Emmanuel “Manu” De Landsheer, owner of Malheur told me the story behind his small, artisanal brewery. His family has been brewing beer since  the 1600’s in Bougenhout, Belgium near Dentermonde. The original brewery was called Sun Brewery. In the brewery’s tasting room, the walls are adorn with historic photographs of each family member working in the brewery or the hop fields.

All of their beers were living ales – sour ales.  They grew their own hops, they used the well water and their yeast was of the wild atmospheric sort. Over the years, the well water became contaminated with nitrates and the landscape changed as well. The beer was not the same, so they halted brewing and began bottling for others. Today, they are no longer bottling but they do maintain a distribution company as well as an import-export company. In fact, they are the #1 exporter for Westmalle Trappist.

Manu resurrected the brewery and called it Malheur, which produced its first beer in 1997. It was Malheur 4 and it was 5% abv. Malheur is a French word that translates to “misfortune” – maybe that is a strange name for a brewery – maybe not. Apparently, students from the University gave this name as a class project & Manu described it as “hard times or positive disaster” It could be fitting, since it took almost 400 years to evolve into what it is today – through a series of disasters that turned out a positively unique artisanal brewery.

The US imports the 10, 12, Brut and Dark Brut from Malheur. 2000 saw the birth of 12, which is a terrific Dark Belgian Ale (Quadruple). I think Manu called it a brown ale. I tasted it on draft at the brewery and it will rival St Bernardus Abt 12. It’s THAT good.

In 2001, Malheur’s first Brut beer was made. This fantastic beer endures 3 months of bottle fermentation at cave temperatures. After the first three months, they angle the bottles in specially designed racks while turning the bottle clockwise over the course of two weeks – called method champenoise.  When all the yeast settles, they freeze the top portion of the bottle and the extra cO2 built up from secondary fermentation blows this sediment out of the bottle. Afterwards, they cork it, add the wire cage and glue the foil on by hand.

The ingredients are pure and no shortcuts are taken. No sugar or adjuncts are added. The beer quality speaks for itself and if you haven’t tried one yet, most Flying Saucers have Malheur. Bring a friend and share a bottle – this will ease the sting of this high end beer’s price tag.

Lucas, Manu, Sam & me – with a 12 in hand.

Fresh Hops

I had an opportunity to visit with the good folks at Sierra Nevada recently and had a fantastic time. We’ve been selling their beers for the past 13 years or so and this was my first time to visit the brewery. It is not easy getting to Chico, CA, but the trip was well worth it.

Sierra is almost if not entirely off the grid. They have one of the largest privately owned solar panel systems in the world. They have a very well equipped R & D brewery where I was able to taste some experimental brews from their fermenters: a Saison, Hefe-Weizen and a Pilsner. I believe this was their original brewhouse that was outgrown and put to good use.

In the picture above, I am about to toss in the rest of the 110 gallons of fresh “wet” hops into their brew kettle. When you drink the Harvest ale (if there is any left), you should smell and taste the hops. They spare no expense making their beers and it was a real pleasure meeting Ken Grossman and his fantastic team.

A trip to Belgium is a must for any beer enthusiast. The year 2005 was the “year for beer” and I was told by one of our hosts that 100 years ago, Belgium had 1500 breweries. Now they have 150 or so independent breweries. So, I set out to find some of the best.

We set up camp in Brussells and then headed south to Chimay. It was a nice drive past Waterloo and despite my lack of navigation skills, we made it on time to meet Fabris (shown in the picture). He was a great host and everyone we met at Chimay was very happy to be there and to meet us.

Chimay is a Trappist brewery and is located inside the Scourmont Abbey and was founded in 1863. Chimay brews and sells 3 different ales; The Premiere (Red) – 7%, Tripel (White) – 8% and Grande Reserve (Blue) – 9%. The beer is sold to raise money to maintain the Monastary and to aid charities supported by the Monks.

Seventeen monks were at the Abbey and I caught a glimpse of them in prayer. I was told that visitors rarely get to go inside the prayer hall – I felt honored. Inside the brewery, I was surprised to see that almost everything was fully automated. They have a red, blue and white button to press for each brew. I assume recipe secrecy has something to do with this. The brewery has a lab inside and each beer is inspected, measured and tasted at different stages of the brewing process and before it leaves the Abbey.

After a primary fermentation, the unfiltered beer is shipped in large tankers to the bottling facility nearby. I was told that the travel in the tanker helps mix things up a bit to further the process of fermentation. At the bottling line, the beer and more wort or sugar is added to continue fermentation in the bottle. When the bottling line is on, Chimay bottles approximately 35,000 beers per hour. Then the beer is packaged in crates and sent to another room to continue (bottle) fermentation for several more weeks.

Their yeast strains are protected and samples are frozen and stored in off-site vaults in two seperate cities. Chimay is one of SEVEN Trappist Breweries in existence today. They also produce wonderful cheeses for personal consumption and retail markets.