Bene

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My quick jaunt through the Bene portion of the Benelux region (Luxembourg will have to wait until another trip) was quickly becoming a tour of local breweries. I guess when in Belgium…

If you’ve seen one brewery, you’ve seen 20. The basics of the brewing process are the same no matter who is brewing the beer. I think a number of the microbreweries in the U.S. recognize this and have begun omitting the actual tour from a visit to the brewery and taking visitors straight to their reason for stopping by….the tasting room.

There is an exception. Located in a non-descript warehouse down a side street in the heart of Brussels is a brewery unlike any that I’ve visited before. For those unfamiliar with the brewing process, there are typically 2 major “families” of beer that are known to the wide populace: lagers and ales. Generally speaking, it is the fermentation process that separates the two. Typically, a lager is fermented at colder temperatures for a longer period of time which creates a crisp, almost pure, taste. An ale ferments at a higher temperature which allow the yeast to put off a variety of different flavors. In both instances a brewery will introduce a strain of yeast, usually proprietary to the brewery, to the beer. Further, a brewer will take great care to ensure that this is the only yeast introduced to the batch. Cleanliness and sterilization is paramount in the brewing process.

The Cantillon Brewery in Brussels takes this idea of a controlled, clean, sterile environment and tosses it out the window. They use a process called spontaneous fermentation whereby the unfermented beer is left exposed to nature, allowing wild yeast strains to make their home in the beer. Further, they are not that concerned with cleaning cobwebs or dirt from the brewery as they feel nature contributes to the characteristics of the finished product. This would be a unthinkable concept to our pasteurized society. If ever in Brussels, it is worth a visit. I was allowed to wander around the brewery unsupervised and at my own pace. I just had to navigate around the tours being given to the middle school classes.

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