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Like many lambic breweries and blenders, the history of Drie Fonteinen starts well before the official founding of the brewery. The founding of Drie Fonteinen dates back to 1883 when Jacobus Vanderlinden and his wife Joanna Brillens opened an inn with a beer blending business on the side in the town of Beersel.<ref name=“GeuzeKriek”>Jef Van den Steen, [[Books#Geuze & Kriek: The Secret of Lambic Beer|Geuze & Kriek: The Secret of Lambic Beer]], 2012</ref> In Dutch the name Drie Fonteinen means three fountains and originally refered to the hand pumps that were used to serve the three types of beer at the inn: lambic, faro, and kriek.
The inn and café changed hands several times over the years until finally coming into the possession of Jean-Baptiste Denaeyer, the mayor of the town of Beersel. Denaeyer was widely considered to be the best lambic blender in town. At the same time, around the corner, the Debelder family was blending their own lambics at the Drie Bonnen (three springs) café. Without a successor, the original Drie Fonteinen café closed in 1953. In 1961 Gaston Debelder, along with his wife Raymonde, purchased the building and expanded their lambic blending business into the inn. Though Gaston’s son, current Drie Fontenen owner Armand, today refuses to put his lambics in kegs, the original Drie Fonteinen lambics were indeed kegged. In [[Books#Wild_Brews:_Culture_and_Craftsmanship_in_the_Belgian_Tradition|''Wild Brews: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition'']], Sparrow notes that when Gaston and Raymond took over the brewery, bottled beer was still a niche product. Before the war, “there was only lambic that you bought from brewers. The kegs that were kept in café cellars had to be emptied within 14 days. If the beer was not sold, it was tapped into bottles.” It is important to remember that at this point, the use of the term keg still likely referred to a small wooden cask.<ref name=“WildBrews”>Jeff Sparrow, [[Books#Wild Brews: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition|Wild Brews: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition]], 2005</ref>
Eventually Gaston was convinced to begin bottling his beer regularly. By all accounts, he was very pleased with the results and Drie Fonteinen lambic is only seen in bottles today as well as on hand-pumps at the café. Working with his two sons, Armand and Guido, the inn, café, and lambic blending business continued to be successful for many years. Drie Fonteinen continued to experience the same ups and downs that every lambic brewery in Belgium experienced in the last half of the twentieth century. Gaston eventually handed the business over to his two sons full time in 1982. Armand became the head brewer and blender while his brother Guido managed the café and restaurant. According to Van den Steen, by the 1990s the lack of popularity in lambic had reduced the number of lambic brewers available on the wholesale market to just three: Girardin, Lindemans, and Boon.<ref name=“GeuzeKriek”>Jef Van den Steen, [[Books#Geuze & Kriek: The Secret of Lambic Beer|Geuze & Kriek: The Secret of Lambic Beer]], 2012</ref> Though lambic and gueuze beers lacked the widespread popularity of other beers, Armand’s Oude Geuze blend won the OBP (Objective Beer Tasters) award in 1993. From then on, the outlook for the lambic tradition in Belgium began to look up.