothing like a Lindemans. I recently found out that the Lambics I have so enjoyed are of the modern variety

Here in Belgium I wanted to do two things - drink all the Lambic and tour a Lambic brewery. I have done now. The brewery is called Cantillon and brew traditional Lambic. The guide reports that because traditional Lambic is so sour modern beer drinks don't really like it so to get more of a market some older Lambic producers changed the recipe to make it sweeter. I see no issue with this but Catillon seemed to think it taints the Lambic name. For me both are good but I can sure drink a lot more modern lambic on its own. The traditional stuff needs to be paired with something like cheese or sausage.

Back to the Cantillon brew tour. The guide introduced the tour and the history of Lambic, then passed out guidebooks and set us free.

We followed the different stages in the Lambic brew and went from room to too to see the equipment they use. Lambic must be kept very cold for long periods so it is brewed in winter time. Thus we just toured the equipment no brewing is going on (the were labeling and bottling brew though).

These are barrels of Lambic. They do reuse barrels but they have a special cleaning process.

Here are the bottles ready for imbibing! So many bottles!

Of course there were stairs. The wort (mashed barley, wheat, and hops after boiling and hot water) is cooled upstairs in an attic like area. It is spread out in an open air shallow copper vessel to allow for natural cooling and innoculation of natural fermenting agents like yeast and bacteria (this is a stage that modern Lambic has changed partly to quicken production). This means that every batch of Lambic is different as different fermenting agents enter the wort during this stage. You wont know the flavor for a long while.

Once cooled you place the mixture in a vat for fermentation. Because of the open cooling phase traditional Lambic uses a spontaneous fermentation process. Prior to Louis Pasteur all beers were like this. The liquid matures in barrels and can be called Lambic after about 4 weeks however they let it ferment for another 1 - 3 years.

The resulting Lambic is considered Gueuze and is rather dry, sour and a bit acidic. To get the fruity flavor you soak the fruit in 1, 2, and 3 year old gueuze for 3 months. The result is still dry and sour but now has a nice fruity finish.

So there you have it! Not very many photos as we were too busy enjoying the environment.