Living history of beer (Musee Bruxellois de la Gueuze)

Member Name: caro

Product:	Musee Bruxellois de la Gueuze
Date:	16/05/01 (73 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very interesting, friendly, helpful staff, excellent value for money

Disadvantages: Lots of stairs

This beer museum and brewery is utterly unique to Brussels, concerned as it is with 'gueuze' beer which is brewed only in that city. Despite the museum designation, it is a working brewery (the Cantillon Brewery).

THE BEER

The Cantillon Brewery brews lambic beer by spontaneous fermentation. While most beer has yeast added to it to make it ferment, lambic relies upon contact with airborne wild yeasts for fermentation. Historically, until the nineteenth century, all beers were produced by spontaneous fermentation; now, only lambic is brewed this way.

Cantillon use the lambic beer for two kinds of product. The first is the 'gueuze' of the museum's name. Lambics between one and three years old are blended, and young beer added to provide natural sugars so that the beer ferments in the bottle.

The second is fruit beer. During the summer, fruits (particularly cherries and raspberries) are added to lambic. After at least three months, the beer has taken on the colour and taste of the fruit; young lambic is then added and the beer bottled.

THE MUSEUM

The Museum is a little way out of the city centre, near the Gare du Midi, but easily accessible by Metro. It is well worth the short journey.

The brewery was established by Paul Cantillon in 1900 and remains a family business. Because of the process of spontaneous fermentation used, brewing takes place only during the winter, although other work including bottling takes place throughout the year. I visited in early May, after brewing had finished, but the tour was still fascinating.

Information is available in English, and the staff also spoke excellent English. After a short introduction from one of the staff, I toured the brewery alone with a written guide. The route is well-signposted, and the guide is excellent: plenty of information and interesting facts, all easily related to the rooms you see.

Your
route follows the brewing process, from 'mashing' of the raw materials (crushing wheat and malted barley, then mixing them with hot water), boiling and crushing of hops, to the cooling tun, fermentation in barrels and bottling.

The brewery is not only interesting but also visually attractive and atmospheric, with its copper tuns, wooden stairs and barrels, bricks and tiles. Most striking is the granary, in the attic of the building. Little spots of light enter through the roof and highlight the beams and wooden floor.

The brewery is very different from spotless, modern industrial buildings. As the guide explains, cobwebs are positively encouraged since spiders are the only acceptable form of pest control (insecticides can't be sprayed around the beer). There are also a lot of stairs, some quite steep, so the museum is not suitable for people with limited mobility.

At the end of the tour comes a highlight: the tasting! Included in my entrance fee was a glass of gueuze and a generous half-glass of kriek (cherry beer). These are delicious, and you can buy more to take home from the small shop.

In summary, this was a fascinating visit to a unique piece of Brussels culture. The staff were very friendly and helpful, the museum was interesting and had lots of atmosphere, and the beer was delicious! I would highly recommend it.

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