Brussels // Cantillon

The Belgian vacation started off in the capital city of Brussels. There was lots of excitement thanks to our experience with Belgian beers back home, tips from friends who had visited, and lots of research into the best beer bars the country had to offer.

It was fast and easy to travel between the airport and the city by train, and when we arrived with our luggage, the first stop was the nearby Cantillon Brewery. The brewery specializes in lambic beers, which are made via a unique fermentation process. Rather than adding controlled amounts of yeast during the brewing process, Cantillon takes advantage of spontaneous wild yeast living in the air to create a complex and often sour flavor. They add fruit to some of their beers during the brewing process, but don`t be fooled: these are not sweet beers. Brasserie V in Madison had gotten their hands on a few of these beers, but typically they are hard to find beyond the brewery, and if you do find them they're usually quite expensive.  

The brewery offers a 5-minute guided introduction to the process and history, then patrons are free to wander the facility with a brochure explaining what each machine does and what happens in each room. As soon as we walked in, we were hit with that familiar malty brewery aroma that brought back memories of trips to New Glarus, Lake Louie Brewery, and Central Waters (not Minhas). I think we were giddy for the entire time, staring at the antique machines used for boiling the wort, crushing the grains, and the notorious room-size shallow tub on the top level where the beer cools and the wild yeast is introduced. You are free to take non-flash photography throughout the facility, and lighting makes it tricky unless you have a decent camera.

After the self-guided tour, we couldn't take the anticipation any longer and redeemed out drink tickets good for 1 fresh(er) lambic and 1 kriek (cherry) or gueuze. The lambic has a carbonation-less texture, a funky aroma, and a mild, sour taste. The kriek is very floral, as its color suggests, with lots of sourness on the tongue. The gueuze, which is a mix of different aged lambics, has a heavier sourness felt more in the back of the mouth. All are served much warmer than beer typically is--if lambics and gueuze are too cold they are overwhelmingly bitter and their complex flavors are lost. As the small tasting room started to fill with locals and travelers alike before the closing time of 5:00, we shared one more bottle at our table: Iris. Iris was slightly less acidic and sour than the Gueuze with a little more malt to it.

As we were about to call it quits, a group of Americans entered the brewery, and we invited them to join us. Turns out, they are a beer connoisseur family from the Bay Area, and they`ve made an annual trip to Belgium for the last 6 years, visiting different breweries, cities, and attractions. We shared some Iris, and they were generous to share from their bottles of Cantillon's 50'4" and Zwanze beers: both special edition gueuzes from the brewery. We chatted about Belgium, Turkey, what we are missing in the States, and shared opinions on the beers. They remarked that the Cantillon Brewery was a stop on the first annual trip they made, and the tasting room was virtually empty the entire visit. On this occasion, the tables were all occupied with at least another 30-40 standing around as the 5:00 bell rang.

We visited Cantillon one more time the night before we flew out of Brussels and brought back a Grand Cru to Turkey. Here's hoping the bottle survives a Transatlantic flight!