Drie Fonteinen

“Just in time for Tour de Geuze, coming up on April 21, 3 Fonteinen has announced the arrival of a new beer. Intense Red is an artisanal, unsweetened, unfiltered old kriek. It contains a higher amount of cherries, making it slightly less sour than a traditional 3 Fonteinen kriek. The new beer is the result of a collaboration between 3 Fonteinen’s Armand DeBelder and Manu De Cort of PuPil, a creative marketing company in Halle. It will first be available at the 3 Fonteinen shop during Tour de Geuze and later in the rest of Belgium and to a limited extent in the US as well.”

Armand gave us the tour of his brewery and all the while his major emphasis was that he is creating a legacy that he hopes to pass down to someone. Brewing and blending lambic has a lot of tradition behind it, and there aren’t many people who posses the knowledge. He has recently hired a helper/apprentice, Michael, who really seems to be dedicated to the craft, which has really helped Armand a lot! He’s helped so much that Armand has started brewing his own lambic again! (Which we got to sample!) Below is fermentation starting on a week old lambic, these bubbles are very fragile and cannot be disturbed!

Fermentation starting on a week old lambic!

We were also very lucky to be able to try one of Armand’s newest creations Intense Red, which was debuting during the coming Sunday’s Toer de Gueuze. It is brewed with 40% cherries, which is more than a traditional Kriek! Armand, and his awesome wife Lydie, were very busy prepping for the Toer de Gueuze.

The Toer de Geuze was organised for the first time in 1997. Boon, De Cam, De Troch, 3 Fonteinen, Lindemans and Timmermans opened their doors for the public. Since then the open brewery day of the Payottenland and the Valley of the Senne has become a biannual event.

We also had the pleasure to have the Oude Kriek and some of the Spirit d’ Armand, their distilled gueuze!

It was one of those amazing visits where we were only supposed to be there for an hour or so and ended up staying for much longer. It was a pleasure chatting with Armand about his life’s work and his family.