Double trouble
The Belgian town of Beersel is blessed with not one but two traditional lambic breweries. Roger Protz visited them
It’s a long, steep clamber up from the railway station at Beersel to the small town with its moated castle, built early in the 14th century by the Duke of Brabant to aid the defence of Brussels. When you reach the centre of Beersel you can refresh yourself with beers that form a style – lambic and gueuze – that may be older than even the sturdy, brownstone castle.
To call lambic and gueuze beers “medieval” makes them seem a trifle sudden. The town of Lembeek in Payottenland – from which it is thought the name lambic derives – had a guild of brewers as early as the 15th century. But the style is certainly older. It is a rural one, confined to Payottenland and the valley of the River Senne, with roots that go back to the dawn of brewing 3,000 years BC, when a lifeenhancing drink made from sodden grain was fermented by wild, airborn yeasts.
Remarkably, in an age of identikit global lager brands, lambic and gueuze are enjoying a revival. If you offered the average drinker a beer with the warning that it was sour, cidery and vinous, with no detectable hop character, they might decide to stick with Stella. But they would be missing out.
It is fitting that in a place called Beersel the lambic revival is in full swing. The Debelder family has been blending and maturing lambic since the 1950s, buying in beer from such respected brewers as Frank Boon, Girardin and Lindemans and storing them for years in wooden casks.
Blending lambic and gueuze is an art in itself and Gaston Debelde.....
To read the rest of this article you can buy this issue
or subscribe to Beers of the World to have every issue delivered direct to your door.
By Roger Protz
Section : International Brewery
Page number : 22
