Brussels on Draught Thematic

brussels on draught thematic kit CAFÉS, COFFEE AND BEER IN BELGIUM, THE WORD “CAFÉ” HAS TWO MEANINGS: COFFEE, THE DRINK YOU ENJOY IN THE MORNING, AT HOME OR AT THE OFFICE, OR THE ESTABLISHMENT WHERE YOU ORDER ONE, KNOWN AS A… CAFÉ. ALTHOUGH BELGIANS ARE COFFEE DRINKERS, THEIR CAFÉS ARE KNOWN FIRST AND FOREMOST FOR SERVING DRAUGHT BEER AND, IN A RETURN TO THEIR ROOTS AND AUTHENTICITY, TRADITIONAL BEERS. BELGIANS LOVE THEIR BEER, DRINKING 80 LITRES OF THE BEVERAGE A YEAR. TO SEE THE VARIETY AND WEALTH OF THIS HERITAGE, GO TO A SPECIALIST CAFÉ AND ASK THE CAFÉ PROPRIETOR TO ADVISE YOU. SOAK UP THE CHEERFUL ATMOSPHERE OF A CAFÉ ON THE GRAND-PLACE AND SHARE THE ENJOYMENT OF THIS SOCIABLE DRINK. 1. HISTORY OF BEER IN BRUSSELS 3 2. MUSEUMS 5 3. BREWERIES 7 4. EXPERIENCE BEER ! 9 5. A FEW BARS 11 6. GUIDED TOURS 16 7. HOTEL PACKAGES 19 8. SHOPPING 20 9. MISCELLANEOUS 21 10. USEFUL CONTACTS 22 WWW.VISIT.BRUSSELS 1. HISTORY OF BEER IN BRUSSELS Contrary to popular belief, beer is women’s business and its origins date back to well before recorded history. Because, in those days, women were responsible for gathering while the men went out hunting. The women would boil wild grasses and grains into a substantial meal. Legend has it that, one day, they let their mixture cool in the open air, spontaneous fermentation took place and beer came into being. At that time, it was the wild yeasts coming from the surrounding air that ‘seeded’ the mixture and initiated alcoholic fermentation. For several millennia, brewers relied on this process to make their “liquid bread”. Down through the centuries, beer remained an important part of people’s diets because it was seen as a healthy drink and staple food. Beer was the drink of the people, wine that of the nobility, although some noblemen, such as Charles V, were great fans of ice-cold beer. So it was to be found everywhere, although different methods of brewing were practised. In contrast to the civilisa- tions of Mesopotamia and Egypt, which worked with real breweries, Gauls made beer production a family concern. Brewing was generally done at home, following a recipe that was handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. Consumption was still kept for the family circle. So, there was very little marketing of this beverage then. Over the course of the centuries that followed, beer-making got organised. Each village had its own public brewery. Monasteries also began to produce it to meet the needs of their own community. With its commercialisation, beer began to be consumed in large quantities and became the subject of extensive marketing. For centuries the Brussels brewers’ guild (founded in 1365) assumed a position of importance. Brewers were usually powerful and wealthy. This is because our ancestors drank up to three times more beer than we do ... quite an achievement! In the 17th century, that consumption could be as much as 400 litres per person. But our ancestors were not alcoholics. In order to brew beer, it was necessary to boil water, which kills germs. That’s why, at that time, the people of Brussels used to prefer beer to water. Beer was better for health than unboiled water! Although, on weekdays, they often used to drink “dunnebier”, a “light” or low-alcohol beer, perhaps not as strong as our table beers. Contrary to what people might think, Gueuze was not the typical beer in Brueghel’s time. Secondary fermentation in the bottle is a technique that wasn’t developed until as late as the 17th century. Prior to that, people used to drink flat beers, similar to British ales. These beers posed a problem because they were difficult to store and transport. In those days, the sector was not organised into large production units but into a whole host of small breweries, known as “cam- men” in Flemish. Each inn had to purchase its supplies from one “cam” (old Flemish word for brewery) … food traceability as early as the Middle Ages! Although the brewers were powerful, they nevertheless had to pay their taxes. Unfortunately for them, the tax on drinks was the highest. So, every trick in the book was used to avoid paying too much. They were so influential that they were even able to object to the most ambitious town-planning projects if they felt those projects weren’t in their interests. 3 Final proof of how important the breweries were for Brussels is the many street names that refer to them: rue des Brasseurs (brewers’ street), rue du Houblon (hop street) and rue de la Braie (wort street). What’s more, quite a few of them correspond to the names of inns on those streets. A good example is rue du Miroir, with the Auberge du Miroir (inn) on the corner of rue Haute. The French Revolution had sweeping ramifications for the beer sector. Not only did this fractious period in history see the guilds abolished (1792-1794) in favour of private initiative, a lot of monasteries were dissolved to boot. In the early eighteenth century, Brussels numbered no less than 120 artisanal breweries. By 1806 only 29 were left. As the industrialisation of the beer sector more or less coincided with the popularity of bottom-fermented ales, it was the pils lagers more than any other types of beer that did a roaring trade for the breweries. In the Brussels area, high-flying pilses included the Wiel’s brewed by Wielemans-Ceuppens, the Elberg made by the Grande Brasserie de Koekelberg, the Primus concocted by the Brasserie Royal de Laeken, the Three Star produced by Leopold, the Vox at Brasserie de la Chasse Royal, the Perle 28 made by Caulier, and the Ekla pils distilled at Saint-Michel-Vandenheuvel brewery. In spite of the fact that the Belgian brewers set out the full range of their wares at the 1958 World Exhibition held in Brussels that year, things started going downhill for the Belgian breweries. The rise in commodity prices, hefty labour costs, soaring taxes and excise duties … All of these factors contributed to the mergers of the 1960s and the brewery closures during the economic downturn of the 1970s. Between 1965 and 1973, the number of breweries fell by 30%. By the end of the 1970s, three quarters of the nation’s beer production was in the hands of just seven breweries. Today, despite the disappearance of many breweries, Belgium is still recognised for its know-how. Today, we are seeing a great revival of interest in special beers and all things natural, traditional and hand-made. Lots of new small-scale artisanal enterprises are being put in place, in Flanders and Wallonia alike. Brussels, its capital, is proud of having several traditional breweries within its walls: Brasserie Cantillon, Brasserie de la Senne, En Stoemelings en the Brussels Beer Project. GOOD TO KNOW Lambic beers are spontaneously fermented beers, which is the oldest and most primitive way to break down sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The lambic beers made in the Zenne Valley in Brussels and the Pajotten region that are used to distil Old Geuze, Old Kriek or Faro are the unique and last remaining examples. Lambic is the basic beer that is used to distil Geuze, Kriek or Faro. The production of Lambic is everything to do with the conditions that exist in the valley of the Zenne, the waterway that transects the Pajottenland and the territory of Brussels. The Brettanomyces lambicus and Brettanomyces bruxellensis that exist in the air in the Zenne Valley are partly responsible for the spontaneous fermentation. Today, Lambic largely continues to be brewed to make it into Geuze or Kriek. In Brussels, the Cantillon brewery in Anderlecht is the only real Brussels lambic brewery left. In the old days, ranking just below Lambic, Faro would be named in one and the same breath as one of the popular Brussels beers. Faro is a lambic beer with added candy sugar, which we know for a fact was imbibed in the sixteenth century, but very likely long before that time. Geuze too is a lambic beer: it is a mixture of young and old lambics that gets its secondary fermentation in the bottle. The geuze also gave rise to the noble profession of ‘geuze steken’ or the blending of gueze: geuzestekers or gueze blenders do not brew lambic themselves. Instead they source lambic or lambic wort from a variety of different brewers, combine these guezes into a blend entirely according to their own taste – which is referred to as “steken” – and leave the blend to ripen into their own geuze. Finally, lambic can also be distilled into fruit beers. To brew the traditional Old Kriek, the addition of 200 to 400 grams of sour cherries per litre of (young) lambic prompts the fermentation process. The cherries are left to mature for a few months in the cask with the sugars of the fruit fermenting into alcohol and carbon dioxide inside the lambic. 4 2. MUSEUMS THE GUEUZE MUSEUM - CANTILLON BREWERY Come and discover a brewing tradition that’s unrivalled anywhere in the world, a Lambic brewery from 1900 still working, run by a family of master brewers who are proud of its traditions and products. Mainly period equipment, casks of Lambic, Kriek and Framboises, small cellars where bottles of Gueuze, Kriek and Lambic Grand Cru patiently await their debut at the tables of appreciative consumers, brewing vats and boiling kettles made of copper, a granary and a large cooling tank with Brussels air flowing over it, filtering and bottling equipment, all will be revealed during your visit! It will take place in the surroundings of one of the very last old-style breweries, in a setting unchanged for more than a century.

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