Hi,
Last Saturday, a wonderful visit to brewery Cnudde was scheduled.
At that time, the brewery was working, and great pictures were taken to show you all how things work inside this old artisanal brewery, located in East-Flanders' Eine, near Oudenaarde.

Brewery Cnudde - Fabriekstraat 8 - 9700 Eine - Saturday 20 June 2009 - 10.30 am

At that time, the wort underwent the different temperature stadia, and was being drained towards the cooking kettle.
As you can see, everything is still in plain copper, even the inside.

This picture shows a sack filled with local sour cherries (krieken), which were soaked into the beer to give the typical fruity sour cherry flavours to the Cnudde Bizon Kriek beer.
Note that Cnudde Bizon is not commercially available, and only savoured during special occasions !
An extreme pleasure to have tasted that beer that day !
Nothing sweet at all, but still quite mellow and sour cherry fruity. The smell gave almonds, also prolonged into the overall taste.
An amazing quality fruit beer, and such a pity this beer is not commercialized !

Brewmaster Lieven Cnudde holding a 6 years old Cnudde Bizon Kriek, poured straight from the lagering vat.
The smell inside that "Kriek beer lagering room" was to be called extreme delicious, and above all pleasant mouth watering.

Brewery Cnudde's flagship is ofcourse this authentic Cnudde Oud Bruin.
Brewed with mixed fermentation. This means that a wild yeast infection was done for a couple of hours to the open air inside the coolship, and this prior to an extra fermentation after adding yeast to the open (!) yeasting vat.
As opposite to Westflanders' Oud Bruin, no blending has been achieved, and no wood ageing inside "foeders" or barrels.
The result is a wonderful refreshing about 5 vol% (alc% always different) dark lactic beer. A session beer only availabe at different local cafes in Eine !

The full report, with pictures and comments, can be found by CLICKING HERE... (Browser in full-screen modus gives best image qualities).

Here under also an interesting movie about bry. Cnudde, made by student Emmelien Simoens at Artevelde High School, titled "CNUDDE met liefde gebrouwen" (= Cnudde, Brewed with Love). This movie is the beginning part only, so sadly not the complete version. But it still gives a great impression of how bry. Cnudde does the brewing art these days.

Cheers,
Filip

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Hi,
Belgian "sour" beers are popular thes days !
For this joyful observation this small article.

First, a tasting of the "Duvel Moortgat brewed" Liefmans Goudenband.
Observing the paper wrap, we see that Liefmans is now part of Duvel Moortgat NV.
This means that all wort is brewed at Breendonk, and the yeasting-lagering done at the Liefmans plant.
This gives the beer those typical Oud Bruin lactic flavours.
Tasting that beer, let's say two years ago, was a complete disappointment, because the lactic sourness was hardly noticeable. A bad evolution indeed.
But see, tasting the 'Duvel Moortgat brewed' Goudenband was a more than satisfying experience.
Lactic sourness has found its way back to Liefmans Goudenband.
People, this beer is what I used to remember: Pleasant lactic, and again having those great qualities like they should.
It is clear that Duvel Moortgat NV has done a most terrific job !!! 

More terrific jobs and sourness!
The latest Tour de Gueuze produced this outstanding Horal's Oude Geuze Mega Blend.
As the name already reveals, this indeed is a mega blend of different lambics, a collaborative effort of 8 lambic brewers and blenders, all members of HORAL.
Tasting this Oude Gueuze gave remarkable mellow flavours. A masterly blending by Frank Boon from bry. Boon.

Another smooth and quite mild Oude Gueuze is this Doesjel from bry. Drie Fonteinen.
Doesjel is kinda dialect for slumbering.
This beer is a blend of 1, 2 and 3 year old lambic. Fermented and lagered in oak vessels.
In this bottle the young yeast is brought to sleep ('ingedoesjeld') so the original lambic flavors are preserved. Hence the name Doesjel. In fact, the Gueuze has practically no carbonation.
Brewed with 60% barley, 40% wheat, last years hop.
As you can see, the beer has virtually no head. the lazy wild yeasts to blame really :)
But, it gives a really soft, non-agressive smooth beer to enjoy with pleasure.

More sourness is coming from Westflanders. To be precise, from Roeselare.
Bry. Palm has done a wonderful effort to offer this outstanding Vin de Céréale.
Details: New: Vin de Céréale - 10 vol% - Bry. Rodenbach - Palm Breweries
At 10 vol%, a most remarkable "unblended" strong foederbier.
I can only encourage bry. Palm to commercialize another batch of these beauties ASAP !

More sourness, this time coming from the 'Proef'brewery at Lochristi. Totentrekker, a lactic Oud Bruin.
See initial message:  New: Totentrekker - De 'Proef'
Again, we remark that soft, smooth acidity. Nothing aggressive at all. The lactic acidity has been dosed just the right way.
Great brew !

This picture shows the experimental Cosmos Porter, brewed by De Dolle Brouwers brewmaster Kris Herteleer, and this specially for the recent Zythos Beer Fest 2009.
See: THE Revelation @ ZBF 09 - Cosmos Porter - 7 vol% - De Dolle Brouwers
Actually great to see that this beer has won the Zythos Beer Fest Consumers Trophy.

It's clear, beer lovers are into sourness again !

More sourness in next article...

Cheers,
Filip

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Hi,
Here a hilarious YouTube movie about one episode of quiz program Kwist'et.
Kwist'et is broadcasted every day at 6.30pm on local Westflanders television Focus.
A quiz where local people are questioned about their regional knowledge.
The people are randomly taken from the street and being questioned by Lorenzo, the quizmaster.
The price is a crate of Rodenbach.
This episode takes place in Beernem, a small city close to Bruges.
The fragment is very special, and quite funny. When watching the movie, you will notice that Lorenzo is speaking the ABN (Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands) language, and the two guys the local Westflanders dialect. Two different pronounciations. ABN is the language that is spoken on television, radio, schools, etc... understandable by all Flemish and Dutch people. This 'clean' language  is learned at school !

Have fun..

Interesting to actually see a normal (?) cafe.
A cafe for the local people, offering that 25 beers list. The guy is drinking a Jupiler, a common sight in Belgian's local cafes.
Local cafes that are the majority of beer bars here in Belgium.
Note that speciality beer bars are only a fraction of the total image !

Cheers,
Filip

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Hi,
Time for some Bruges' historic beer facts.
A message, incl. picture report, that wouldn't have been possible if Bruges' organisation vzw 't Hamerken wouldn't have organized that splendid "Beer and Breweries in Archive Documents" activity that happened on Friday the 5th. and Saturday the 6th. of June lately.
The Belgian Beer Board (also member vzw 't Hamerken) was present, and captured things.
The capturing has become quite amazing by the way !

Our historic guide was historian - archive specialist Jan D'Hondt, who gave us precise information about what happened here in Bruges concerning the history of brewing, including the wonderful Middle Ages period.
Jan is holding a piece of historic book from 1441, where clearly a list is published with a nice collection of Bruges' breweries !

More interesting documents !
From 1809 ! An announcement - in French and Dutch - about a new price setting of one cask of 176 litres of beer.

This old book dates mid 1700's, and contains the regulation on the selling of "Groot Bier".
"Groot Bier" brewers could make the good quality beers that time. quality beers were called "Groot Bier" (Big Beer).
On the other hand, there was also the existance of "Klein Bier" (Small Beer), which as you could guess the low quality beers.
Today, there is still that Flemish saying: "Dit is geen klein bier" (This is not small beer) which means that things are quite serious, and not from minor significance.

Anyway, that Saturday afternoon was quite some piece of interesting wading through Bruges' beer history.

The complete pictorial impression, including more comments and details, can be found by CLICKING HERE....

For optimal viewing pleasure, put your browser in 'full-screen' modus, and screen resolution into maximum. The pictures are big, and have a resolution of 1280 x 960 pixels. Have fun...

www.thamerken.be

Cheers,
Filip

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Hi,

The sixth edition Good Beer Guide Belgium, written by famous English beer researcher Tim Webb, is readily available today!
Four years of hard labour melted inside what you easily can call the most complete Belgian Beer Bible !
First published in 1992, to become a totally independent beer guide. Makes it a damn trustworthy piece of Belgian beer information.
And what a piece of complete info about Belgian Beer has this become folks !
See also previous 'scooping' article about the release:
http://belgianbeerboard.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=500

Here's the front cover, showing a panorama of the beautiful Graslei in Ghent.
The impressive tap line-up is taken at the Delirium Taphouse in Brussels (http://www.impassedelirium.be/impassedelirium_006.htm). Great cover !

One of the main differences between previous editions is the use of colors, which you can clearly see on the picture.
Starts with a grey section, followed by red, blue, and grey again.

The first - grey colored - section starts with a welcoming word, a nice introduction, followed with a touching remembrance on our absent friends like beer researchers - enthusiasts John White and Michael Jackson, both from England, who sadly passed away from us far too early. MUCH too early.

This is followed by 5 guest write-ups. Interesting articles starting with Canadian Stephen Beaumont, followed - in this order - by American "Belgian Beer importer" Dan Shelton, famous Belgian "Lambic blender/brewer" Frank Boon, Belgian "American beer connoisseur" Carl Kins from Kortrijk, and finished with an extensive article from the hands of English beer researcher Ron Pattinson. An article about why Belgium didn't follow the craft brewing revolution the last 20 years.

The first grey section also gives some historic facts about Belgium and its traditions - cultures.

Very convenient for foreign people: How to get to Belgium ! Really excellent descriptions in full details. Convenient at least.

This info is followed with some local information like accomodations, driving, cycling, train, busses, trams, etc...
Detailed articles about food, beer tourism, the beer brewing process, and even a more than complete beer events calendar, which really completes that first grey section with style.

Let's move to the red section.
A section covering all Belgian beer styles, breweries, brew firms (brewers without a brewery).

New is the brewery rating system, called the fun factor - using the 10mP scale.
To understand the 10mP scale, I suggest you just buy the book :) => Description on page 101.

One minor point about the red section: Why there's no mentioning of beer firms ? Beer firms that do not brew themselves, but still produce original Belgian beers, a not unimportant part of the Belgian beer scene. Seems unfair to wipe out a vast group of excellent original Belgian beers with great qualities. This could be an improvement in the next GBGB edition. Original Belgian beers just need that attention and promotion. Even for the GBGB, the sky should be the limit.

The red section is followed by the blue section that contains 99.9% of Belgians specialist beer bars.
This is what I call quite some piece of research. Extensive research done by Tim Webb himself, and his assiduous researchers group. A constant "daily" job of updating, adding, deleting, etc... My big appreciation !

Note that the whole book is illustrated with top-quality pictures. Some pictures even have that humour about them.
The guy drinking an ABInBev Jupiler pils from can when holding the Good Beer Guide Belgium Guide is quite funny.

The last section is again grey colored, and contains a vast collection of Belgian beer stores - warehouses, where to buy Belgian beer in Britain, and last but not least some pages mentioning consumer groups & websites.

Actually extreme flattering to see the Belgian Beer Board published on the first place !

People, the underlying message of this article: BUY THAT BOOK !!!!!

You definitely will need it when going for great quality Belgian beer when visiting Belgium.
This English couple I pictured a month ago at brewery Sint-Canarus already have found the excellent convenience from this absolute BEST Belgian beer book ever: The Good Beer Guide Belgium.
This book, completed with Tim Webb's 100 Belgian Beers to Try Before you Die (details), could make it even more perfect.

To order: CLICK HERE...

Cheers,
Filip

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