1953 - 1982
The rising popularity of ‘De 3 Fonteinen’.
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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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Gaston Debelder taps some lambic from a wooden barrel.Now, Gaston had to quickly master the noble craft of geuze blending. This may have seemed difficult for a man without any prior experience, who used to work on the land. However, the lambic microbes already ran through his veins, as his uncle Arthur Debelder had been a renowned blender in the 19th century. Besides, the transition from farmer to geuze blender was smaller in those days than it would be today. Both were artisans, intimately connected to what the local soil yielded and many farmers were still brewing themselves during the winter months.
The transition from farmer to geuze blender was smaller in those days than it would be today.
After nine years, in 1961, the Debelders bought an old building on the church square of Beersel. They tore the premises down to make way for a new pub- restaurant and the name 3 Fonteinen traveled along. Now, Gaston and Raymonde could start taking things to the next level. With a growing passion for the craft of blending, Gaston single-handedly dug caveauxunder the new pub. These cellars were ideal to let the beer mature in all peace and quiet.
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Herman Teirlinck with Armand on his lap.The pub rose to local fame in the ’60s and ’70s, with the so-called ‘Mijol Club’ as the epitome of its growing success. This club was founded by writer, artist and homo universalis Herman Teirlinck. He gathered an exclusive company of Flemish writers, artists, politicians and brilliant minds who were never shy of an opinion. People like Gerard Walschap, Maurice Roelants, Ernest Claes and Marc Galle spent hours in the pub while playing the ‘mijol box’, a folk game with small metal disks aimed towards a central hole.
Herman Teirlinck gathered an exclusive company of writers, artists, politicians and other brilliant minds who were never shy of an opinion. The beer itself was a topic of debate as well.
In between all the heated political discussions, the geuze flowed freely. The beverage itself was a topic of some debate as well, since Herman Teirlinck knew the history of regional beers inside out. We cannot overstate his influence on both Gaston and Armand Debelder—the latter still a toddler back then. The 3 Fonteinen pub continued to become the favourite haunt of many families from nearby Brussels, who flooded the village square on weekends to down a slice of bread with pottekeis (strong local cheese) with a geuze.