Het Boerenerf: Difference between revisions

Although gueuze and lambic were popular in the early 20th century (pushing the family to separate the farm and brewery in 1922), the industry began to decline in the 1950s due to the rise of sugary drinks and the industrialization of lambic after World War II. The last lambic beer was brewed in 1965, and the brewery continued as a liquor store for a few more years. Between 2006 and 2008, the remaining production buildings of the brewery were converted into lofts by architect Steven Winderickx, son of Lambic brewer Edgar Winderickx.

Despite the brewery's decline, the Eylenbosch family continued to run the farm, focusing on livestock, grain, and fruit cultivation, as well as dairy production. Senne Eylenbosch, who had worked at [[Brouwerij_3_Fonteinen|Brewery 3 Fonteinen]] from July 2016, began converting part of the farm into a gueuze blending facility in 2019, reviving the Eylenbosch beers. The first activities of Boerenerf started at the end of 2019. In 2020, Senne left 3 Fonteinen officially and his collaboration with Vincent began, when the enterprise, formerly known as Boerenerf Eylenbosch, became Boerenerf.

The stag beetle is a recurring symbol at Boerenerf, used on their gueuze labels. Not only did Senne take a liking to that insect while growing up and wrote a paper about it during his Nature and Environment studies, it also has a strong symbolic meaning that draws a parallel to the lambic world, and gueuze in particular: it needs years on hard wood (usually oak) to grow within a specific microclimate and level of humidity, before transforming into its final form. It also endangered.

=== Grape Lambic ===