The history of 3 Fonteinen.
The future stems from the past.
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The history of Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen did not run in a straight line. Our story has curled and twisted more than the river Zenne itself. More than once, the future of the brewery was at stake, and more than once we needed steadfast minds and hearts to save tradition.
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The Hoogstraat in the village centre of Beersel, late 1800's.1864 - 1953 | In the mists of time.
For many lambic brewers and geuze blenders, their earliest history is shrouded in some mystery. Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen is no exception. The foundation goes back to at least 1864, when Jacobus Vanderlinden and his wife Joanna Brillens opened an inn in Beersel (at the location of today’s Hoogstraat 13).
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Gaston Debelder taps some lambic from a wooden barrel.1953 - 1982 | The rising popularity of ‘De 3 Fonteinen’.
The year was 1953. After some initial doubts, Gaston Debelder and his wife Raymonde Dedoncker decided to take the big leap forward. They traded in their old farmer’s ways in the village of Elbeek for a new life in the centre of Beersel. The farm had become too small to support the entire Debelder clan, anyway. They took over the inn and geuze blending house from Tisjke Potter. And since the name ‘In de 3 Fonteinen' already hung on the façade, they just kept it.
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Armand & Gaston, immortalized on a wooden foudre, a birthday present for Armand in 2019.1982 - 1997 | Armand takes over.
After many years of success, Gaston and Raymonde handed over the business to their two sons. Armand, who had been behind the stove since he was sixteen, would run the kitchen and the geuze blendery. He became chef in 1974, at the age of 24. That is when he expanded the menu with regional dishes based on lambic, faro and geuze, because his true passion had always been beer rather than cooking. He had inherited his father’s nose, knowledge and experience.
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The first barrels with 3 Fonteinen brewed lambic.1997 - 2009 | Armand Debelder stubbornly pursues as a brewer and blender.
It’s not easy to hang on to your belief in a future for lambic when even your father, who has witnessed the downward spiral of geuze consumption with his own eyes, openly declares you a fool. “Guis, da es allien nog voe d'aa peikes”, those were the exact words that Armand still hears his father saying. “Nobody cares about geuze except the old geezers.” Luckily, Armand had not only inherited his father’s nose but his stubbornness as well. Unrelentingly, he went all in on lambic and geuze, to start brewing himself in 1998.
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The heat accumulation in the warm room due to a faulty thermostat caused many bottles to explode.2009 - 2016 | The thermostat disaster and the recovery.
On Saturday morning, the 16th of May, 2009, Armand opens the door of the storage room. A heatwave literally blows him backwards. Fearing the worst, he storms into the warm room. This space, which was full of fermenting and conditioning bottles, normally stayed at a constant temperature of 18°C (64°F), kept in check by a thermostat. Due to a malfunction, though, temperatures had now risen to 60°C (140°F). At that moment, 13.000 bottles had already exploded from the rising pressure. The hall had turned into a war zone where Armand could still hear one bottle explode after the other.
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The lambik-O-droom in Lot, a place for every lambic aficionado.2016 - ... | New chapters. And an end.
Six thousand square metres. That is how much space they could suddenly use. Armand, Mich and Werner could not help but catch their breath when they first walked through the large halls of the old warehouse, but they realised that so much space also meant that they could take more time. The entire brewing process of 3 Fonteinen relies on slowness and patience: patience for the lambic in the barrel, for the macerating fruit, for the geuze in the bottle. And now, finally, there would be plenty of room for slowness. Or in the words of Armand: “Geft ne lambikbrààver of ne guizestèker plosj, en ze legge voete.” Give space to a lambic brewer or a geuze blender, and they roll the barrels in.