#cantillon

Caricature of the assassination attempt on the Duke of Wellington in Paris, by Charlet, 1818. Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France

I resisted the temptation to turn “our” London/Belgium trip into a beercation, a bloody saint, I am. ; )   However, I determined if there was one brewery I really must visit if possible, it was Cantillon.  The truth is, Cantillon has been a fabled unicorn beer for longer than I can remember and while I might forget your name 30 seconds after we are introduced, I’ve a long memory for beer.  

So it was, after we dragged our luggage from the Central Train Station a short 170m to our chosen hotel, (thanks to @vinouomosette ) we took off to...find our 1st meal in Brussels.  After that we walked fifteen minutes further to Cantillon, located in the least picturesque neighborhood we would find in Brussels.

If we’re keepin it real, I’m not even a big fan of Cantillon beer.  I’ve had occasion to drink it three times. Yes I remember each time and the accompanying disappointment.  That isn’t to say, the beer was/is bad but saying something isn’t bad, is damning with faint praise.  The beer world recognizes Cantillon as something special, I cannot.  Why did I want to go then?

Good question, please let me know if you figure it out.  Never-the-less, we went, we saw, we drank (Wes & I only) a beer and contemplated but didn’t even buy a T-shirt. If someone were to ask me about my visit to Cantillon, I could tell a few details of interest to someone already interested but the only thing that happened that was generally remarkable was only realized later that evening.   

That evening, we were having charcuterie and of course beer (the girls too) at Moeder Lambic (again thank @vinouomosette) when my daughter glanced at the picture hanging above our booth.  She said, “Hey that’s the guy sitting next to us at Cantillon.”  D and Wes quickly agreed that it was.  Then they looked at me and started laughing.  I said, “What?!”

I was a bit out of sorts when I brought my glass of beer back to our small table in the tap room at Cantillon.  It wasn’t the beer,  at my first sip of Rose de Gambrinus (raspberry sour) I knew I was drinking the best Cantillon I’d had to date.  There were at least six or seven more written in chalk on the board I could drink.  The problem was, there was nothing the girls would want to drink and the man at the bar had basically sneered at me when I asked him what was the sweetest beer they had on offer.  “There are no sweet beers here.” his distain loud and clear.  

So as I delivered the unhappy news about nothing there for D to drink and pretended  I didn’t very much want to stay and try all the other Cantillons, I may have spoken a bit uncharitably about how, in my mind, Cantillon was Over Rated.  I did notice when the rude bartender came over and spoke respectfully to one of the men sitting at the table next to us.  I’d already noticed the others at the man’s table were attending him closely and his bearing was authoritative.

“Dad, that man in the picture was sitting next to us when you said the beer there was Over Rated.” 

Oh. I see. (channeling Ray Fiennes final scene “In Bruges”)  

P.S.  Moeder Lambic is named after the beer style Cantillon is known for and there were a half dozen Cantillon offerings on the board so I happily drank beautiful sour beer made in Switzerland!