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Brasserie Cantillon

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During the Second World War, with supplies in demand for the soldiers, it was more difficult to continue to brew beers. The period during the war saw the brewery at a near standstill. The immediate post-war years did not see the same demand and production of beers as the 1930’s had. To make matters worse, a massive heat wave in Belgium destroyed many brewery’s stocks including Cantillon’s. Sometime around 1950 the brewery began to recover and reached an all-time high production in 1955. Paul Cantillon passed away in 1952, while his wife Marie lived until 1958. Starting in 1960 the demand for traditional gueuze and lambic began to decline once again and Marcel sold his share to Robert and left the business. Robert, too, was on his way out of the brewing business when his only daughter, Claude, married Jean-Pierre Van Roy. By 1969-1972 Van Roy had taken the reigns of the brewery.
To keep the brewery afloat, Van Roy sweetened his gueuze with artificial sweeteners to keep up with current tastes. Sadly, this did not help the brewery and it continued to operate at a loss. By 1975 Jean-Pierre began to abandon the artificial sweeteners and stopped the practice altogether by 1978. In 1978 he also decided to create a working exhibit dedicated to the art of lambic brewing. Opening Cantillon to the public allowed them to bring some extra revenue to help balance the books. It also helped to spread the word to both locals and to tourists. <ref name=“GeuzeKriek”GeuzeKriek></ref>
Sales began to increase. Jean-Pierre continued to take steps to increase quality control, including discontinuing sales to stores that stored the beer upright. Storing the bottles upright caused the cork to dry out and let all the carbonation out. Jean-Pierre eventually brought his son, Jean, into the business in 1989. Like his father, who had no formal brewing experience before working at the brewery, Jean Van Roy learned lambic on the job. With the lambic industry as a whole turning around, Van Roy began to pay off the past debts to the Cantillon family and by 1992 fully owned the brewery.
In the years since 1992 the brewery has continued to flourish as one of the most sought-after producers of traditional lambic in Belgium. Though still involved in the brewery, the elder Van Roy brewed his last official batch in 2009. Jean Van Roy, who spent a full twenty years working beside his father, now directs the brewery’s operations after having officially taken over in 2003. Unlike his father before him, who was rooted in the strictest tradition, Jean Van Roy has grown to experiment with a number of small batch lambics and fruits not native to Belgium like Finnish red currants and Danish blueberries. As of now, the future of the brewery seems to be quite stable with no less than seven grandsons of Jean-Pierre and Claude ready to carry on the Cantillon name. <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> <ref name=“GeuzeKriek”GeuzeKriek></ref>
In August 2014 Cantillon announced via Facebook that they would be expanding with enough space to double their production. They purchased the building that once housed closed lambic blender [[Brasserie Limbourg]]. The increase in production will be realized during the 2016-2017 brewing season.
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