Hey, it’s a brewery post from Belgium!  I’m in Europe for six weeks, visiting some friends, seeing some sights, and sampling some beer. Cantillon was mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide, and I’d read about it in a Belgian beer-centric travel article. So I was looking forward to the visit. They were closed because of Easter when I went by on Monday, but it was business as usual on Tuesday. Cantillon Brewery has been mixing up the lambic since 1900, and still use a bunch of the same equipment since day one. From the informational handout, it looks like they do nine different brews (all based on lambic), but I only sampled three of them. They were quite nice, I thought.

My Cantillon taster with a selection of their bottles for sale — Brussels, Belgium

Rob’s Picks
• Gueuze – A mixture of one-, two-, and three-year old lambic. Really sour! Taste is intense, but hard to describe. Kind of malty. Fascinating.
• Kriek – Cherries in lambic. Cherry aroma not too strong, but flavor a good complement to the lambic.
• Rosé de Gambrinus – Raspberries in lambic. Very strong raspberry aroma, but flavor’s not too strong — mixes well, though.

Outside the Cantillon Brewery — Brussels, Belgium

Antique mash tun that they still use — Brussels, Belgium

I’d never seen a cooling tun before. This is where the magic (i.e. the spontaneous fermentation) happens. — Brussels, Belgium

The lambic ferments in these barrels in the attic of the brewery for three years — Brussels, Belgium

Steam cleaning an aging barrel. The shiny chain hanging from the post is another part of the cleaning process. — Brussels, Belgium

Bottled Gueuze aging to perfection — Brussels, Belgium

Don’t want to know what sort of beer this will be… (this was actually an old barrel being used as a table in the tasting room that the brewery cat seemed to like) — Brussels, Belgium

They also had various logo glasses for sale. This was frustrating — I didn’t want to carry around glassware with me for six weeks, but I could’ve had a lovely Cantillon tulip glass! Mon Dieu!