Cantillon

Cantillon about

Cantillon is a Belgian brewery founded in 1900 by Paul Cantillon and Marie Troch. It is the only Lambic brewery located in the city of Brussels. Their beginnings were not as an actual brewery but as a blendery. They established themselves near Mons boulevard and ellaborated Gueuze Lambics from different producers from the area. Then they would sell their beers at their current location, at Gheudestraat 56-58.

After WWI, two of their sons—Robert and Marcel—joined the business. They bought the recently closed Brasserie Nationale du Néblon, and started brewing there, brewing their first batch in 1938. After WWII, a heat wave in Belgium destroyed most breweries' stocks, so Cantillon did not recover their production until 1955. Paul Cantillon passed away in 1952, and Marie in 1958.

In the 60's, Lambic demand declined, and both brothers left the business to Marcel's son-in-low Jean-Pierre Van Roy. Jean Pierre started using sweeteners in order to keep the brewery afloat, but that was also a commercial failure, so it was abandoned in 1978. That year, Jean Pierre decided to open the brewery as a museum, in order to have an extra source of revenue.

In 1986, Cantillon started exporting to USA, and in 1989 Jean-Pierre son, Jean, entered the business. Since 1992, Cantillon has become one of the most sought-after brewery, and in 2017, they expanded their facilities with the adjacent building, previously owned by Brasserie Limbourg.

Its production processes are rooted in the Lambic tradition, but they not longer use foeders but stainless tanks. Then the beer is aged in wine barrels.