On November 12th 2018, IAAS Ghent organised a visit to the Van Steenberge Brewery. At 7 pm we arrived at the brewery and our very friendly guide André (or as he liked to say, Andrew in English) brought us into their bar.
History
Jan Baptist De Bruin starts to brew beer in 1784 during winter as an agricultural side activity. His brewing of the old-brown beer was actually unknowingly laying the foundations of the current brewery. He was married Angelina Petronella Schelfaut and after they passed away their nephew Joseph Schelfaut took over. His daughter Margriet married Paul Van Steenberge and took over the brewery. In 1919 the brewery got the name Brouwerij Bios. Later the brewery went to the son of Paul, Jozef, then the grandson, Paul and the great-grandson Jef (since 1998). The brewery is now called Van Steenberge Brouwerij.
Beers
As a way to honour their founder and the opening of their own bar Baptist they made the Baptist beer. Baptist is an accessible craft beer with a full and rich flavour. Baptist blond is a clear top-fermenting pilsner brewed with craft beer yeast and a 5% alcohol level. The flavour is slightly bitter and full bodied and the aroma is malty and spicy. All of us got to experience the taste in the pub before we went inside the brewery. Baptist White is a top fermenting white beer with a 5% alcohol level as well. The flavour has refreshing notes of coriander and orange peel with a spicy aroma.
After our visit inside of the brewery (see later on) it was time for some more tasting so André pulled out some glasses and filled them up with Gulden Draak from the tap, got open some bottles of Augustijn and answered all our questions.
In 1987 the monks of the Augustijn monastery asked the brewery if they wanted to brew their beer. They had been brewing this beer since 1295 in their monastery but were looking for a brewing partner. The brewery gained acces to the recipe because they won a competition organised by the monks. Not only did they gain access to the recipe, they also got the top knowledge of their famous professor Janus Jeremanus, specialised in yeast fermentation. Jozef van Steenberge relaunched the beer as it is in its current state in 1982. This beer has a secondary fermentation on the bottle since then. Augustijn Blonde (7.5%) a full-bodied and mild beer with malt and hops and a slight touch of vanilla with a malty, fruity and hoppy aroma. Augustijn Dark (8.0%) is a full-bodied and mild beer with beautifully balanced notes of grapes and chocolate and a red fruity and slightly smoked aroma. Augustijn Grand Cru (9.0%) is a unique tripel with a very full-bodied taste with notes of malt and a fruity, spicy and hoppy aroma.
A few years after starting to brew the Augustijn beer, Jozef met up with one of his Italian customers in 1986. Gulden Draak was then brewed once a year for the Assenede fanfare. The Italian could feel the fire in the beer and wanted to buy it. Jozef finally agreed to put in an order of 100 hectolitres. The beer has quite a character so they decided the bottle should have one too and agreed upon a white sleeve. The name comes from the gilded dragon statue on top of the Ghentian Belfry which is a symbol for the city's freedom and power. The unique flavour is given by the secondary fermentation with unique wine yeasts and makes it tasteful even at this high alcohol percentage. Gulden Draak (10.5%) is a dark beer and has a very full-bodied flavour with notes of chocolate, caramel and alcohol and an aroma of alcohol, roasted malt and coffee. Gulden Draak Quadrupel (10.5%) is an amber coloured beer with a smooth and slightly sweet flavour and a slightly fruity aroma. Their newest beer is Gulden Draak Imperial Stout a deep dark beer with rich and powerful taste and an aroma of chocolate and banana. There is also the Brewmaster which is Gulden Draak aged on Scottish whisky barrels.
In 1988 the Italians wanted another beer and the brewery started brewing Piraat (10.5%). This is an amber beer with a slightly sweet and warm flavour, complex and rich and hop bitter. The aroma is bittersweet and spicy. Piraat Tripel Hop (10.5%) is hop bitter, slightly fruity tasted with a very hoppy fruitiness aroma.
General information
The brewery is specialised in brewing strong beers, they brew 8 times a day, 1000 liters. The brewery is running all day and night until thursday evening. They sell beer allover the world (see the dots on the world map). 85% of their sales are internationally (Italy, Spain, France, South America,...), the other 15% is for the Belgian market.
They've won many prizes with their beers (just look at that wall of achievements). Their latest victory is on the International Beer Challenge (IBC) in London where they won 6 awards!
They rebuild the brewhouse after the second world war and it has been in it's current form (with upgrades)) since 1992. This was the first total computer guided brew house in Belgium. Since May 2018 a new floor has been laid in the factory. The tiles are hexagons, representing the logo and the 6 generations who have been producing the beers.
In the brewery you can also find a beautifully designed space which can be rented of by companies and organisations for meetings. It's called Bar Baptist.
There are around 30 people working in the brewery (even though it has exploded in demand and expanded quite a big amount). The brewery stands on 5.5 hectares of land (with enough room for more expansion) and employs around 70-90 people in a sheltered workshop as well.
Brewing the beers
A brewhouse needs water, so they have 3 sources of their own and treat more water to be used for the brewing process.
They stomp the malt (blond, dark or roasted) and add water, then let that mix for 2.5 hours. They increase the temperature step wise from 52 to 78°C. This makes sure the transformation to sugar is done (which they need to produce alcohol later on). The more premium material you use, the stronger the beer.
The second step is the filtration cube. After filtering you end up with wort (a see through liquid). The particles who stay behind on the filter are called draf.
For the third step the wort is being cooked in the kettle for 1h15min at 102°C, hop is added in this process to give the beer its aroma, bitterness and foam. The more hops you add, the better the beer is for your internal darm flora. Sugar syrup is added for strong beer and for others herbs can be added as well. The brewery doesn't add lots of herbs though as the beers get the flavour from the yeast. Yeast is added to the liquid mass and the yeast converts the sugar to alcohol and CO2. The difference between top and bottom fermented beers is the temperature at which you ferment it.
Step number 4: Whirlpool/centrifuge. To clear the liquid a centrifuge is used, the hops and malt stay in the middle and the liquid flows to the outside of the centrifuge. This step is done at 92°C and there is a CHP (combined heat and power) to reuse some of the heat from the process. The end product is a sugar containing liquid mass.
Step 5: Resting. The beer needs to cool down and rest. This is done in the new state of the art cold block (since Januari 2018). There are huge resting tanks where the beer gets stored for minus 1 to max 4 weeks.
Step 6: Polishing. This step is not necessary for secondary fermented beers but all the other beers are polished up.
Fun fact: The brewery has 11 km of stainless steel, 45 km of electric and air lines. That's a huge amount!
Packaging the beers
The brewery fills around 500 hectolitres a day of Gulden Draak (their best selling beer). That is 800 cases an hour, a full pallet every 4 minutes. The sleeves are put around the bottles with steam wrapping, that machine alone costs 1.6 million euros. They clean and fill the kegs but this costs about 4 to 5 euros and they send out 500 kegs before the first one is returned. So an easier and cheaper system is the keykegs, they cost 13 euros, don't have to be cleaned and are recuperated on the spot.
Future endeavours
The brewery is planning to expand even more and build a distillery. Here they'll produce rum, whiskey, gin and vodka. The company also takes sustainability into account and will build a new waste water treatment plant as well.
Visit
The brewery is very easy to set up a visit with and the guide is very passionate since he's worked their his whole life. His wife jokes around that he first married the brewery and then her. The tour takes around 2 hours, costs 10 euro per person (with tasting!) and need to be planned 14 days in advanced. We were very lucky to have a visit at 7 pm in this amazing brewery. They loved having us over for a visit because we could become their new ambassadors or brew masters or financial experts and we loved the visit because we learned (and tasted) so much. If you've ever wanted to visit a brewery, check out Brouwerij Van Steenberge, it is surely worth it!
Here is the last picture of the visit, the participants on the bus with a bag full of beers they just bought at the brewery.
