We had the whole morning to do some shopping and discover some more of Brussels, before the bus took us to the brewery of Cantillon.

The friendly guide explained us all about lambic and gueuze, about spontaneous fermentation, its traditional way of producing, as we walked through the old brewery (1906) and admired its simplicity.

The large oak barrels, in which lambic ages for up to three years, seemed like they had been lying there for much longer than a hundred years. The tasting of the whole range of the Cantillon beers, including the rare Saint Lamvinus ( a lambic blended with young gueuze and red grapes of the Bordeaux region) was excellent.

We sat down for a “Breughel” meal (a buffet of local meat specialties served with bread, vegetables and cheese) and tasted the rest of their beers.

Menu breughel buffet with "kopvlees" (porc-head), many different sausages and hams, veggies, salads, and a selection of Belgian cheeses. All beers of Cantillon

Our second brewery visit that day was at Hanssens, an artisanal lambic blender in Dworp, a small rural village in the Zenne valley, some 12 miles outside Brussels. The brewer John, who is married to Cindy Hanssens, has taken over the job of his father in law. But father an son-in-law form a wonderful couple to define the taste of their blends. John explained us the difference between a lambic brewer and a lambic blender (the first brews his own lambic, the second buys the lambic at a lambic brewery and blends it himself before bottling) Hanssens buy their lambic at Girardin and Lindemans and makes gueuze, a cherry lambic and a raspberry lambic of it.

Their labels mention the name “Oude geuze”, or “Oude Kriek”, this means that they are made in the old fashioned way, without addition of other high fermentation beers using only real fruit for the fruit beers. The raspberry lambic, called Oudbeitje, stinks like the attic, but tastes wonderful and is sold only on the US market.

These very friendly owners waved us goodbye as we drove away towards what was to become our third brewery visit that same day.

Brewery de Silly in Silly, a small village on the south of Brussels, has its own brewery and the owner, Didier Vanderhaeghen, proudly showed us around the recently renovated brewery.
His Scotch tastes exquisitely, the Double Enghien is a very refreshing spiced ale and Titje is a very special wheat beer, with a wonderful deep fruity nose. Of course we had to try all their other beers as well. Meanwhile it had become dark and the bus driver was starting to get afraid that we weren’t going to come out again.

We had to, because dinner was waiting for us at Rare Vos, a typical, very old “Pajottenland” tavern, which serves meals like lamb chops with cherry sauce and other regional specialties. They have their own lambic on tap, which comes from Girardin, and tastes very good.
Later on that night, the bus took us to Ypres (Ieper in Flemish), for a two day visit to the Westhoek, an area situated in the Northwest of Belgium, famous for its hops and many regional beers, including those of Van Eecke and the Dolle Brouwers.

Menu Vegetable soup Lamb with cherries and Cherry beer Cherry beer from Girardin Tiramisu

Day III