Home of the Belgian browns

The buffalo in the garden puzzled me. It was stone sculpture, you understand, but it looked so American. What was it doing in front of Mrs. Cnudde's white-painted, shuttered house in the village of Eine, on the northern edge of the city of Oudenaarde in East Flanders, Belgium?

Turns out the buffalo recalls the heroism of the American troops who defended Oudenaarde in World War I. The city stands at a strategic crossing point on the river Schelde.

The troops especially associated with the area were the Ohio National Guard, but the Buffalo was the badge of another unit, the 92nd Division, comprising entirely Afro-American soldiers. They fought in this part of Europe, but the records do not show them having been in Oudenaarde. When I raised this question with a historian in Ohio, he speculated that a detached artillery unit of the 92nd might have been present. Or perhaps the buffalo was just seen as a symbol of America, as on the nickel.

On the opposite side of the garden is the Cnudde family brewery. Looking at the building, with its short, square chimney and its mini-industrial style, I was reminded of an early, perhaps 1700s, woolen mill in England. In fact, it was built as recently as 1919 and somewhat restored in the 1950s.

The brewery was established by Fons Cnudde, then run by his son Omer and grandson Louis. When Louis Cnudde became ill in the early 1990s, there was some doubt about the future of the enterprise. Now, while Louis's widow still occupies the house, her three sons run the brewery.

Each has a "day job." Pieter is a lawyer, Lieven teaches math, and Steven is an engineer. The three brew together, eight times a year, each on a Saturday. There are no employees.

The beer is brewed in a very simple way: from Pilsner malt and caramel, with Northern Brewer and Styrian hops, the latter strained in a device like a pepper-pot. The kettle has a dome, but with a hole instead of a chimney. The steam has to find its own way up the brewery's stack.

The character of the beer is undoubtedly influenced by the lack of refrigeration in the brewery. The wort passes from the 60-hectoliter kettle to an open cooler, made of copper, in the gable of the roof, then to a Baudelot. This latter system, looking rather like an old-fashioned radiator, is filled with cold water while wort flows over the outside. The wort is cooled, but also exposed to the atmosphere. There is an open, stainless-steel fermenter, and the beer is conditioned in metal tanks in a naturally cold cellar for six to eight weeks.

The brew is the local style of slightly sour brown ale, as its name implies. Cnudde Oudenaards Bruin has a claret color; an alcohol content vaguely described as being in the range of 3.2 to 4.0 percent by weight, 4.0 to 5.0 by volume; and a fresh, light, cleansing dryness, with hints of iron and a faint tartness. I had the sense of drinking an honest, straightforward village beer from less self-conscious times.

In the garden, there are about 10 cherry trees. These produce enough fruit to make one brew of kriek each year, and this is kept for the family. The beer goes on to the cherries in plastic vessels. I tasted a two-year-old brew that was tawny red and sourish, with a beautiful balance of fruit, pits, and beer.

No corner of the brewing world is as strongly associated with dark brown ales as the area around Oudenaarde. This old city, with many springs, has long been a center of brewing. It is also known for its tapestries (it was the birthplace of Jean Gobelin) and its Gothic architecture.

At their best, ales in the Oudenaarde style have a teasingly smooth, almost feathery, fluffy, body (from water low in calcium, high in sodium bicarbonate); a dry, complex, caramelish maltiness; a winey, nutty sherry, Montilla note (from long periods of maturation at ambient cellar temperatures); a light but distinct interplay of sweetness and sourness; and a spritzy finish.

On the eastern edge of the Oudenaarde, at Mater, is the brewery of the family Roman. The village, on the old road from Cologne to Dunkirk, and the family names may have their origins in Roman times. The brewery is more recent, having been established by the family in 1545 as an inn and farm. The 14th generation of the family is now active in the business.

When I asked why Roman's brown beers were less tart than those of some neighbors, I was told -- as though such distinctions applied only yesterday -- that this was a result of their being on the "German" side of the Schelde in the 1300s. The German Emperor issued an edict that beer be made with hops. The other side of the river was controlled by the French, who ruled for beer with herbs and spices rather than hops.

The brewery has imposing buildings set round a courtyard, with flower-beds, a Romanesque stable block, and a tiled hall occupied by beautifully kept ammonia compressors, steam engines and early power-generating equipment. Its copper brew house dates from the 1930s but must have been very modern at that time. Different cellars, and five yeasts, are used for the various styles of beer.

Until the 1950s, the company made only brown beers. Roman Oudenaards (4.0w, 5.0v) has a dark cherry color; the aroma of oranges in boxes; with zesty flavors developing against a background of smooth, sweetish malt, chocolatey flavors and roastiness. The burgundy-colored Special Roman (4.4w, 5.5v) is also spicy and chocolatey, but toastier and more textured, with hints of crisp tartness at the edge of the tongue. The brewery has also produced a Dobbelen Bruinen (6.4w, 8.0v), rounder and firmer, with cocoa, bitter chocolate and warming alcohol in the finish.

Where an arm of the river once flowed, and a Jesuit abbey stood from the 1200s, is a brewery tracing its origins from the 1600s. This brewery, in Oudenaarde itself, makes a brown ale under the name of Felix. At one stage, the brewery was owned by a man named Felix, but it has been in the hands of the Clarysse family since World War II. Although the odd abbey wall still stands, the present brewery's buildings date mainly from the 1970s. The beer is very soft and sweet, with a toffeeish tinge.

By far the best known of the region's brown ales is today brewed by Riva, at Dentergem in West Flanders, but fermented, matured, blended and bottle conditioned at its original home, Liefmans, at Oudenaarde. Riva, which was founded by its present proprietors' family in 1896, now owns Liefmans, which dates from at least 1679.

When I visited Liefmans in the 1970s, it was owned by Vaux, of Britain, and run by its legendary principal, Madame Rose Blancquaert, a former ballet dancer. It was a very old-fashioned brewery, and hard to operate. The mash tuns were too small to fill the needlessly large, open, square, wood-clad kettles, which look like huge, two-story crates. It may have been the difficulty of heating these vessels that led to the routine of simmering the wort overnight, though in earlier days some Flemish beers were boiled for 30 to 40 hours.

Liefmans' tawny brown beers are brewed from three malts: pilsner-type, crystal and roast. They are hopped with Goldings and Saaz, in one addition, and boiled for two hours. Fermentation is in open copper vessels with the house yeast.

The brown beers are produced in three versions: Odnar (3.2w, 4.0v); Oud Bruin (4.0w, 5.0v); and Goudenband (in recent years increased from 4.8w, 6.0v to a little over 6.4w, 8.0v). In the making of Goudenband (Gold Riband), beer of around four months old is blended with stock two or three times that age. The blend is centrifuged, primed with invert sugar, given a dosage of the original yeast, and bottle conditioned in the brewery's cellars.

Goudenband, once very much a local beer, is now more widely sold -- but as something special. That is why its strength was boosted -- to make it a sippin' beer. When this change was first made, the beer was uncharacteristically rich and sweet. Riva now seems to have found a surer touch. Goudenband has regained some of its characteristic sour wineyness, iron, saltiness and toastiness. These notes will develop with a few months, or even years, of cellaring.

The brewery still sells 10-year-old bottles of the older version, and some cafŽs have it at 25 years.

Why would Riva persist with the troublesome business of brewing in Dentergem and fermenting in Oudenaarde? "The Riva beers cannot risk accidental exposure to the Liefmans' yeast," I was told when I first asked this question. Now, it seems possible that in the future a small new kettle might be installed at Liefmans.

The boiler house of the old brewery has been turned into a 200-seat beer bar. This is known as the Zaal (Hall) de Baudelot, after the traditional wort cooler that features in the decor. The idea is to present Liefmans as a "house brewery" as well as a museum and art gallery, which can be visited on a Schelde river trip.

For the benefit of visitors who are not committed beer-lovers, Liefmans has introduced what is intended to be an "easier" beer: a paler, orange-colored, hazy ("natural") brew, at a lower strength (4.4w, 5.5v), but produced from the same malts (obviously in a different ratio) and the "house" yeast. This beer, called Jan van Gent, is lightly toffeeish, with a "peaches in syrup" fruitiness and faintly yogurty finish.

Riva has invested millions of Belgian francs in tank capacity at Liefmans, much of it dedicated to a whole-cherry kriek based on the Oud Bruin. The fermentation of the fruit, and some sugar priming, boosts this to 5.2w, 6.5v. Thirteen kilos of cherries and 0.2 kilograms of juice (to enhance aroma) are added per 100 liters, and the fruit stays on the beer for at least six months. Again, there is a blending of young and old. The kriek has a very good cherry ice cream aroma; a good, tart "fruit skin" attack; and lingering perfumy flavors.

For maximum contact between fruit and beer, the tanks are horizontal and very shallow. The person spreading the cherries has to crawl inside. So do the people who remove the pits and skins. Seeing for myself, I was glad it was not my task.

This column originally appeared in All About Beer Magazine in January 1998.