Bosteel's and Lieffman's

Today we travelled through the Flanders area in Belgium.  We visited several breweries and toured the city of Gent.  The first brewery we visited was Bosteels, which is a family owned brewery that specializes in Kwak beer.  This is a style of beer that is served in a special glass that has a round bottom and must have a holder.  The special glass and holder traces back to Napoleon.  This is because Napoleon banned the deliverymen from drinking any beers at the pubs where they were delivering goods.  The owner of the brewery developed the special holder that could be attached to the carriage that the deliverymen were driving.  The owner could then bring them a beer to drink while the men were making their deliveries.  The brewery itself was very interesting and remains even today a small operation.  The current owner of the brewery gave us a tour of the office building, which used to be the family house.  This was awesome because we were able to see some of the rooms that were used for entertainment and such.

We then went on a quick tour of Gent in which we saw the many canals that run throughout the city.  The cathedral in the center of the town was quite impressive.  There was a great deal of stained glass as well as beautiful paintings.  Important families that were members of the Church commissioned these paintings.  The families wanted to ensure their place in heaven and be commemorated by the Church forever.  Gent was quite beautiful and I would enjoy spending more time there and exploring the city more.

In the afternoon we went to Lieffman’s brewery and toured the facility.  This was a very old brewery which fairly old equipment.  The brewing of the wort is no longer done in this facility; rather it is done in the Duvel brewery that is close by.  The cooled wort is then transported to Lieffman’s and put in large open-air fermentation tanks.  The open air is important because the lactobacillus bacteria can then inoculate the beer.  This gives their beers a characteristically sour flavor.  Lieffman’s also makes a Kriek style beer in which cherries are macerated with their dark ale.  This results in a lovely sweet cherry flavor in the beer.

The brewery tours and the visit to Gent were awesome!  It was great to see parts of Flanders and get outside of the city of Brussels.