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Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen

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Gaston was eventually 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, though Drie Fonteinen continued to experience the same ups and downs that every lambic brewery 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 in popularity of lambic had reduced the number of lambic brewers available on the wholesale market to just three: [[Brouwerij Girardin|Girardin]], [[Brouwerij Lindemans|Lindemans]], and [[Brouwerij Boon|Boon]] who still comrpise at least part of 3 Fonteinen's blends today.<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 geuze beers lacked the widespread popularity of other beers, Armand’s [[3_Fonteinen_Oude_Geuze|Oude Geuze]] blend won the OBP (Objective Beer Tasters) award in 1993. From then on, the outlook for Belgium's lambic tradition began looking up.
In 1997, Armand became a founding member of [[HORAL|HORAL]], the High Council of Artisanal Lambic Beers which strives for the protection of traditional lambic beers.<ref name=Horal3F>Horal, - 3 Fonteinen, http://www.horal.be/vereniging/3-fonteinen-beersel</ref>. Until 1999, 3 Fonteinen was strictly a blendery. In 1998 Armand leased a computerized brewing system and had it installed, becoming the first new lambic brewery in decades, with his first batch brewed in 1999. In the meantime, Armand would save up for his own installation. As this was the first new lambic brewery to be seen in Belgium for nearly eighty years<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>, many banks were unwilling to fund Armand’s venture to buy the necessary equipment. To help facilitate the purchase, Armand and his brother split the business, with Guido taking the restaurant café and Armand forming AD Bieren bvba, the company under which Drie Fonteinen beers are brewed.<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> Brewing his own lambic, Armand was now able to fully manage his own product.
In the 1999-2000 season, Armand began to make preparations to begin foreign exports. In 2006, Drie Fonteinen Oude Geuze and Oude Kriek received recognition and protection as a traditional Flemish regional product.<ref name=Horal3F>Horal, - 3 Fonteinen, http://www.horal.be/vereniging/3-fonteinen-beersel</ref> As the lambic revival picked up in the early 2000’s, Drie Fonteinen continued to be one of the most prolific and traditional producers. This all changed on May 16, 2009. As Armand entered his warehouse in Essenbeek that day, he was met with a blast of hot air that signified a massive failure of the climate control mechanism. The Thermostat Incident, as it would come to be called, was the result of a faulty thermostat causing the hot air blower to not turn off. As a result, the temperature had risen to as high as 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit) essentially cooking over 80,000 bottles of lambic and causing some of them to explode. Only some bottles of the Oude Kriek were salvageable and today are affectionately known as “Hot Cherry” bottles amongst lambic aficionados.
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