[1/09 Update: A lot of people, myself included, have interpreted Stange’s report to mean that there will be no more 3 Fonteinen beer though that doesn’t appear to be the case. The operations are moving over to Boon though Debelder will still have a heavy hand in blending and overseeing the beer. It looks like 3F will still be on the new bottles.]
(Beersel, BELGIUM) – Drie Fonteinen (or 3 Fonteinen) has been blending lambics for over ten years though the brewery’s owner, Armand Debelder, has been at it since the middle of the 20th century. One look at the beer ratings on RateBeer illustrates just how much of an impact the brewery has left on beer drinkers. They have produced SEVERAL beers that have made it into RateBeer’s top 100 at one time or another. Now, Debelder will be handing the brewing duties over to Boon in Belgium (can’t find website link).
According to Joe Stange of “>The Thirsty Pilgrim, Debelder attributes the change in part to the 100,000 bottle incident that I alluded to earlier in the week in the Dogfish My Antonia article. Strange reports that Debelder realizes he needs new brewing equipment, is getting older, is newly married, and has a new interest in distilling (a by-product of the incident).
As far as what happens to the beer going forward, Frank Boon will continue to brew Debelder’s beer using his recipe:
“About the geuze: Ideally, it won’t change much. Frank Boon in Lembeek has agreed to brew Armand’s lambic exactly like Armand made it in Beersel. For example, this means continuing to use Challenger hops, which Armand will still age himself. It also means the same malt and wheat in the same proportions. Thus future Drie Fonteinen geuzes will be a blend of Girardin, Lindeman’s and Boon lambics, plus the Boon-made Drie Fonteinen recipe.”
Strange has the full exclusive on his blog.
Photo credit:
i think you meant to link to this instead of the 3F website: http://www.thirstypilgrim.com/2010/01/drie-fonteinen-to-stop-brewing-keep.html
Thanks for correcting that. I had never been to the brewery site before and was so enamored I grabbed the wrong link. Embarrassing but corrected now.
You should fix the headline, as it is incredibly misleading. “Ending brewery operations” implies that there will no longer be 3F beer; there still will be, it will just not contain lambic that Armand has brewed himself.
With all due respect, Andy, I think it’s accurate. The man that has been brewing 3F beers for the last decade is no longer. It sounds like he’s given/sold recipes to Boon to make at their facility but now it’s Boon beer (the beer will be bottled Boon labels right?) with him still having some kind of quality-testing role when the beers are blended. To me that is absolutely ending brewery options. The Thirsty Pilgrim article has the fact that 3F’s no longer brewing in the title which would also be misleading given your argument?
After more consideration/assistance (perhaps from Andy/Puzzl?), I made the changes.