Microbrewed Adventures (24 page)

My tour of the Netherlands was winding down. I took a pass on a tour of the newly opened microdistillery pub in Amsterdam in the hope of returning to Vllesingen in time for a decent night's sleep. But that was not to be the
case, as immediately upon our return to Jan and Irma's home we explored the finer points of homemade Calvados and Poire (Pear) Williams brandy.

The next morning we caught the early-morning ferry to Belgium, but not before stopping at one last Dutch microbrewery—De Halve Maan Bierbrouwerij in Hulst, located in a old train station. By 11
A.M
. I was sacked out on the ferry and dreaming of the beer and adventures that awaited.

The Mad Brewer of Esen

D
E DOULLE BROUWERS
(The Mad Brewers) is a small microbrewery in the picturesque town of Esen, Belgium. It is legendary among Belgian beer enthusiasts. I was still traveling with the guiding enthusiasm of Jan Van Schaik for one final day. De Doulle Brouwers was our first stop. The extremes, exceptions and the fantastic lengths to which microbrewers will go in order to achieve their dreams and produce the most exceptional beers on Planet Beer never cease to amaze me. De Doulle Brouwers is one of the most admirable brewery operations I have had the pleasure to witness. Not because of the beer or the equipment, but because of the single owner/employee who operates this “mad” brewery. Chris Herteleer is a man who seems to have kept his priorities in balance. An architect and graphic designer, he also paints watercolors and loves brewing beer.

Starting out as a homebrewer, Chris managed to buy a brewery that was founded in 1842. When I visited in 1995 he was still using the original brewhouse equipment. He had recently expanded, installing a bottle washer and bottling line. In keeping with his balanced lifestyle, he built a picturesque and artfully designed café, which reminds one of a large, airy, well-lit loft
with tables, a bar and a large outdoor deck overlooking green pastures and very contented cows.

Chris brewed once a week (40 times a year, for a total of about 1,200 hectoliters or about 1,000 barrels), working on other operations at the brewery about three days a week. He is the sole employee/owner (except when bottling). His is another story of a passionate homebrewer gone pro. But Chris has also managed to balance the brewery operations with his other life interests.

Obviously, production is limited. Chris sells all he can make at a good price, despite a zero-dollar marketing budget. His most popular beers, some of which are exported to the United States, are:

 

Oerbier
(Crazy Beer)—A Belgian Flanders–style strong brown ale at original gravity of 1.100 at 7½ percent alcohol. It uses six malts, three hops and candi sugar and is bottle-conditioned.

 

Bos Keun
(Easter Bunny)—A seasonal blanche (pale) beer with a starting gravity of about 1.090 and alcohol of 8 percent. There is some honey used.

 

Ara Bier
—A beer for summer. Starting gravity is at 1.080, with an alcohol content of 8 percent.

 

Stille Nacht
(Silent Night)—A very strong Christmas beer, with an incredibly high original gravity at 1.120 and 9 percent alcohol. It is considered one of his classic beers.

 

Dulle Teve
—I can't recall an explanation for the label Chris gave me, but judging from that label and what memory I had left after departing, I think
dulle teve
means mother-in-law. Alcohol is at 10 percent!

After the tour we were joined by Leuven microbrewer Steven Pauwels (now the head brewer at Boulevard Brewing Company, Kansas City) and former American Homebrewers Association vice president Grosvenor Merle-Smith. We entered a dark and damp cellar. It is where Chris Herteleer keeps his special “vintage” beers. We loaded up with a few cobweb-laced bottles that had barely legible labels and rusted bottle caps and headed up to the loft café. It was beer-tasting time.

We began by tasting a 12-year-old bottle prototype and aged Oerbier. It was at this point I discovered that Chris enjoyed an occasional cigar. I gave him a Cuban cigar I had reserved for a special occasion. This was a special
occasion. It wasn't long before Chris disappeared and reemerged with a few more bottles of a beer brewed years earlier and subsequently aged in oak for two years. It was reminiscent of another world-classic Flanders-style sour brown ale, Rodenbach Gran Cru, but not quite as acetic. The beer kept coming!

Chris Herteleer and his cellared “vintage” beers

There appeared in a fresh glass an 11.5 percent alcohol beer brewed 15 years earlier, in 1980. Chris confided that this was a beer he shares only with his best friends. It was a miraculously complex strong Belgian-style ale. We continued tasting other prototypes of his current beers. Finally, just when we thought we were finished (a big mistake—thinking one is ever finished tasting beer), a special corked dark beer brewed in 1980 appeared to climax the late afternoon. It was 12 percent alcohol, chocolaty, with a bit of fruity acidity, winey and very smooth indeed.

It was at that point I noticed two elderly women sitting on a sofa, their feet resting on a giant bellows. They were all smiles and at the end of their glass of a De Doulle Brouwers strong ale. They left quite peacefully, seeming to drift gracefully down the bright red, narrow spiral staircase.

There were once 3,223 breweries in the era of 1900s Belgium. Now there were fewer than 120. Mad brewers such as Chris may resurrect the strong and crazy brewing traditions of Belgium, if we let them. I was doing my part
and will continue to do so. We soon left—why, I don't quite remember, except it had something to do with dinner in Brugge. Oh, yes. Dinner, and of course more beer.

Intoxication by Ara and “Bunny Rabbit”

Brugge is quite a marvelous city, they tell me. We whisked through at such a fast pace and in such a delirious state of mind I don't recall seeing it. We tasted beers at nook-and-cranny pubs and cafés along the way to wherever we were being led. At one of Jan's favorite pubs, the de Garre, we enjoyed a beer (don't ask me to remember it at this point). Listening to classical music, I was just beginning to get comfortable when I was alerted that it was time to go. Was I going crazy, or was it the maniac fermented in all of us?

Down this street, around that corner and soon we were at Raspoetin, a friendly antique restaurant offering food and more beer. Halfway through our meal it was time to go again—to another café. How could we possibly have another beer? No, I wasn't really inebriated and was far from feeling drunk, but I had an intense feeling of saturation. My eyes were looking but not seeing. My ears were hearing but not listening. My mouth was drinking but not tasting. My hands were touching but not feeling. I had become a walking zombie in Brugge. As I walked, I could feel my eyes closing and my arms rising in front of me. I emitted low, rumbling belches. I imagined little children and mothers with babes in arms fleeing as I approached.

I came to some senses just as we approached 't Brugs Beertje (the Special Beerhouse), serving more than 300 kinds of traditional and not-so-traditional Belgian beers. We had time to order a couple of more beers. This was Brugge; it all seemed to be foam at the top.

The pleasure of Belgian ale

Jan, needing to catch the last ferryboat back to the Netherlands, drove us the last hour to Leuven before departing. Thanking him for his superhuman hospitality, Grosvenor and I checked into our hotel. We looked at each other, then at our watches, and together we glanced out the window to the well-lit town square. We weren't done yet. Not by a long shot. Walking down to the square, we sat down at an outdoor café. What did we do? It isn't hard to imagine. Without thinking, we automatically ordered another beer. Strangely, I couldn't even drink half of it.

Grosvenor left the next day, back to Ireland where he had been working. He admitted a certain degree of saturation.

But beer is my business, and I was working late. The next morning Steven Pauwels had planned another full day's itinerary for me. Our first visit was to the Westmalle Trappist Brewery in Malle. It is one of five authentic Trappist breweries in Belgium. Brewing 125,000 hectoliters of beer per year, the monks have decided that they do not wish to expand production any further. Situated in a pastoral setting, surrounded by fields of green and very contented cows (I began to note the common theme here with cows and brewers, or so it seems). Jan Adriaensens, the head brewer, explained the brewing system and confided that they will use the same yeast through 25 generations before starting a new culture. Their beers are primary fermented at 19 to 20 degrees C (66–68 F), then cooled to 8 degrees C (46.5 F), then aged for three to eight weeks depending on whether they are Dubbel or Tripel. They were using German Spalt,
Tettnanger and Hallertauer hops as well as Czech Saaz, Styrian Goldings and hop extract for bittering. Fresh doses of healthy yeast are added at bottling and refermented and conditioned in the bottle at 20 degrees C (68 F) for about three weeks, creating natural carbonation.

The popularity of Westmalle Trappist beers is encouraging to the brewers, but it is also the reason the beer does not get exported out of the region in great quantities. A fresh Westmalle Tripel or Dubbel is a treat to enjoy close to the source, where the passion is not diluted by age or distance.

At the end of our tour we enjoyed an Extra, a light, 5.5 percent alcohol beer brewed three or four times a year for the exclusive consumption of the 30 monks in the monastery.