Primus History
Historical documents tell us that it may once have been a tollhouse, but first and foremost it was an inn and a brewery. At the time, this combination was more the rule than exception, because a way had not yet been discovered of keeping beer fresh for very long. So what better place to drink beer in than the brewery itself?
Indeed, tea and coffee were still unknown beverages at the time and water was not always as pure as it might be. So a refreshing top-fermented beer, nicely cooled in the cellar, was the best drink available for quenching your thirst.
The bird of paradise has a barn built on to the side of the inn and was surrounded by a dike. The Bird of Paradise passed through the hands of several different owners in the 16th century. First there was “skipper” Jan Van den Berghe, then his daughter or granddaughter “Mayken Van den Berghe, alias brewers”. Next came Jacob Wouters, followed by Abraham Vanden Tolhuysen and Jan Derboven. When the final owners, the Herckenrode family, showed little interest in the place, The Bird of Paradise’s role as a brewery and inn languished and fell into disuse. By 1777, it was no more.
Acts of War.
But on the other side of the Hansbrug, a successor soon appeared. On the territory of Keerbergen, barely fifty metres from the Dijle, a new brewery was firmly up and running. So firmly, in fact, that in the mid 18th Century, the brewery was made up of more than seven main buildings and out buildings. But it was particularly in the 19th century that business at this medium-sized company got into full swing.
In 1899, the brewery passed into the hands of Pierre Devogelaer, who brewed the bitter tasting “Keerbergen Brown” there. The “Brasserie de la Dyle” brewery was estroyed by the war in 1914 and never rebuilt. Many other breweries in Belgium suffered the same fate.
So at that time, the Haacht Brewery, which has been in operation since 1898, was the only brewery left in the area. It continued local brewing traditions with style and expanded significantly in the 20th century.
With over 100 years of history behind it, the Haacht Brewery has the future before it.
At the current time, the Haacht Brewery is the third largest producer of pils beer in Belgium. The brewery also operates as a bottler and distributor for Pepsi for the Belgian hospitality industry. It also owns a vineyard in France, Chateau La Grande Barde, and sells wine under the name of Caves Saint-Christophe.
Today, the Haacht Brewery’s production of beer amounts to more than 1.1 million hectolitres, with the company’s employees contributing to a turnover of 95 million EUR.
The Haacht Brewery has expanded organically in a green field setting around the central administration building and brewhouse. The brewery is bounded by the road from Brussels to Haacht and the railway line between Leuven and Mechelen.
More than 100 years of industrial heritage is maintained here with great respect. As a result of the constant attention paid to the architecture of the buildings, the current site of the Haacht Brewery has grown into a beautiful and valuable complex that combines authentic and modern components in a well-balanced manner.
Raw Materials: pure, unadulterated and healthy
Brewing requires four pure raw materials: water, malt, hops and yeast. The art of brewing lies in achieving the correct blend and precessing of these ingredients.
Water
You cant make beer without water. Fortunately the area in and around Haacht has ample supplies of pure, natural mineral water under the ground. This is provided by a layer of fine sand grains, rich in water, called the “Landenian” region. The water comes from the triangle formed by Landen, Tienen/Tirlemont and St Truiden. The water flows for kilometres through the Landenian region to the Haacht area, protected against any harmful infiltration by thick layers of clay. The fact of flowing for over 30 km under the ground at a constant temperature (15ºC) provides the ideal filtering action for the water, which retains all of its organic purity.
The Haacht Brewery pumps the water it needs from deep deposits of water 150 metres below the ground to produce Val mineral water and soft drinks, and 70 metres for its beer. Any iron is removed from the pure water and it is partially softened before it is used for brewing.
Barley
To be able to make beer, the brewer needs raw materials that contain plenty of starch. Only pure and healthy-smelling barley with even-sized grains and high germinating ability guarantees top-quality malt. The malting process takes place in the malt house.
Hops
Adding Hops to the brew gives beer its special aroma and pleasant bitterness. The hop plant is dioecious and only the female plant is used. The plant flowers once a year and the flower cones are picked, dried and pressed. Hops are used in the form of pellets or extract. The different varieties of hop create individual flavours for each beer.
Yeast
Yeast is a micro-organism that occurs spontaneously in nature. Thanks to the work carries out by Pasteur, individual strains of yeast were separated and cultivated. Each beer has its own yeast strain. Pils-style beer use bottom fermenting yeast, while special beers use top fermentation. The Haacht Brewery propagates its own yeast cultures to ensure a consistent flavour. To a large extent, yeast determines the creation of the components in the beer that dictate flavour and converts sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is needed to give the beer a good layer of foam.
The art of brewing.
The Brewhouse
The Haacht Brewery is capable of brewing 7200 hectolitres of beer every day. The whole process is controlled by computers from the receipt of the raw materials and the milling of the malt, through to the manufacturing process and the cooling and cleaning of the brewing kettles and pipes.
The brewing process begins with pouring the malt (germinated barley) into the mashing kettle. The mash is then gradually heated until it reaches the temperature of sacharification and the starch in the malt is converted into dextrine (which gives the beer its full flavour) and maltose (soluble sugar that is later converted into alchohol). We also brew beer with malt and adjuncts such as maize and rice. To do this, we use a maize kettle: the adjuncts are first brought to the boiling point, then we add them to the mash kettle with malt. After sacharification, the mash is pumped into the wort filter from where the wort flows to the buffer tank. The sediment or spent grains are taken to a silo to be used as cattle feed. The buffer tank acts as a buffer between the filter and the boiling kettle. During the boiling process, we add the hops. After this, the hot trub is removed in the whirlpool by centripetal forces. Finally, the brew is cooled using a heat exchanger or wort-cooler and is sent to the fermentation tanks.
Top-fermentation and lagering
The beer ferments in 22 cylindroconical tanks, each with a capacity of 3 300 hl, six of 650 hl cylindroconical tanks and 2 tanks with a capacity of 2 000 hl. Altogether, they represent more than 32 million glasses of beer.
Fermenting and lagering take place in a single tank that can be controlled individually. Each tank is filled at the temperature maintained during fermentation and cooled for lagering. After some analysing and degustation, the beer is ready for filtering and conditioning in bottles, kegs and cans.
Top-fermented beer takes 5 to 6 days to ferment at a relatively high temperature of 18 to 22 ºC. The yeast rises and forms a thick layer on top of the beer. Most regional and special beers are top-fermented beers, such as Tongerlo Abbey beers, Charles Quint, Gildenbier and Haacht White Beer.
Bottom-fermented beer needs to ferment for 8 to 10 days at a low temperature of 10 to 12 ºC. The yeast sinks and lies on the bottom of the fermentation tank. All pils-style beers use bottom fermentation, such as Primus, Adler and Haacht table beers. |
