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By 1974, Louis De Troch II was ready to retire and passed the brewery on to his nephew Jos Raes, who had been working at the brewery since 1972. Jos (short for Jozef), the son of Magdalena and Raymond Raes, was raised by his uncle Louis and aunt Maria Louisa in the brewery. Jos downsized the farming aspect of the business after his uncle Louis II passed away in 1982. He continued to grow the brewery by introducing a line of ‘exotic’ beers under a new name, with the De Troch name still reserved for the more traditional lambics. The name Chapeau did not become official until 1991. These sweetened products, made with fruit juices rather than whole fruits, are credited as having kept De Troch afloat in a time when many lambic breweries and blenders were closing their doors. Many of these sweetened fruit lambics were brewed on demand or at the request of groups or individuals.<ref name=GeuzeKriek>Jef Van den Steen, [[Books#Geuze & Kriek: The Secret of Lambic Beer|Geuze & Kriek: The Secret of Lambic Beer]], 2012</ref><ref name=HoralDeTroch>http://www.horal.be/vereniging/de-troch-wambeek Horal - De Troch (Dutch)</ref>
[[File:De Troch Barrel Room.jpg|frameless|rightleft|200px|De Troch Barrel Room]]
Today, De Troch is in its 7th generation of family ownership. After an accident in 2002 that left Jos Raes unable to brew for two years, his son Pauwel had to be shown how to brew by local brewing engineer Gert de Rouck. De Rouck, who had been working at the brewery for a short time before being hired at the Sint-Lieven brewery college, returned to the brewery during Christmas to teach Pauwel. Having learned on the job and through some independent studies at Ghent University College, Pauwel, who was married in 2002 and has two sons, is confident about the future. In 2004, Belgian health officials nearly shut down the brewery over safety/sanitations issues, providing an incentive for De Troch to change course.<ref name=LambicLand>Tim Webb, Chris Pollard, Siobhan McGinn, [[Books#LambicLand: A Journey Round the Most Unusual Beers in the World|LambicLand: A Journey Round the Most Unusual Beers in the World]], 2010</ref> Though he acknowledges that the sweetened beers still bring in the most revenue, De Troch is slowly but surely bringing back its oude gueuze as well as providing lambic on occasion for at least one other blender, [[Vanberg & Dewulf]]. De Troch is also a member of [[HORAL]], having signed as one of the six original members in 1997.<ref name=HoralDeTroch>http://www.horal.be/vereniging/de-troch-wambeek Horal - De Troch (Dutch)</ref>
Beginning in 2015, De Troch began to rebrand their beers without the Chapeau name. 2015 will also see the release of an Oude Kriek from the brewery in 37,5cl bottles, the first in nearly 30 years.
==Brewing Process==
[[File:De Troch Brewhouse.jpg|Panorama of De Troch Brewhouse|right|400px]]
Though known for mostly sweetened products, De Troch follows traditional [[Brewing Lambic|lambic brewing]] processes, with the following notable facts:
* The brewhouse is entirely heated by coal fire, and it takes approximately 400kg of coal for each brewing session
* The two [[Koelschip|koelschips]] are oriented east to west, and each have a capacity of 30HL
* The sweetener used is pure white sugar
* Fruit juice is added at the time of bottling
* Bottles are flash pasteurized
* The hops used are Aurora hops in pellet form.
==Barrels==
De Troch uses barrels that range in age from brand new to over 50 years old. As of 2015 they have approximately three-hundred 650 liter barrels and approximately seventy 225 liter barrels. Newer barrels come from Portugal.
== Beers ==
* [[De Troch Breweriana#Signs|Signs]]
* [[De Troch Breweriana#Everything Else|Everything Else]]
== Videos ==