OnTap Magazine

We arrive at an unassuming industrial estate and are met with the heady aroma of fresh tyres from the neighbouring auto shop, before finding our way into t’Verzet’s barrel room. Suddenly the whole group is consumed with the need to take copious amounts of photographs. Barrels are always a photogenic part of any brewery tour, but these have the added appeal of each being given the name of one of the brew team’s musical heroes. We take photos of Dave Grohl and Elvis, of Muddy Waters and Amy Winehouse and Aretha Franklin, while we wait for our host to find us. Verzet is run by four young friends and it is brewer Koen Van Lancker that greets us and shows us around. The brewery specialises in an old and traditional style, one that is not generally thought of as being particularly cool – the Oud Bruin. Dating back to at least the 1600s, this complex, sour ale undergoes a lengthy barrel-ageing process before being blended with younger versions to create a soft, drinkable ale with a rich malt character and a supporting, fruity acidity. But while the Verzet team clearly has a reverence for this time-honoured style, there is a hip, kind of renegade feel to the brewery (indeed, the name means ‘resistance’ in Flemish). The tasting menu includes a ginger IPA, a nitro- infused London porter and a coffee- infused imperial porter called Baby Jesus, alongside a selection of Oud Bruin ales, many of which are flavoured with fruit or herbs. We sample versions with grapes and strawberries and one that was blended with an imperial stout. But it is the Oud Bruin Oak Leaf that steals the show. Aged on fresh oak leaves, it’s a weird-sounding experiment that seems gimmicky but in fact produces a unique and complex blend of the sweet and sour base beer with a tea-like character from the oak leaves. “No-one else is doing a beer like this,” says Koen with a smile. “No-one else is stupid enough.” He is referring to the act of shimmying up oak trees to harvest the fresh leaves from the higher branches. Despite the fact that the t’Verzet team specialises in a style that’s been around for 400 years or so, there is a heavy emphasis on giving the Oud Bruin a new twist. “Over the past 20 years, while the rest of the beer world was getting more and more creative, Belgium forgot to be innovative,” Koen says. “So we are striving to change that.” We brew what we like De Cort's impressive distillery seems to come straight out of a Tim Burton movie When you think of seasonal beers, you probably think about pumpkin ales, Oktoberfest lagers, perhaps a fresh hop IPA, and of course the eponymous saison. But in fact, Lambic style beers are the ultimate seasonal brew. “We only brew when the weather gets close to zero,” says Tom Jacobs, who runs Antidoot Wilde Fermented in eastern Flanders along with his brother Wim. “The season runs from about December to March, during which we brew 15-20 times.” Like other brewers, Tom is not a fan of labels. “We don’t call it Lambic,” he says. “If we do that we are opening ourselves up. Of course, people still ask ‘is this Lambic’ when really the important questions is ‘do you like it?’” The brewery is the most rustic we visit, tucked away behind the family home and opening out onto farmland where apples, grapes, plums and apricots are grown and goats and sheep roam. In a fineexampleoftrueseasonalproduction, Antidoot makes beer, cider and wine, depending on what’s being harvested at the time. We kick off with Woop Woop, the base for their spontaneously fermented ales, then move through a tasting of some singular beverages - The Lamb Ran Away with the Crown - a beer aged with dandelions and honey; Dancing in the Dark - a wild-fermented cider; Gorsem - a glorious looking beer aged on cherries and raspberries for 16 months; and L’Obscur - a red-brown Flanders ale blended with a sour cherry wine and barrel-aged for a year. I’m a little ashamed to say that I didn’t take a single tasting note for any of them, but it’s not really a bad thing. I was in the moment, enjoying the beers (and cider) and the conversation. Enjoying them without worrying too much whether I was picking up cherry or plum or raspberry or whether anything poured fit into my BJCP-inspired idea of what a certain style of beer should be. A TRUE SEASONAL BREW Tom Jacobs at his Flanders farm 36 | Summer 2022 | ontapmag.co.za