Eating Our Way Through Belgium (part 3)
Cantillon beer is an acquired taste. And I'm not sure I've acquired it yet. A beer-loving friend (who I last saw with a bottle of it in front of him) says it is "like chewing on a lemon." This is not a very appealing description, perhaps, but it is quite accurate.So why, exactly, was I determined to see the brewery? Because Cantillon is about as far removed from the big multinational beer companies as you can get. Whether one likes their products or not (and lots of beer connoisseurs do), no one denies that they have character, and Cantillon has not sacrificed the integrity of its product to appeal to a larger audience. They are, indeed, one of the very last producers of traditional lambic beer.
And what is lambic beer? The romantic answer is to look to a Bruegel painting; the beers the Flemings are drinking, some 400 years ago and probably earlier, are lambics. It is a beer rooted deep in Belgium's past, and features prominently in its art and cultural history.
The more explanatory, though drier, answer is that lambic is a beer which is produced by spontaneous fermentation. There are no yeast starters as with other beers; instead, as the wort cools overnight exposed to the air, the wild microflora in the sky settle in it and start fermentation. Two batches made on two separate nights, even in the same brewery and all other things being equal, could end up tasting significantly different depending on which way the winds blow.
This is why I wanted to visit the brewery.
The brewery does not necessarily look like it wants to be visited, however. On an unassuming street near the Brussels Midi train station, we found the brewery, large garage doors pulled down, and all doors seemingly locked. All but one, in fact, and as we cautiously opened it, we peered into a dark warehouse, and several sets of eyes peered back at us. We asked, hesitantly, if the brewery were open for tours that day, and were delighted to hear that it was (we had neglected to call ahead, standard etiquette for brewery visits, since many of our guide books implied that tours were always available at Cantillon).
The tour, as it happens, is self-guided. Small sheets of paper are taped up around the brewery, the numbers printed on them corresponding to entries in a small pamphlet handed to us by the woman running the front (a descendant of the original Cantillon family; her husband Jean-Pierre Van Roy is the brewer). Motion-detecting lights come on and flicker off as we move through the tour, but this is the only concession to people visiting.
Much of the process is fairly typical of beer production. Grain (wheat and barley) are crushed, mixed with warm water, and heated so that the starch begins to turn into sugar. The mixture is strained and the resulting liquid is called wort. It is reduced through evaporation, and hops are added. It is worth noting that Cantillon can not claim themselves as organic only because the hops they use are not. Thus, as they say, they are only 98.5% organic.
But it is the very tip-top of the brewery that I want to see. This is where the magic happens; the wort is pumped into a large, shallow copper tun for its nightly sojourn. There are vents and windows which allow the air to come in and the wild yeasts of Brussels with it. These will be the only yeasts in the beer. Our pamphlet tells us that 86 different kinds of yeast have been found in lambic, though they list Brettanomyces bruxellensis and Brettanomyces lambicus as the most important. Interestingly, a brewer we talked to in Brugges said that she had recently read that the yeast most responsible for lambic was fairly close genetically to the yeast which is responsible for the distinctive taste of San Francisco sourdough. Perhaps I should try pairing the two.
An amusing historical note illustrates the importance of this step. In the mid-80's, the brewery had to replace the roof over the cooling tun. The quality of the beer dropped sharply after this, but fortunately the brewery had kept some of the old tiles. If you look up at the celing of the room, you can see their clever solution. The old tiles, with their fertile yeast populations, are laid between the new tiles and the wooden struts supporting the roof.
This partnership with nature permeates the operation. There is dust everywhere, and substantial cobwebs hang from the ceiling. As the guide explains, lots of insects are drawn to the beer, which is exposed to the air until the fermentation settles down enough for the beer to be safely barrelled. Spiders are welcome, as they keep the insect population low. One suspects that the brewery's cat also has a role to play in pest control, though one wouldn't know it from our experience of her, laying asleep in the front room.
In theory, the lambic is drinkable after a few weeks of fermentation, but in practice it is most often aged for one to three years (in old barrels, to prevent the flavor of the beer from being muddied by the oak). Van Roy blends beers of different ages to produce gueuze (pronounced more like Gerze then Gooze), a more complex beer. The 3-year-old beer adds deep character, while the younger beers still have enough sugar to allow a second fermentation in the bottle, similar to how Champagne is made.
Alternately, Cantillon might take some of the lambic and macerate it with fruit to produce kriek, or cherry beer, Rose de Gambrinus (raspberry), or their distinctive apricot or grape beers. The yeast feeds on the sugars from the fruit for a more carbonated brew. Needless to say, while many larger producers use syrups to add fruit flavors to their beers, Cantillon uses locally grown organic produce.
The tour ends (after seeing the bottling system, the barrel cleaning system, and other elements of the production, all on site) with the one thing you want most in the world right at that moment--a glass of Cantillon beer. We actually got two glasses, the first being their signature gueuze, the second being their apricot.
Perhaps my tolerance is growing, but the gueuze I found pleasant, though still quite acidic (why is it that I look for good acidity in wine but can't yet deal with it in beer?). The apricot beer was not powerfully apricotty. Rather, it was distinct but not overwhelming. But the beer was far more tart than the gueuze. I managed to finish mine, but my tolerance needs to grow a bit more before I can appreciate it to its fullest.
So what did I leave with, other than a sense of satisfaction at seeing a truly artisanal producer? I looked at the ten or so beers the brewery produces, only some of which are available in the States, and even then only from a very few stores, and let out a big sigh as I thought about my full luggage. I mentally tried to reshuffle things to fit in one or two bottles, but in the end, I ended up with a T-shirt and a cookbook from the brewery which uses beer in all the recipes. Next time, though, I'm packing an empty bag.
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