Gourmet products local specialties and wines Bierghes

Gueuze Tilquin à l'ancienne This new gueuzerie (gueuze blender) opened its doors to the public for the first time in May 2011, causing a minor sensation in the world of spontaneously fermented beers. It is the first gueuze blender - or "blendery" - ever to open in Wallonia and is in the village of Bierghe, a few miles from Brussels and a few hundred yards from Flanders. Crucially, it is still in the Senne Valley and thus well placed to exploit the wild yeasts in the valley that are so important to the production of lambic and gueuze. The gueuzerie was founded by Pierre Tilquin, a Walloon. He likes to present his Gueuze Tilquin à l'ancienne as a model of Flemish, Wallonian and Brussels collaboration. As a blender, he doesn't make his own lambic, but he buys wort from Boon, Lindemans, Girardin and Cantillon and lets them ferment and mature into lambic in his 220 oak barrels. He then blends the different lambics to obtain the gueuze he is looking for.The plan is for the gueuzerie to produce on average 500hl of gueuze per year. 30-40% is likely to be sold in Belgium, 40% in the United States and the rest in other export markets. There are ambitions, too, to produce a kriek one day, but Tilquin doesn't rule out working with other fruit before turning to cherries.