Description

Background
When, in 1993, the Geuze blenders "Drie Fonteinen" (Beersel), "Hanssens" (Dworp) and "Moriau" (Sint-Pieters-Leeuw) got awarded the annual “Objective Beer tasters' Prize” (OBP), their profession was deemed to be a vanishing craft. And indeed, Moriau ceased to operate as a Geuze blender shortly afterwards, which meant there were only two left in the whole world.

This number was brought back to its previous level when Karel Goddeau established "De Cam". De Cam was officially opened on Saturday 7 June 1997, when the first barrel of De Cam's Lambic beer was opened and tasted in the presence of some 100 guests.

Location
De Cam is located in council buildings in the borough of Gooik, which already featured in the records for the year 1515 as "des Heeren Landcamme" ("cam" being an Old-Dutch word for a brewery). The local council turned it in to a meeting place with a popular café, a museum featuring brewery equipment, a collection of carts and wagons and a folk music guild.

The storage area contains 45 wooden casks containing 1, 000 litres each, piled two on top of each other. They originate from a Czech brewery called "Plzensky Pradroj" (Pilsner Urquell). Local coopers restored the casks before they were shipped to Belgium and painted them green, the traditional colour of the "Plzensky" brewery and now also of the De Cam business.

Beers

Faro De Cam
Faro is made from spontaneously fermented Lambic beer (with a low base wort content) to which sugars are added, which makes the beer taste both sweet and sour.
This Faro has an alcohol content of 5%.

Oude Lambiek De Cam
A Lambic beer is a very old type of beer.
Old Lambic is more mature and tastes sourer.
This Geuze is bottled in bottles of 37.5 and 75 cl and has an alcohol percentage of 6.5 %.

Krieken Lambik De Cam
This Geuze with cherries combines the true Geuze character with fresh fruit and the aroma of the pips and added sweetness, which gives it the delicious flavour of an effervescent cherry-champagne. It is sold in bottles of 37.5 and 75 cl and has an alcohol percentage of 4.7 %.

Oude Geuze De Cam
The "Oude Geuze De Cam" has been aging since the Spring of 1999. This Geuze is bottled in bottles of 37.5 and 75 cl and has an alcohol percentage of 6.5 %.
This Geuze is made by blending young Lambic beer, which has matured for at least a year, with old Lambic beer, which has been maturing for at least two years, all to the taste of the blender. A last ripening or maturing process takes place when the beer is bottled. The result is a spontaneously fermented beer with a typical flavour and beautiful head. This Geuze is further described as being relatively dry and tart in flavour.

Brewery visits

Available. Please contact the brewery to make an appointment.

Location

Gooik-Vlaams-Brabant

Address

Dorpsstraat 67A - 1755 Gooik

Telephone number / Contact

Karel Goddeau
Gsm +32 (0)476-81 68 06
Fax +32 (0)2-532 08 26

E-mail

kriek@gooik.be

Website

www.oudecam.be

Additional Information

• Did you know that there's always loads of cobwebs in breweries? This has nothing to do with a lack of hygiene but relates to the useful service provided by the spiders. Little fruit flies are attracted by the smell of fermenting beer and it's the spiders who deal with this plague by trapping them in their webs. That's why you'll never catch a Geuze blender killing a spider.
• Tour of the Geuze