Cantillon Brewery & Museum — Restaurant in Anderlecht

One of the best brewery experiences I've ever had. The tour was minimal, a quick guide at the start and then they let you loose in their brewery, which was actually very interesting.

The beer was absolutely and exclusively sublime. Lambic beer is produced from some of the world's oldest brewing methods, which includes allowing the beer to naturally ferment with the local yeasts and bacteria floating around in the Brussels region, rather than the modern method of introducing a specific kind of yeast. It's a less controlled kind of brewing that produces a very unique kind if beer that can only be found in Belgium, and at Cantillon in particular.

A lambic beer, if you're not familiar, is a sour, somewhat tart, wheat beer. Its pallet to the tongue is consistent with that of a lighter tart saison variety and its almost wine-like in aroma. A lambic can be fermented with different fruits, which produce varying flavors of beer. The cherry variety is called a Kriek, and it is significantly more sour, yet still well balanced in flavor. A lambic can be fermented once or twice over, producing a different head and varying levels of carbonation. A young lambic can be completely flat and wine-like, while the older ones pick up a lot more subtle flavors and fuzzy goodness. I suggest the 2007 Gueze, which absolutely blew my mind at how deliciously balanced it was.

Fun fact, you can age a lambic indefinitely because all of the sugars inside it have already been fermented and transformed into alcohol, so an old lambic will never get that weird vinegar flavor as it ages. They still have a bunch of the old brews from the 70s at the warehouse, for some amazing special occasion, I imagine.

Anyways, Cantillon is nearly impossible to get your hands on outside of Belgium (there are only two retailers in the entire USA that sell them) and if you ever found a bottle it would probably range you between 40€-120€. The brewery has a bar full of bottle varieties and vintages for between 10€-20€, plus you can buy certain bottles to take home.

As far as Lambics go, Cantillon puts forth some of the best beers in the world. It is well worth a visit or two and should be a must-stop for any beer enthusiasts...

Last visit during Open Brewday. Allways a pleasure to visit Cantillon and a must visit everytime i go to Brussel. Last week, for the first time in many many years i also did the brewery tour. Good and interesting, we also got to try the wort.

Normally you can pre book guided tours with english, french or dutch speaking guides, but there is also possible to do the self guided tour.

One of the things many always wondering about before visiting Cantillon is the bottle selection from the take away board and drink in board. Last week the take away board was exceptionally good, both the regular beers, but also magnum of the gueuze, Saint Lamvineus, Vigneronne and one of my favourite beers La Plaisir. The bottle shop is located just inside the entrance. There is always merchandise, glassware etc and sometimes even jelly and fantastic locally vinegar made by Vinaigrerie Sainte Odile.

If you want to enjoy any of the Cantillon beers at the brewery, you can visit the bar at the 2nd floor. Everytime I have visited there has been plenty of bottles to choose from. Menu is written on three boards, and pricing is very good. During my visit last week we where very lucky to get to try the Lou Pepe Gueuze 2008 which tasted extremely good, very citrusy forward. The quality in general is extremly high at Cantillon, and what ever they have on the menu, its pure quality! Some people might not think they like lambic/sour beers, but those people should at least try one of the regular gueuze, framboise or kriek and i belive they would be plesently surprised.

Most beers available to buy the whole bottle 0,75l, 0,375l and there might be one or two 1,5l bottles. But there is also some beers served by the glass.

The bar takes credit cards. No food/snacks available/allowed at the bar. If you plan to stay and drink for many hours i recommend to eat in advance and bring a...

I'm a foreigner to Belgium and a craft beer enthusiast. #AdSense #AdSenseGorilla #AdSenseIncome #AdMob #AdSenseEarnings goo.gl/HG4fTG This place used to be a hole in the wall/hidden gem only known to intense craft beer geeks, now the secret is out and they're going mainstream. USA News Travel has these guys #7 on their Brussels Travel Guide (bet a craft beer geek works there ). Kind of gives you an idea of the clientele.

Gotta hand it to them though, their lambiks are something else. The 2017 Fou Foune and the carignon were phenomenal. Must try if they have it available. You can't go wrong with their geuze- any year. They had the 2006 available when I was there and it was pretty stellar. I had fun mixing it with the St. Lamvinus Grand Cru- great mix! I was NOT a fan of their high abv beer. Can't remember what it was called but I just left it after two or three sips because it was so unpalatable.

They're situated in a sketch part of town- don't leave anything exposed in your car if you have one. Their bar area is pretty small and fills up fast. People also lounge around for a while so it's not like there's quick turnover. Best to get there early. We met a few awesome foreigners while there. People were very willing to strike up conversation. Most of the people we met were Americans.

We visited twice on our vacation and had a good time both times. Would recommend it to others but beer-scene people already know about it and it's not really a great first exposure to beer unless you like...