technical visits

Westmalle Rodenbach Timmermans Roman Castle Malting

The technical visits are organized on the last day of the symposium, Thursday 5 April.  
The organized bus transport leaves the campus at 9.00 AM.  
The visits will take about half a day.
We kindly ask you to mention it on your registration form if you make use of the bus transport.

Westmalle Brewery
www.trappistwestmalle.be

A Trappist beer is somewhat different to an abbey beer. Out of all the beers in the world, only seven of them can use the name ‘Trappist’: Achel, Chimay, La Trappe, Orval, Rochefort, Westvleteren and Westmalle. You can recognise them from the “Authentic Trappist Product” logo. A Trappist beer is only given this name if it satisfies a number of strict criteria:
1. The beer is brewed within the walls of a Trappist abbey, by the monks themselves or under their supervision.
2. The brewery must be controlled by the monastery and have a business culture compatible with the monastic project.
3. The purpose of the brewery is not to make a profit.
The income takes care of the livelihood of the monks and the upkeep of the abbey site. What is left over is used for charitable purposes, social work and people in need. The Trappist breweries produce beers of an impeccable quality that is permanently controlled. Thus a Westmalle Trappist contains 100% natural ingredients. Trappist breweries strictly observe all standards in the areas of safety, health and consumer information. And the style of communication and advertising is one of honesty, austerity and the modesty appropriate to the religious environment in which the beers are brewed.
Brewery Rodenbach
www.rodenbach.be

A great family, a great beer. Rodenbach is rooted in a family tradition going back to 1714. The Rodenbach family produced great politicians, traders, authors and poets (including Georges Rodenbach, author of "Bruges la Morte"), but also a generation of great, traditional brewers. Nowadays Rodenbach is one of the world's most unique breweries, but above all a brewery where one of the world's most exceptional beers is produced. A beer that distinguishes itself by its refreshing, fruity taste and bright red colour. The result of a mixed fermentation of top yeasts and bacterial flora, followed by 24 months of maturation in oak casks like wine, whereby organic acids are converted into higher alcohols and fruity esters.
timmermans Brewery Timmermans
www.anthonymartin.be


A family tradition – and one that has been perpetuated for more than 300 years going all the way back to 1702 when  Timmermans started brewing Gueuze Lambic in Itterbeek just a few kilometers from the center of Brussels.  At the time, the brewery was known under the name of  ‘Brasserie de la Taupe’.  Today, Timmermans that has been part of the ‘Finest Beer Selection’ of Anthony Martin since 1993, has succeeded in retaining its authenticity and expertise while simultaneously benefiting from the unique expertise of  ‘Martin’s Finest Beers Selection’.
brewery roman Brewery Roman
www.roman.be


For more than 4,5 centuries now, Mater has hosted the brewing family Roman, which has perpetuated the brewing tradition from father to son. Officially, the story of the brewery began back in 1545.  After 1945, the focus was put on rebuilding their former market, and the bottom-fermented beer Romy Pils was created to complete the product range. Thanks to the production of Romy Pils, the turnover increased dramatically and the brewery went through a new period of expansion.In 1954 the Roman Brewery launched its water and lemonade range, followed by Special Roman, Christmas Bell, ...In 1983, Sloeber came along; the first top-fermented beer refermented in the bottle. This industrialization led the Roman Brewery through an economic whirlwind of new beers, new technologies and marketing techniques.  1990 was the year of the successful launch of the Ename abbey beers: Ename Double and Ename Triple. This range of abbey beers was reinforced by the Ename Blond (1997) and the amber-red winter version Ename Cuvée 974 (2002). This beer replaced the Christmas Bell that had lost popularity. The Mater Witbier (white beer) was put on the market in 1993.  In 2003, the Roman Brewery decided to relaunch its dark beer Roman Oudenaards. It became Adriaen Brouwer.
The brewery's innovative spirit expressed itself again in 2005 with Black Hole, a 'premium lager', savoured out of a green long-neck bottle or its specially-printed glass.  Five years after Adriaen Brouwer claimed a steady place on the beer map, the Roman Brewery designed a strong Adriaen Brouwer Dark Gold (8,5% vol. alc.). This tasting beer is a product with a strong personality, a reflection of the character and the works of the artist it was named after.
The Roman Brewery thus produces and commercializes an almost complete range of Belgian beers, each of them brewed in a specific and traditional way.
castle malting Castle Malting - CANCELLED
www.castlemalting.com

Belgium is the malt Mecca of the world, exporting its malts to more than 120 countries. The unique properties of Belgian malts are essential to all famous Belgian beers just as much as the unique brewing processes.
Belgian malts offer qualities and performance profiles that differ markedly from malts produced anywhere else. They have unique characteristics in terms of flavours, clarity of wort, colour, yield and other parameters.
Established in 1868, Castle Malting® is one of the oldest malt suppliers in the world and is renowned for its individuality, as well as for its uncompromising standards of malt quality.
Castle Malting® has an outstanding line of base and specialty malts of the highest quality, allowing to brew a lot of beer styles from Pilsen to White, Abbey and Trappist beers.
More than 900 brewers from more than 105 nations worldwide have chosen the malt produced by Castle Malting®. Castle Malting’s geographical position in the middle of the best barley-growing region in the world (with France, the Netherlands, England and Germany at our doorstep) allows us to select the best and most suitable malting barley for each malt, like our ancestors did in the past.
Additionally, the nearby port of Antwerp, the leading harbour for malt export, minimizes the transportation cost. Castle Malting’s modern business approach makes it possible to deliver high quality malt at very competitive prices.