3 Fonteinen

Creating our lambic is the work of many people, each with their craft and passion. In the grain fields, in the orchards, in the brewery, in the barrel room and far beyond... Lambic culture lives thanks to character(s). People who work(ed) every day to keep beautiful traditions moving. People with stories of the past and the present. And these are stories we love to tell. The history of Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen did not run in a straight line. Our story has curled and twisted more than the river Zenne itself. More than once, the future of the brewery was at stake, and more than once we needed steadfast minds and hearts to save tradition. 1951. Harry Truman is President of the United States, Nat King Cole scores a worldwide hit with Unforgettable and Prince Baudouin takes the oath as King of Belgium. On 26 October of that same year, Raymonde Dedoncker and Gaston Debelder welcomed their first-born son on the family farm on the Mierenberg in Halle. Lambik and geuze have helped shaping the identity of our region. After all, the lambik region once counted more than 90 lambik brewers and 250 geuze blenders. Naturally, traditional old-Brabant cereals were fully part of that time frame. However, nowadays, those are not around anymore. After the World War II, orginal landraces have been completely wiped out by industrial agriculture. In order to revive them, we joined forces with some ten farmers. Pouring lambic is an art. There are rules, which luckily come with helpful tools. A pouring basket, for instance, which keeps the bottle horizontal so the lees remain where they lie: at the bottom. The baskets from which we slowly pour lambic beer are woven in Gerda Legrand’s workshop, using only hands, twigs and love. Today, less than 3% of the cereals used by Belgian brewers are of Belgian origin. That is rather disconcerting for the second largest malting country in the world. The culprit for the demise of our own barley is the industrialisation and global consolidation urge and the overall anonymisation of the entire agricultural and food system. De Kleine Rosse van Brabant, literal translation: the Little Redhead from Brabant. Right up to the 1970s, this beauty was waving on fields in the Pajottenland region, but today she has disappeared along with all other local landraces. And yet, the redhead among the wheat varieties had been part and parcel of local lambic culture for ages. Our dream today is to start growing and using these old varieties again. Traditional lambic beers mature in wooden barrels, but that is not the end of the story. After bottling, the beer continues to evolve for months and years. Fermentation carries on while the bottle rests quietly on its side. During this process, the pressure becomes too high for a standard crown cap. Hence the use of a cork and wire muselet, just like a bottle of champagne. Lambic is the foundation. It is the mother of all our other beers. Lambic is delicious to drink on its own, but this ‘flat, primal beer’ often serves as the basis for geuze and other derived beers, such as Kriek or various fruit lambics. Kriek is a refreshing and fruity lambic beer made with characterful sour cherries. No sweet cherries here. We use real krieken- with the stone, but without the stalk. We allow these cherries to steep – or macerate in lambic for months. In this way, colour, flavour, and aromas are imparted to the beer. This cherry lambic is then further assembled and bottled to become Kriek. Just as with our Kriek, our other fruit lambics are made solely with pure fruit. We source as locally as possible, and preferably organically grown too. Depending on the fruit, we will macerate it for at least several months on young or old lambic before balancing the blend with a touch more young lambic prior to bottling. Join our community! Do you share our passion for traditional lambic? Include your venue in our network of quality partners. Put your business on the map and help beer lovers find their way to y