Brasserie-Brouwerij Cantillon ("Brewery Cantillon") is a small Belgian traditional family

brewery A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of b ...

based in

Anderlecht Anderlecht (; ) is one of the List of municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located in the south-western part of the region, it is bordered by the City of Brussels, Forest, B ...

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

. Cantillon was founded in 1900 and exclusively brews

lambic Lambic ( , ; ) is a type of beer brewed in the Pajottenland region of Belgium southwest of Brussels since the 13th century. Types of lambic beer include gueuze, kriek lambic, and framboise. Lambic differs from most other beers in that it is Bre ...

beers.

Overview

The brewery was founded in 1900 by Paul Cantillon, whose father was also a

brewer Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer, ...

, and his wife, Marie Troch. , the owner is Jean-Pierre van Roy, the fourth-generation brewer at Cantillon. Since launch, the only major change has been a shift to organic ingredients in 1999. Cantillon was one of more than one hundred operating breweries in Brussels when founded, and was the only one to remain operational through the 2000s. In 2014, van Roy announced that the brewery would be acquiring more maturation space, effectively doubling production by 2016–17. Cantillon produces 400,000 bottles of beer a year.

Beers

In the traditional lambic style, beers, with a mash bill of 2/3

malt Malt is any cereal grain that has been made to germinate by soaking in water and then stopped from germinating further by drying with hot air, a process known as "malting". Malted grain is used to make beer, whisky, malted milk, malt vinegar, ...

barley Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...

and 1/3 unmalted

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

, are spontaneously fermented in open topped attic mounted vats called coolships, aged in

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Description ...

, blended (from different batches and ages), bottled, and then bottle conditioned for a year. Half of the brewery's production is

gueuze Gueuze (; ) is a type of lambic, a Beer in Belgium, Belgian beer. It is made by Blending (alcohol production), blending young (1-year-old) and old (2- to 3-year-old) lambics, which is bottled for a second Fermentation (food), fermentation. B ...

; once a year a batch of kriek is made. For fruit-flavored beers, empty casks are filled with various fruits and macerated for three months to dissolve the fruits; young lambic is added to supply sugar for fermentation. * Blåbær -

bilberry Bilberries () are Eurasian low-growing shrubs in the genus ''Vaccinium'' in the flowering plant family Ericaceae that bear edible, dark blue berries. They resemble but are distinct from North American blueberries. The species most often referre ...

(made every year for a bottle shop in Denmark) * Cuvée Saint Gilloise - This is not a traditional gueuze, in that it is made from only two-year-old lambic, not from a blend of old and young beers. It is also dry-hopped in the cask for three weeks with fresh Styrian Golding hops. Re-fermentation in the bottle is achieved with the addition of a small amount of candy sugar. * Fou' Foune -

apricot An apricot (, ) is a fruit, or the tree that bears the fruit, of several species in the genus ''Prunus''. Usually an apricot is from the species '' P. armeniaca'', but the fruits of the other species in ''Prunus'' sect. ''Armeniaca'' are also ...

* Grand Cru Bruocsella - unblended lambic aged for three years, and refermented with liqueur d'expedition * Gueuze * Iris - 100% pale

beer with half fresh hops aged for two years and then dry-hopped with Hallertau hops * Kriek - lambic made with cherries * Lou Pepe Gueuze - blended from beers of the same age, thus not a strictly authentic gueuze * Lou Pepe Kriek - with more fruit (cherries) * Lou Pepe Framboise - with more fruit (raspberries) * Magic Lambic - 80% Lou Pepe Framboise and 20% blueberry lambic with vanilla * Mamouche -

elderflower ''Sambucus'' is a genus of between 20 and 30 species of flowering plants in the family Adoxaceae. The various species are commonly referred to as elder, with the flowers as elderflower, and the fruit as elderberry. Description Elders are mostl ...

* Nath - brewed with

rhubarb Rhubarb is the fleshy, edible stalks ( petioles) of species and hybrids (culinary rhubarb) of ''Rheum'' in the family Polygonaceae, which are cooked and used for food. The plant is a herbaceous perennial that grows from short, thick rhizomes. ...

* Rosé de Gambrinus - framboise * Saint Lamvinus -

Merlot Merlot ( ) is a dark-blue-colored wine grape variety that is used as both a blending grape and for varietal wines. The name ''Merlot'' is thought to be a diminutive of , the French name for the blackbird, probably a reference to the color ...

and

Cabernet Franc Cabernet Franc is one of the major black grape varieties worldwide. It is principally grown for blending with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in the Bordeaux (wine), Bordeaux style, but can also be vinified alone, as in the Loire (wine), Loire's C ...

grape A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of grapes began approximately 8,0 ...

s * Soleil de Minuit - cloudberry (made in 1999 and in 2013) * Vigneronne -

Muscat Muscat (, ) is the capital and most populous city in Oman. It is the seat of the Governorate of Muscat. According to the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), the population of the Muscat Governorate in 2022 was 1.72 million. ...

grapes

Gueuze Museum

The brewery also houses the Gueuze Museum. Patricia Schultz listed the brewery and its museum in ''

1,000 Places to See Before You Die ''1,000 Places to See Before You Die'' is a 2003 travel book by Patricia Schultz, published by Workman. A revised edition was published in November 2011. The new edition is in color. An iPad app debuted in December 2011. According to Schultz, ...

''.

References

External links

* {{coord , 50.8418, N, 4.3353, E, region:BE_type:landmark, display=title Beer museums Food and drink companies established in 1900 Belgian brands Breweries of Brussels Museums in Brussels Anderlecht Belgian companies established in 1900 Food and drink introduced in 1900