Van Honsebrouck Brewery

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    250ml
    $16.00

let's tap into their story!

Van Honsebrouck was named after the mayor of the village of Werken, Amandus Van Honsebrouck, who owned a farm that included a dairy, a brewery, and a distillery way back in 1811. After his sudden death in 1865, Emile - one of Van Honsebrouck’s 10 children - succeeded him as both brewer and mayor.

Together with his wife Louise De Poorter, Emile moved into the family farm in Werken, but their stay was short-lived as Louise did not get along with her mother-in-law. The young couple decided to leave Werken and moved into a modest farm in Ingelmuster - Louise’s birthplace - to start their own brewery. In 1900, the Sint Jozef brewery was born.
As the mother of 5 children, Louise managed to run the brewery successfully. When Emile was almost 80 years old, Louise entrusted the brewery to one of their sons, Paul. Together with his brother Ernest, the two managed to keep the brewery going even after the destruction wrought by the First World War.

Van Honsebrouck’s specialty brews

In 1953, Paul became seriously ill and had to leave the brewery to one of his 7 children. One of Paul’s older sons, Luc, decided to study in Wuppertal, Germany, to become a brewer and eventually take over the family business. After his studies and a fruitful internship at the Wicküler-Küpper-Brauerei, Luc was ready to take the helm of the Sint Jozef brewery.
However, Luc soon realised that his small and humble brewery was far from ready to compete with the large pils breweries. He knew that he needed something special in order to make his brewery stand out from the crowd. As a result, he decided to focus on the production of an aged brown beer - similar to the one produced back in 1930. Luc named it Bacchus, completely stopped brewing pils, and changed the name of the brewery to Van Honsebrouck as a tribute to his great-grandfather.

In 1957, Luc was greatly inspired by Bacchus’s huge success and as a result, created a second specialty beer - gueuze. However, this beer style was only brewed in the Zenne valley, so Luc had to figure out how he was going to transport the wild yeasts needed for spontaneous fermentation from Zenne valley all the way to Ingelmuster.
In the end, Luc bought lambic wort from Van Haelen Frères in Uccle and pumped the wort into the foeders used to mature the Bacchus. Next, he transferred the yeast culture from one foeder to the next and thus, based on a relatively small quantity of lambic wort, he managed to produce sufficient lambic for his own gueuze and kriek. In 1958, Luc officially launched the St-Louis Gueuze and Kriek.
The beers were a hit, and later on in 1992, beer aficionado Jef Van den Steen claimed that St-Louis Gueuze would be even better if it also came in an unfiltered, bottle-fermented version. Luc took on the challenge and released the St-Louis Gueuze Fond Tradition in 1997 which was Michael Jackson-approved!
Thanks to the overwhelming success of the St-Louis Gueuze and Kriek, Van Honsebrouck became the second largest producer of gueuze in the country in 1978. Riding the waves of success, Luc decided to brew a new beer and named it Brigand - a subtle reference to the rebels during the French Occupation in 1798. Brigand steadily gained popularity to the point where the municipality decided to officially rename Ingelmuster “the town of Brigand”!
To celebrate, the town held its first Brigand parade in 1986, and this parade became a tradition that lasted for years. In that same year, the Van Honsebrouck Family bought the Ingelmunster Castle, which inspired Luc to brew a dark specialty beer - Kasteel Donker - in 1989. Kasteel Donker was the very first beer in the Kasteel range, and was introduced to the public in 1991 and was an instant hit. This marked the birth of the Kasteelbier brand and a few years later, Kasteel Blond and Kasteel Tripel were added to the range.
Today, Van Honsebrouck remains a family-owned business, with the 5th generation of the Van Honsebrouck family now running the brewery. The brewery continues to produce high-quality, flavorful beers that reflect the rich brewing traditions of Belgium, while also exploring new styles and techniques to keep its lineup fresh and exciting.
 

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