Since approximately half of my Facebook feed consists of content coming from breweries from all over the world, every now and then the algorithms of the platform suggest pages of breweries that I might be interested in. About two months ago one of the pages that came up was from a pretty new brewery in my hometown area that was called Brouwerij…. Benoit. As in my last name. But that wasn’t the only striking fact. It was located in the city where I was born and when checking the address on the map, it was literally 2 blocks away from the house where my father grew up and where my grandmother still lives until this day. More than enough reasons to reach out to the brewer, because this has ‘blog story’ written all over it.
Last week I was in Belgium to spend some time with family and friends and I emailed brewer Christophe, if I could come by to look around his brewery and obviously try a few of his creations. He answered very quickly that it was an ideal day, since he was brewing with some students of the local brewing study programme. So before popping in to my grandmother’s place for a cup of coffee, two other Benoits hopped in the car and went to have a look at Brouwerij Benoit.
We got out in a quiet, residential neighbourhood with some beautiful houses. As soon as we turned around the corner we knew we were at the right address, being welcomed by an undeniable whiff of brewing activity. The garage gate was open and a watering hose came out spiralling towards the nice front garden. We knocked on the gate and Christophe opened it for us to see his brewing garage. It was packed with bottles, lager tanks, big bags of malt and a whole lot of other things. There were about 8 to 9 people running in and out of the adjacent room with the boiling kettle, dragging along hoses, cleaning, weighing sugar, making notes. Serious business for sure, since apparently, the students were brewing a tripel with pepper as an examination assignment. Christophe greeted us with great enthusiasm and we had a short chat.
Officially he started his brewery as a side-business in May 2018 and things have been growing steadily. As a result he has been brewing almost every week lately, with or without student of the brewing school. He doesn’t know where this will lead to, but he doesn’t want to compromise in the way he is working now. He wants to do 100 percent what he wants, without giving too much of a damn about market demands. He loves breaking out of the (still surprisingly) rigid traditional Belgian brewing framework. In his opinion, too many Belgian breweries are ‘staring too much at their own bellybutton’ (to use a nice Flemish expression) and only the last few years some Belgian breweries have tried to be as innovative as craft breweries in other countries. Due to this conservative mindset, Belgium starts to run a little behind, compared to e.g. the Netherlands, the UK, Spain or Scandinavian countries. I couldn’t agree more with his opinion. Needless to say, he tries to be original by brewing different styles and making interesting variations of established Belgian styles. This philosophy is also present in his slick and quirky labels, showcasing animals in uniforms. Stylish but with a twist.
My father and I tried 2 beers on the spot. The first one was his Double Barley Wine. This malty bombshell of a whopping 14.3% ABV has the epithet double, because of the double mashing process. This double mash allows Christophe to leave out sugar that many brewers add to their barley wines to boost the outspoken boozy aroma and flavour, and push the alcohol percentage further up. The sugar can leave a sharp and intense finish when drinking and this is what is lacking here. Beautiful brown colour, boozy aroma that reminded me of cognac or whisky and subtle floral touches of the hops. The typical malty sweetness is both found in aroma and flavour, the latter one also exhibiting subtle hop bitterness. The finish is gentle and rounded. The medium body and the soft finish make this intense beer treacherously drinkable. My father, who is more of a wine enthusiast, was also very charmed by this beer style he hadn’t tried before. Not surprisingly, since we were savouring the wine of beers.
We also had a sip of another one of his creations: Dark Soul, a ‘Lagavulin’ whisky-infused Flanders Red Ale. This is a nice example of how Christophe took a very local beer style and brewed it with a few twists. The result is a nicely balanced beer with a lovely color, somewhere between amber and brown. The sour aroma is very refreshing and also includes a hint of cocoa and dark chocolate. The flavour is nicely mouth-puckering and refreshing.
Christophe was quite busy, so we didn’t stay very long, but we did buy a few bottles to try more. The same night I cracked a bottle of ‘Double Gold’ with my parents. Christophe called it his middle finger towards the Belgian tradition of Dubbels always being dark. This beautiful golden ale of 6% ABV has the estery and subtle malty aroma of a traditional abbey ale with a whiff of tropical fruit. The flavour is quite malty and a little spicy, but the dry finish is all about the passion fruit and citrus aromas of the Amarillo hops. Very nice beer!
A big thanks to Christophe for making some time to show two other ‘Benoits’ around in his nanobrewery. I’m curious to see which different styles will pop up in his portfolio. I’m sure I will come by again, when visiting the family back in the Belgian motherland.
Brouwerij Benoit Avondzonweg 2 8500 Kortrijk, Belgium
