'We're giving millions to billionaires, goddamn it!'

By Michiel van Hulten, Marc Brion and Katlijne Van hunsel

It’s Saturday morning and there's a crowd at the Cantillon brewery in Anderlecht, home of the Brussels Museum of the Gueuze. Belgians, Dutch, Americans, and even a few Koreans who have come over especially. They all want to peek at one of the last breweries still making beer using traditional methods.

The museum is the brainchild of Jean-Pierre Van Roy, the 82-year-old brewer who is married to Claude, the granddaughter of Paul Cantillon, the brewery's founder.

Paul Cantillon was a beer blender, someone who mixes beer from different brews and different vintages. He began his blending business in 1900, and in the 1930s, started his brewery. “They were able to brew for the first time on March 22, 1939,” Van Roy says. “That was poorly chosen, of course. They had a lot of trouble during the war. Afterwards, they experienced better days."

Van Roy never planned to become a brewer. He was a geography and science teacher, but struggled to find a job in the 1960s, when posts depended on political connections, so found work in the phonograph records department at Philips.

Cantillon was in trouble, though. The two brothers, Marcel and Robert, had taken over the business after their father Paul died. When Robert retired, Marcel asked Van Roy to join. “It was August 1969 and I knew nothing about it," Van Roy says. “But yeah, you're young and a bit crazy. You have to think, it was really a wonderful atmosphere in 1969. Merckx in the Tour, people on the moon, Armstrong...anything was possible. Then I said yes."

Van Roy initially regretted his decision, as the brewery continued going downhill. But the turnaround came in October 1971, when he was asked to take part in a fair, the Bruegel Festivities. He was told to come out on the street with his barrels and sell the gueuze and his story to passers-by. "I agreed," he says. "I will remember that for the rest of my life. The weather was bad, but there were a lot of people. A very different audience from the pub owners I was used to working with. The people I met there were really interested. Between the majorettes, the band... it was a celebration."

A few months later, he got a call from a journalist, who was at the fair, drank a gueuze and wanted to visit the brewery. "He wrote a whole page in La Libre Belgique. And a few days later, I got a call from a group of 50 people who wanted to visit the brewery. And that's how it started, gradually we became known," Van Roy says.

Cantillon is still very much a family business: Van Roy's son Jean is responsible for production, daughter Magali manages the brewery. Her younger sister Julie helps out in the museum while grandsons conduct brewery tours. Van Roy’s wife Claude never leaves his side.

Above the bar of the tasting room hangs a scarf from Union Saint-Gilloise, the local football team. Van Roy is a fan and still goes to every home game of the club. "I was born 200 metres from their stadium,” he says laughing. “My father played there until 1939. I saw my first match in 1948. It's been a while. I must probably be one of the oldest supporters. Tomorrow I'll be in the stands against Brugge. It'll be tough!" Van Roy also supports Union financially, although he says it's not much. "With what I give them, they can't do much."

Lambics and lactics

Cantillon makes lambic, a type of beer that arises from spontaneous fermentation with wild yeasts from the outside air. It then has to age for years in wooden barrels, usually wine ones.

"Lambic is a grain wine, it doesn't foam," Van Roy explains. "In the past, it was really the beer of Brussels. Consumers in the pubs drank it by the half-litre or litre. Here in the museum, we only pour a little bit to taste. Each barrel gives a specific taste to the lambic. The older a barrel, the greater the differences between the barrels. We replace the barrels every 13 to 14 years. I've worked with barrels that are 50 years old." He points to a row of barrels. "Château de la Rivière, that's a very beautiful château in the Bordeaux region. Cave de Tain, that's the Rhône Valley."

From lambic, gueuze is then made by allowing a mixture of young and old lambics to ferment in the bottle. According to Van Roy, there are still two brewers who make lambic with the traditional method. Who the other is, he does not want to say. "Almost all brewers use lactic acid today to go faster.” He says. “If they work with lactic acid in their cooling tanks, they can speed up the process and make the lambics in four or five months. We have to wait one or two to three years. To make a good gueuze, you need three different vintages. From the moment the brewer himself adds yeast, the spontaneous natural fermentation is gone.

The brewing process was regulated, but after Van Roy filed a complaint in 1992 against eight brewers who were breaking the laws, the legislation was abolished. "That was really a scandal," says Van Roy angrily. "I had to take on the big breweries. I knew in advance that I would lose." Yet it also had a silver lining for Van Roy. "It gave me amazing publicity. I was on television, in all the newspapers. That was incredible,” he says.

But Van Roy still has no good words for big breweries, who he accuses of making beer that is drunk too easily. "I see that at Union [Saint-Gilloise]. On a match day, they come in sober, and after the match, they're drunk. That's beer with sugars, lots of sugars." He flexes his arms beside his body. "You can see it in their physiology. Look at my slim line: I drink gueuze and there are zero sugars in it."

Even newcomer Brussels Beer Project does not escape Van Roy's criticism. "Brussels Beer Project, that's also ridiculous. They installed a cooling tank on the Grand Place last summer. In the summer! Come on!” he says.

Are there any other beers that Van Roy does approve of? "Yes. The beers from Brasserie de la Senne, for example. The Zenne Pils, I find that delicious. Really," he says. "I also have very fond memories of the Stella of the past. That was a tasty beer, the Stella. I'm talking about the 1960s and 70s. That was something, man. We used to go to the café-restaurant of Midi station especially to drink a Stella."

Museum feud

The museum is an important source of income for Cantillon. First opened in 1978, it attracts about 35,000 beer lovers every year – although visitor numbers have dropped in recent years. For just €12, you get a one-hour tour from a specialised guide, and you can taste three beers.

The museum is set to be expanded. In a sunlit hall with impressive wooden vaults, a new 'conservatory of lambic and gueuze' is set to rise next year. Old stirring sticks stand next to the brick walls, while displays show the tools which the brewers and barrel makers once used. What exactly will be on display in the conservatory? "That's a secret," says Van Roy with a mischievous smile.

The conservatory, estimated at €1.6 million, will be partly paid for by funds of the VZW Brussels Museum of the Gueuze, which has members all over the world. Still, the museum does not receive subsidies from the region or the municipality. “The municipality of Anderlecht does nothing for us,” he says. “Nothing. Nothing. We have to fend for ourselves. But that's how we work."

Brussels opened another beer museum in September, Belgian Beer World, in the renovated Bourse building. Belgian Beer World is the prestige project of Brussels regional minister – and former director of the Belgian Brewers federation – Sven Gatz (Open VLD) and Brussels mayor Philippe Close (PS). It received tens of millions of euros in taxpayer funding. In the public debate, Van Roy was one of the few from the beer sector who opposed the project, warning that Belgian Beer World would represent the large industrial breweries. They actively contributed to the creation of the new beer temple through the Belgian Brewers.

Van Roy still gets worked up about it. "You can go in there, but you have to pay because they need the dough, right? Because AB InBev isn't rich enough!" he says with a roaring laugh. "It’s a disgrace what happened at the Bourse. Sixty million. Where does the money come from? Subsidies. From the region. And from the city."

"That's a real disgrace because we're giving millions to billionaires, goddamn it! My money. That's my money. How is that possible? And all those officials from the region agree with it. Of course, I was also asked to participate. Come on, to present one bottle in a display...for €1,500! There are still fools who pay that. I can't understand it. They have to play along, huh. Mayor Close thinks it's a disgrace that Cantillon is absent. But that's none of his business. That's my business."

Is Van Roy perhaps afraid that Belgian Beer World will snatch visitors from his own museum? "Absolutely not. We have a very different audience. The people who come in here know what beer is. They are not tourists from the Grand Place and Manneken Pis. We have a different audience. The setup is also different. With us, it's real Brussels culture, banter, conviviality. You don't find that in the Bourse. I'm not afraid. They can't fight against a family like ours. That's impossible."

Meanwhile, Van Roy is also busy with his legacy. He is writing a book about the history of Cantillon and his own life. It is due to be published next year when Cantillon turns 125 years old. He wants to transfer his shares in the company to the VZW Brussels Museum of Gueuze, to which the brewery owes so much. And what is he going to do himself?

"My wife and I like to go to West Flanders. We're going there again in August to Sint-Idesbald. The West Flemings there like to hear the Brussels dialect. When I go there, I naturally start to chatter. And that's always fun. That's always very, very fun. Voilà, there you are. Now we're going to drink a gueuze. I hope it's good. The last one was really tasty."

(This is an edited version of an article published in The Brussels Times on 5 May 2024.)