In April of 1990, Liefmans was purchased by the much larger Riva Group, a consortium of Belgian breweries. Riva is a collection of four different breweries with a combined annual output of 135,000 hectoliters per year ('92). To most beer drinkers, this sounds like yet another example of the all-too-familiar theme of the big guys gobbling up the little guys. Hence my skepticism.
Any student of Belgian beers knows of the high regard that Michael Jackson holds for Liefmans former director, Madame Rose Blancquaert-Merckx. He writes about the loving attention she poured into the brewery, and how she was adamant about strict adherence to traditional methods, such as a 12 hour overnight boil and an extended cooling period. Jackson praises Madame Rose almost to the point of deification.
Things are different now. Riva is in, Madame Rose is out, and there have been significant production changes as well. For example, mashing and brewing no longer happen at Liefmans. Instead, the wort is produced at Riva's flagship brewery in the nearby town of Dentergem and transferred to Oudenaarde for fermentation and maturation. In former times, the beer underwent a lengthy period of bottle-conditioning, but this practice has also been discontinued.
It was in this context that I met my two tour guides, Filip DeVolder and Annick DeSplenter. Filip is Liefmans' brewmaster, although the term cellar master might be more appropriate. Annick is in Riva's marketing group and also happens to be the great-granddaughter of Henri DeSplenter, Riva's founder. Both Filip and Annick were very warm and friendly and wasted no time in demonstrating their hospitality. They took me into the reception hall, drew some glasses of beer, and began to tell me the stories of Liefmans and Riva.
The exact origins of what is now the Liefmans brewery are unclear, but the first known written reference to it is dated 1679. In 1770, Jacobus Liefmans took over the brewery and began a brewing dynasty which lasted over 120 years. During the Liefmans' reign, the brewery prospered and demand for the product grew. As a result of this growth, Jacobus' grandson Hillone Liefmans built a new brewery in 1868. Unfortunately, Hillone's son Camille met with an early death, and with him went the Liefmans dynasty.
In the 1890s, the brewery was purchased by Pierre van Geluwe de Berlaere. We still know the brewery as Liefmans because one of the conditions of the sale was that the original name be retained. The reign of Pierre van Geluwe included WWI, during which the brewery was extensively damaged. After the war, a new brewery was built near the banks of the river Schelde, and this is the site of today's facility. Much of the equipment was replaced during an extensive renovation in 1930. Fortunately, the brewery survived the second world war largely intact. Many Belgian breweries were stripped of their coppers during the war, but Liefmans is only slightly worse for the wear. If you know where to look, you can still see a few bullet holes here and there.
Paul van Geluwe took over the brewery when his father died in 1947 and continued to run the operation until his death in 1972. In Paul's will, he stipulated that his children were forbidden to run the brewery, and so it was put up for sale. At about this time, Madame Rose began her tenure. In 1974, the brewery was sold to a real estate company which had ties to the British brewery Vaux. Under Vaux and Madame Rose, Liefmans' output steadily declined until they became part of the Riva Group in 1990.
Meanwhile, back in Dentergem, the tiny Brouwerij DeSplenter was established by Henri DeSplenter in 1896. In 1927, the brewery passed into the hands of Maurice DeSplenter, who in turn passed it on to Yvan DeSplenter in 1950. During the 70s, many small breweries folded in Belgium, and Riva was endangered also. As a response to this threat, Yvan developed a Wit beer which proved to be extremely popular. The success of the Riva brewery is largely attributable to Dentergems Witbier. In recent years, Riva has begun expanding by taking over smaller Belgian breweries, starting with the Straffe Hendrik in Brugge, Liefmans, and finally Gouden Carolus in Mechelen. Unlike many brewery takeovers, all three of Riva's acquisitions are still in use.
Once the history lesson was complete, we set aside our beers and began a tour of today's Liefmans. The tour revealed one of the most peculiar and quirky breweries I've seen anywhere. The brewery's designer obviously had a high regard for redundancy, because there are two of everything. Yes, I mean everything. The economics of running a brewery of this size typically dictate a single set of mash/lauter/brew-kettles serviced by a single malt mill, with the wort going to multiple fermentation vessels. Even large breweries with multiple brew-kettles can get by with a single mill. Liefmans brewery has two malt mills, each of which feeds a completely independent set of mash tuns with their own decoction cookers. There are two lauter tuns feeding two brew-kettles followed by two coolships and two baudelot coolers. The entire affair is steam fired, and there are - you guessed it - two steam generators!
The brewery must be seen to be fully appreciated, and I for one was captivated by its charm. Annick obviously loved the old brewery, as her eyes burned with a passion while she led us around. She explained that her mother had also grown up in a brewing family, and that such feelings for old breweries were in her blood. Meanwhile, my skepticism regarding the takeover wavered further as we stopped to observe two workers who were painstakingly restoring one of the old malt mills. In the later years of Vaux's ownership, parts of the brewery had fallen into disrepair. Riva has been working on the restoration of the facility, and the refurbished equipment is striking. They have devoted considerable resources to the restoration effort, which is indicative of their commitment to Liefmans.
As the tour progressed, I began to get a picture of the unusual brew schedule imposed by the bizarre equipment. The brewery was definitely not designed for efficiency. For example, it required four hours just to mill the grains and get them into the mash tun. After a lengthy decoction mash and sparge, the 12 hour boil was more of a slow simmer because of inadequate heating elements in the brew-kettle. Following the boil, the wort spent six hours in a coolship and then seven hours trickling over the surface of the baudelot coolers. All told, it required several days just to get the wort into the primary fermenter.
Obviously this is a very expensive way to make beer. Furthermore, if demand for the product is shrinking, as it was in the 80s, brewing to this schedule becomes even harder to maintain. All of this leads one to the inevitable conclusion that the Liefmans brewery in its present state is simply not economically viable in today's climate. Riva's solution to this problem, producing the wort at a more modern facility and fermenting at Liefmans, is their attempt to somehow keep Liefmans beers alive.
This puts the Riva Group in the difficult position of trying to balance tradition and economics. The compromise they have struck addresses the two concerns delicately in that they have found a way to produce Liefmans beers more economically while retaining the beer's essential character. A five-day brewing cycle is out of the question if your competition is brewing in eight to ten hours. Thus the decision to move wort production to Dentergem was a necessity. Then the question becomes, "How to do this and preserve the beer's signature?"
The key is fermentation. The flavor profile of Goudenband is determined largely by its multistrain yeast, whose performance is in turn dependent on environment. Key elements of the environment include open copper fermentation tanks, which are housed in a well-ventilated room high in the brewery. Directly above the coppers, the wooden ceilings are literally alive with a myriad of critters, anxious to exert their influence on the beer as well. While Liefmans is not a spontaneously fermenting beer per se, their fermentation vessels have striking similarities to the coolships in lambic breweries. This is definitely an environment not readily duplicated elsewhere.
The fact that Riva is still fermenting at the Liefmans brewery is testimony both to the importance of the environment on Goudenband's character, and to Riva's commitment to preserving that character. Thus the Dentergem/Oudenaarde compromise resolves many of the economic concerns while retaining the unique character of Liefmans fermentation.
The purist will note that certain aspects of the beer will definitely be changed by the different production schedule. Strictly speaking, this is of course true. However, one must keep in mind that the earlier Liefmans was plagued with product inconsistencies, which makes the desired flavor profile a much wider target to hit. Furthermore, the flavor of Goudenband is dominated by Liefmans unique fermentation, which tends to overwhelm more subtle differences caused by varying the mash/boil schedule. Thus far, the response of the beer drinking public has been favorable.
No matter how you see it, the Liefmans/Riva/Madame Rose situation is surrounded by much myth, controversy and emotion. In the midst of the turmoil, a few hard facts surface. In 1985, Liefmans' production was still up around 30,000 hectoliters annually. By the time of the Riva takeover in 1990, production had dwindled to only 10,000 hectoliters. Such a drastic reduction in output could only mean one thing, that the brewery was dying. Today, production has risen back to 13,000 hectoliters, and with that, so have the brewery's prospects.
By the time I left the brewery, my initial skepticism had turned instead to optimism. Having seen the painstaking restoration, the rising production figures and, of course, the fire in Annick's eyes, I could only conclude that the future of Flanders Brown is in good hands. Beer devotees everywhere are fortunate that Liefmans has found a benevolent parent in Riva.
An Associate Editor of the Celebrator Beer News, a Certified
Beer Judge and a specialist in European beers, CR Saikley and new bride
Alexandra reside in Berkeley, CA. (CR and Alexandra have just returned from their
honeymoon in Dublin, Ireland [Guinness, anyone?])