I joined a tour of Lambic and Geuze breweries. Unfortunately the weather was quite bad, and breweries tend to be dark, but here are some pictures I took.
One of the larger breweries we visited was Lindemans.
The ingredients for Lambic beer: spring water, aged hops, wheat, malt, and airborne wild yeasts:
Those copper vats are so lovely and steam-punk-ish:
Another large brewery is Boon. There, the vats are stainless steel. Personally I prefer the look of copper.
Unlike at Lindemans’ the cask storage is well-lit
Each brewery has its own mark that is chalked on their casks.
This is Hanssens, one of the smaller and more artisanal breweries:
Lambic is too acidic to take on any taste from the barrel, so there is no special benefit to use old wine barrels or such, like for whiskey.
Lots and lots of casks.
And lots of bottles waiting to be filled:
Their rather beat-up looking bottling, corking and labeling machine:
We also paid a visit to Tilquin, which isn’t a brewery but a “stekerij”, which creates its ow blends of beers from different brewers. So their barrels carry many different marks.
