- 3 Fonteinen
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A bottle of 3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze.
3 Fonteinen is a Belgian brewery, specialized in geuze and kriek. The brewery is situated in Beersel, near Brussels and produces classic versions of both kriek and geuze.
Contents
Geuzestekerij
3 Fonteinen was founded in about 1887 as a café and geuzestekerij, a place where geuze is produced by blending old and new lambics, acquired from other breweries. The enterprise was bought by Gaston De Belder in 1953, who expanded it with a restaurant and left it to his sons Armand and Guido in 1982. In 1998, a brewery installation was bought. Apart from using its own lambic, 3 Fonteinen uses lambic made by Boon, Girardin and Lindemans for its geuze. 3 Fonteinen is one of the few remaining geuzestekerijen. The Mijol Club, a literary club, founded by Herman Teirlinck, used to convene in the café.[citation needed]
Exploding beer
In May of 2009, a faulty thermostat caused the brewery's storage rooms to warm up to 50 degrees Celsius. As a result, 3000 bottles of beer exploded, and another 100,000 had to be emptied by hand to at least save the bottles. As a last resort, Armand De Belder distilled the overheated geuze and made an eau de vie which he called "Armand's Spirit": by December, half of the eau de vie had been sold, garnering enough revenue to allow the brewery to continue operations.[1]
References
- ^ Saedeleer, Yvan de (2009-12-30). "Het jaar dat de geuze ontplofte: Brouwer De Belder lanceerde een eau de vie, gemaakt met het mislukte bier". Nieuwsblad van het Noorden. http://www.nieuwsblad.be/article/detail.aspx?articleid=212K93AT. Retrieved 2010-01-06.
External links
- Official website (Dutch)
Categories:- Beer and breweries in Belgium
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