Brasserie Cantillon is without a doubt the favorite brewery in the world for Biencuits. In fact, during our first visit, Lili and I discovered that “sour” beers (lambics, gueuzes, faros, krieks) were for us the best beers of all. It was also that first visit that converted me into a unwavering beer hunter. I began my search for something as well crafted and complex as Cantillon’s beers. After we ordered our first bottle of their Fou’ Foune, an apricot lambic beer that not only brings a galaxy of sour glory yet still preserves a distinct ripe apricot fruit flavor, we knew we would have to return to Cantillon. And return we did three more times after, virtually making the beergrimage to Belgium for this brewery alone. Yet on our last visit, we were able to have an even more enriching experience than being in a beloved place drinking our favorite beers. We were able take a guided tour during a public brew day.
While you can always take a self-guided tour any time of year with the help of a multi-lingual brochure, the fact that we would have an actual tour guide describing the brewing process as it occurs was an enticing chance to see the masters at work. Better yet, they only open the brewery to the public a few days a year. Being able to visit the brewery on this day is like the beer hunter’s version of winning the golden ticket to visit Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, though unfortunately our tour guide did not have the same acerbic sense of humor as Gene Wilder’s version of Willy Wonka, though thankfully was not a creeper like Johnny Depp’s unfortunate take on the character. In general the staff is a tad brusque but knowledgeable and our tour guide that day was no exception.
But I digress…what is unique about Cantillon’s lambics and other beers is that because they are the product of spontaneous fermentation, brewers need the proper temperatures that can foster the reproduction of these “wild” yeasts. As a result of these yeasty limitations, they can brew only during the spring. The fact that they do not use cultured yeast means that they must rely on the yeast in the air of their 100-year-old building to start fermentation. Our tour guide reminded us that roughly 95% percent of beer styles are the product of controlled fermentation with the use of only one and more rarely two cultured yeasts. All beer was once brewed like this with "wild" yeasts. With these cultured yeasts one can hope to achieve an entirely uniform result. Cantillon’s spontaneous fermentation with dozens of bacterias and yeasts sets their beers apart and makes each brew at least slightly different.
Since these “wild” yeasts will vary depending on the brewery’s location, and hypothetically each place has their own local strains of yeasts and bacterias, only Cantillon and the other breweries in the Seine River valley around Brussels can legally produce “lambic” beers. Similar to my discussion of wines in a previous blog post here, the European Union has created a protected status for lambics, just as they have for Champagne.
While many breweries in the US produce American Wild ales with lambic-style methods, they cannot call them lambics. The idea being that these beers are like none other in the world because of the yeasts and bacterias that come down from the rafters at Brasserie Cantillon. Our guide described how the brewing of the grains that creates the wort attracts the bacterias and yeast present in the brewery to come and ferment the beers. These brewers try to welcome these “wild” yeasts and bacterias by practicing open vat fermentation, instead of enclosed vats that keep out such yeasts. Additionally, in order to be called lambic beers, they must have a minimum 35% malted wheat, which is different from most beers that are made exclusively of malted barley. Another important difference, the brewers at Cantillon in general use hops only to help to preserve the beers. They use incredibly dried hops that add no flavor or bitterness. By not using strong hops, their “wild” yeasts are truly the star of the show.
The next innovation for their beers is that they are barrel-aged for a minimum of one year in order to be a lambic. Interestingly enough, Cantillon’s brewers are not too concerned with the provenance of these barrels, but instead they buy used barrels that formerly aged wine. Unlikely many white whale American beers that are aged in Bourbon barrels to add a boozy flavor, barrels for Cantillon’s beers are not used to impart any flavor. Instead, they are only used as a vessel for fermentation. During the tour we saw that they cannot put the bung into the barrel at first or else the pressure from fermentation could destroy the barrel. We were even able to see a young lambic frothing up over the rim of the barrel in vigorous fermentation.
If all of this is not fascinating enough for fermentation fanatics, some lambics are allowed then to age for up to three years in the barrel. At this point the master brewer can produce gueuze, which is a blend of three different vintages of lambics. In effect, the blender is able draw from multiple barrels in order to create a perfect gueuze that reflects past years’ brews but is never exactly the same given the vicissitudes of spontaneous fermentation. As Cantillon has been a family owned and operated brewery for generations, they have been able to pass down blending skills generationally. Yet, they blend the different vintages of lambic not only to add depth of flavor, but also to aid in carbonation. They add in a one-year lambic to their blends which produces bottle conditioning and a lovely mellow carbonation. Our guide used the analogy that lambics are like white wine because they are flat and that gueuzes, given their bubbles, are like Champagne.
While their lambic base beer is a work of art, they take this base and create miracles (beeracles?) with creative additions. They add fresh fruits to lambics after fermentation has ended in order to leave some of the residual sugars from the fruit. Again we advise you to obtain a bottle of Fou’ Foune by any means necessary. Zwanze, a rhubarb lambic, has a kind of tartness that goes surprisingly well with the sourness of the beer. Their elderflower beer, Mamouche, has almost a tangy, slightly mustard-like flavor. Their Vigneronne pushes the wine analogy further while adding white grapes to a lambic that makes it taste like a gorgeous biodynamic white wine. Their take on the kriek style, a sour cherry lambic, has a lovely red color, nice tartness and in some cases uses only organic sour cherries. These additions of fresh local fruit to a gorgeous lambic base beer makes virtually all of them must try beers.
Seeing Cantillon on a brew day and having a guided tour made us even more aware of how unique of a place it is. For over a century the family has been making “sour” beers. Sadly all the other historic lambic breweries have gone out of business within the city of Brussels. It is amazing to tour the building that has become home to the kinds of yeasts and bacterias that come down from the rafters to help ferment what are for us are the greatest beers in the world. It is enlightening to see people working under highly unpredictable conditions, brewing beer roughly as it has been done for thousands of years before Pasteur’s discovery of yeasts. Their lambics, show how doing things the right way, the slow way, the labor intensive way, can yield exceptional results. From the work of the “wild” yeast to the brewer’s masterful blending abilities, Cantillon demonstrates the highest level of “craft” to which others should aspire.
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