My favorite part of our trip to the UK was taking a weekend trip to Brussels, Belgium and visiting the Cantillon brewery. If you’re ever in the area, it’s a must visit in my book. We spent half a day there, taking a self guided tour and tasting their brews. They are one of the very few breweries that practice spontaneous fermentation, meaning they don’t add yeast to their wort to make beer. They simply let it cool overnight under a roof with holes, then put it in barrels…amazing! My favorite was the Cantillon Iris. It’s a Belgian Pale ale, just as sour as their lambic, yet it’s been dry hopped. Seriously, one of the best beers I’ve ever tasted. I’m going to try and brew a few things like this once the mixed lambic/brett/who knows yeast comes out in April from Wyeast. In the meantime, you can check out the photos of our tour by clicking on the photo below.
DT
Man, that natural fermentation sounds cool, but also a little dicey…gotta wonder what happens when you get some funky yeast from Lady Nature in there or not enough of the beasties for complete fermentation.
Remember at the Brickskeller a while back the brewmaster from Russian River talking about setting a bucket of cooling wort in a meadow and just waiting for the right stuff to happen? He wasn’t so lucky as Cantillon, eh?
You going to Scotland for the Worlds?