Cantillion and Heineken

Cantillion is located in the ghetto end of Brussels. The Brewery is actually a museum although they still brew there once a week only in the winter. Beer is produced only in the coldest parts of the year because they employ an coolship in the attic to cool their wort. After cooling, the wort is sent to a open fermenter for fermentation. You can guess that many bacteria can become present with a week of open and spontaneous fermentation. After a week of fermentation, the beer is moved to used wine barrels where it's stored for a year at the very least. The barrels are used until they fall apart. Refermetation occurs in the barrels sending foam out of the bung. Spiders are welcome in the brewhouse because of the excess of fruit flies. Aside from the spiders, the house cat shown here takes care of other pests. We call her the CIP or CAT system.

The whole place smells dank with the exception of the barrel storage and fermentation room that smells of yeast. The smell of yeast is so strong that it's no wonder that spontaneous fermentations occurs so rapidly. The fruit is added to the lambic in the summer months when brewing is not held but fruit crops are matured. The fruit is added directly to the barrels, stored for six months and bottled. The brewers here suggest not storing the fruit lambics because the flavor is best at bottling. However, the geuze can be stored with excellent results.

The Heineken brewery in Tilburg was easily the largest brewery I've been in. They used a double-decker bus to show us the facility. Every part of the brewing process was automatized. The workers never come close to touching the product as it's being made. We were not permitted to take pictures. The contrast between Cantillion and Heineken was staggering. I would personally brew at a dirty museum than an immaculate, computerized factory. Cantillion produces 3,300hl of beer per year while the Tilburg brewery (one of many Heineken breweries) produces over 8 million hl.

Oh yeah, check out a video of Cantillion at my friend Geoff's page:
http://seattlebeernews.com/?p=300