OnTap Magazine

I t speaks volumes about a country’s beer culture when the must-brew beer is a 9% ale. In South Africa, brewers know they have to have certain styles available to placate the wider beer drinking public. They need to brew something light and accessible; something familiar. “What do you have that tastes most like Castle Lite?” is a question virtually every South African craft brewer has heard at some point. And it seems that Belgian brewers similarly have to have a crowd pleaser on their menu – it’s just that the average beer drinker there tends to have a palate for something a little bolder. Hans is theowner ofHeiligHartBrouwerij (SacredHeart Brewery), 20minutes outside Ghent. He’s a reserved, matter-of-fact man and a natural storyteller. His brewery is one of the most remarkable I’ve ever set foot in – not least because it sits inside an early 20th century church, complete with pulpit, confessional and fully functioning organ. “This is the original altar, and above it is my new altar,” says Hans, pointing to the gravity-fed brewery that takes pride of place in the apse of the church. “I tend to believe more in the one above that the one below.” That said, Hans has plenty of respect for the building’s original purpose – indeed when he bought the church, he insisted that the fittings remain in situ. The brewery’s name is taken from the Catholic church that operated here until 2013, and the beer names all take inspiration from their ecclesiastic surrounds. Hellig Hart’s beers are split into three ranges: In the Name of the Father, In the Name of the Son and In the Name of the Holy Spirit. The “Father” ranges honours Belgian brewing tradition with classic styles like the tripel Hans knows he has to brew in order to draw people in. But those aren’t the beers that inspired him to leave his career as a civil engineer and start a brewery. His true passion is mixed and spontaneous fermentation. A SPONTANEOUS TASTING After viewing the brewery, the requisite coolship (a flat, open vessel for cooling wort), and something I’ve never before seen in a brewery – huge clay amphora, ancient containers more commonly “WE HAVE TO BREW A TRIPEL,” SAYS HANS DUSSELIER. “IF WE DIDN’T, A LOT OF PEOPLE WOULD TURN AROUND AND LEAVE WITHOUT TASTING ANYTHING.” The Heilig Hart Church is now home to a superlative brewery Hans Dusselier pours tasters at Heilig Hart The gravity-fed brewery at Heilig Hart provides a new altar at which to worship The forefather of gin, jenever has been produced in Belgium and the Netherlands since at least the 16th century. But despite the fact that jenever has a 500-year heritage, I will admit that I had never tasted it before my recent trip to Belgium. My education kicked off at the Jenever Museum in Hasselt, where our guide talked us through the history and production of the spirit and how it differs from its better-known cousin, gin. The main difference is that while gin can be distilled from anything – potatoes, barley, grapes, sugar – jenever must be distilled from grains, be they rye, barley or corn. Sometimes barrel-aged, sometimes young, jenever – like gin – must always feature juniper berries. The tour ends, as all distillery tours should, in a characterful little bar, rows of jenever bottles lining the shelves. Our guide tells us how jenever producers started to create new products to target women – lower alcohol, fruit additions, that sort of thing – and I am determined not to be a stereotype, so I ask to sample a young jenever, straight up. I instantly know it is not for me and explore various options with added fruit, herbs, spices and even a cream version, but it turns out the ‘girly’ interpretations are also not to my tastes. “People say we are a beer country, but historically we are a distilling country,” says Manu de Cort later as he shows us around his brewery and distillery in Pajottenland. And while he might be right, my trips to Belgium will doubtless always be dictated by beer. DUTCH COURAGE 34 | Summer 2022 | ontapmag.co.za