Every year we suppose the
taste of the year!
THIS YEAR WINNER IS:
OERBIER
A special beer from
Esen, a village part of Diksmuide
for a visit during your
stay in Belgium:
www.oerbier.be
Oerbier means original, from
the source. This beer has been brewed in small scale (5
gallons) at home in a copper wash kettle, by two
brothers who were students at the time. They took over
an old brewery which was out of business and said: "If
we don't bring the brewery back to life, nobody will!".
It was also a unique opportunity to create some
interesting brews, so why not try it? Therefore we went
ahead. We did the main work ourselves and kept the scale
of the brewery as it was. Since then, the brewery and
its beers have been an inspiration for a lot of brewers.
Oerbier is brewed from all different malts, Poperinge
Golding hops in flowers and a special yeast which makes
it a little tart, especially with aging. At the brewery
we have excellent cellars which have a constant
temperature of 8°C and allow Oerbier to age at its best.
After a couple of years Oerbier tastes like it should
have been blended with wine. Oerbier has been
refermented in the bottle and contains a layer of yeast,
having vitamins B. NAT en STRAF on the glasses means WET
and STRONG, a warning for the 9 vol. alcohol content.
The little person on the glasses is the Oerbier man, a
simple creature who holds a brewers fork in his right
hand, symbolizing the work and science, but looking to
the other side, the result of all this, the glass of
(Oer)beer. The artwork on the poster is a wallpainting
found in Spain, (Altamira) and is considered by art
lovers as being the best prehistoric art work (30.000
years BC). On the other hand we have Oerbier started in
1980, going on with the tradition.
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History of the
brewery
The founder of the brewery
was a doctor in medecine, Louis Nevejan. We have found
recently papers in the archives stating that the first
building dates from 1835 AD. Once it was both brewery
and distillery. The founder died in 1882 and the brewery
was sold to Alouis Costenoble. The family brewed for
three generations until 1980 when the brewery stopped.
Beer brands include COQ PILS OUD BRUIN & COSMOS. In
Esen there were six breweries
(all small and parttime), and two distilleries. The
actual brewer is doing historical research on
West-Flanders breweries since 1900 AD, and has got the
'GOLDEN HAMMER' Trophy, a two years award for historic
research on breweries. This was attributed by vzw 't
Hamerken in Brugge on March 27, 2000 AD.
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