Adventures in Payottenland
--------------------------

Gordon Olson

After a recent  business trip, I was able to schedule three vacation days
in Brussels, Belgium. Most of the first day, a Friday, I spent visiting
friends at the Free University of Brussels (Flemish half). In mid-afternoon
they suggested going for a beer. On campus they have a "sports bar" that
overlooks an olympic-sized swimming pool. It was a well-stocked sports bar
in that it served beers from two Trapist breweries along with a wide
selection of other good Belgian brews.

Not being shy when it comes to beer, I ordered a Westmalle Triple, just to
get started. It was a cloudy, straw colored, moderately strong beer. It was
slightly tart, but not acidic. Very refreshing after a day of talking. Then
I tried another Trapist beer, this one from Rochefort. This beer was
similar, but softer, smoother, and less distinctive. After more talk, I had
a Rodenbach, a light brown tart brew that is very refreshing. Three rounds
of beers was a wonderful lubricant for the discussion of national and world
politics and history.

The next day my friend, Willy Robrecht, and I toured two breweries. He had
called and made an appointment at the De Troch Brewery in Wambeek. This is
a small traditional lambic brewery in Payottenland, the area surrounding
Brussels to the west and south. This is the only area in the world that
brews lambic beers. The use of naturally occurring yeast and bacteria for a
spontaneous fermentation works to make the lambic style only in this small
region. Some US breweries have tried to reproduce this style by using
Brettanomyces yeast and pediococcus bacteria. So far, they have made very
poor imitations. Some homebrewers have put a lot effort in trying to make
this style. They have been more successful than the professionals.

Willy knows that I am a homebrewer and serious beer geek, but when he
explained this to the De Troch brewmaster (in Flemish), I think something
got lost in the translation. The brewmaster seemed to get the impression
that I was a professional brewer. Maybe it was because I made comments
about Brett and pediococcus and the failure of US breweries to duplicate
the style. Anyway, the brewmaster understood and spoke a little English and
I understood a little of his Flemish, so I had a good tour of the brewery.

Lambic breweries are unique in that the buildings are open to the
environment. The tile roof kept all the rain off, but the cracks and
deliberate holes in the tiles let the air flow through. De Troch was
founded in 1868, so it has a long history of knowing how to do it right.

The stone cellar is full of oak casks for aging the lambic. The brewmaster
tapped a cask with three month old lambic and gave me a taste. It was weak
and bland and had not yet fully developed the lambic character. Then he
tapped a cask that had year old lambic in it. The taste difference was
tremendous! The beer had a strong lambic character and lots of oak aromas
and tastes. When two or three years old, lambics are blended with young
lambic and the result is sold as gueuze. Blending is a necessary step to
get a balanced product. To make a kriek, whole cherries are added and
another fermentation occurs. For their other fruit flavors (raspberry,
strawberry, peach, apricot, banana, and pineapple), De Troch uses fruit
extracts. They also make Faro, which is lambic with candy sugar added. I
tried the Faro and it has a complex caramelized apricot taste blended with
the lambic character. Very interesting.

De Troch sells its beers under the Chapeau label and has recently started
exporting to the US through All Saints Brand in Minneapolis. If you see it
marketed in New Mexico, let me know. I only brought back three bottles of
De Troch beer. One of them made it to the last club meeting.

After lunch we went to the Cantillon Brewery/Museum. It is an operating
brewery that is open as a museum in order to educate the public about
lambic beers. The tour consisted of a photocopied hand out with numbered
paragraphs and corresponding numbered stops throughout brewery. This
self-guided tour worked well because I was already familiar with the
process. The handouts were available in at least four different languages.
In the cellar, one of the casks was actively burping as we walked by. I'll
have pictures to show at a future meeting.

One glass of beer was included in the price of entry to the museum.
Cantillon gueuze is typically one of the strongest flavored and most acidic
of the gueuzes. The glass I had did not disappoint me. At the last club
meeting I served Chapeau (De Troch) and Cantillon gueuzes one after the
other. They are both strongly flavored gueuzes, unlike some of the other
mediocre (mild) gueuzes available in the US. Each had distinctive
character. One club member described them as mare sweat versus stallion
sweat. They do not appeal to everyone.

Since we were given only small glasses of beer at the breweries, we went to
a bar and had a couple of real beers. I tried Kwak Pauwel, an amber that
was rather sweet. Westmalle Dubble was much more interesting. It's a
Trapist beer that is a smooth brown with a nutty nose. The aroma and flavor
remind me of the biscuit specialty malt made in Belgium.

When served a lambic style beer in a Belgium bar, one gets a small bowl of
cheese cubes with celery salt sprinkled on top. It sounds strange, but the
hard white cheese with celery salt quickly feels right. The one time I
ordered a more normal hoppy ale, I was given a small bowl of peanuts.

On Saturday evening and Sunday, I did some non-beer touristy type things
around Brussels, but I also went to the beer museum on the Grand Place in
the heart of Brussels. It is in the basement of the brewer's guild hall, an
old building. Unfortunately, this museum represented only the large Belgian
breweries and modern brewing. The price of entry included a glass of
generic lager. The attendant was not allowed to tell us which brewery
supplied the beer that week.

If you are in Europe and can schedule some time in Brussels, I highly
recommend it. While Germans drink more beer per person than Belgians,
Belgians have more different kinds of beer available to them than anyone
else in the world.