Brasserie-Brouwerij Cantillon ("Brewery Cantillon") is a small Belgian traditional family brewery based in Anderlecht, Brussels. Cantillon was founded in 1900 and exclusively brews lambic beers.
The brewery was founded in 1900 by Paul Cantillon, whose father was also a brewer, and his wife, Marie Troch.[1] As of 2011[update], the owner is Jean-Pierre van Roy, the fourth-generation brewer at Cantillon.[2] Since launch, the only major change has been a shift to organic ingredients in 1999.[3] Cantillon was one of more than one hundred operating breweries in Brussels when founded, and was the only one to remain operational through the 2000s.[1][4] In 2014, van Roy announced that the brewery would be acquiring more maturation space, effectively doubling production by 2016–17.[5]
Cantillon produces 400,000 bottles of beer a year.[6]
In the traditional lambic style, beers, with a mash bill of 2/3 maltedbarley and 1/3 unmalted wheat,[1] are spontaneously fermented in open topped attic mounted vats called coolships, aged in oak or chestnut, blended (from different batches and ages), bottled, and then bottle conditioned for a year. Half of the brewery's production is gueuze; once a year a batch of kriek is made.[3] For fruit-flavored beers, empty casks are filled with various fruits and macerated for three months to dissolve the fruits; young lambic is added to supply sugar for fermentation.
Blåbær - bilberry (made every year for a bottle shop in Denmark)
Cuvée Saint Gilloise - This is not a traditional gueuze, in that it is made from only two-year-old lambic, not from a blend of old and young beers. It is also dry-hopped in the cask for three weeks with fresh Styrian Golding hops. Re-fermentation in the bottle is achieved with the addition of a small amount of candy sugar.