Het Anker Brewery - Mechelen

We arrived at Het Anker brewery shortly before 1pm on Saturday 23 March, 2019.

The building on the left of the entrance gates is now the brewery's hotel. The doorway on the right leads to the shop where we needed to pay for the brewery tour places booked online via www.hetanker.be/en/visit-the-brewery. Having paid 9 euros each we were directed to the starting point of the 1pm tour in English. Our group included Spanish students and an American couple. After an introductory talk with some film, Marc De Knijf, our genial host, led us up the first stairway to an area of the old maltings.

Marc described the main beer ingredients: water, malted grain e.g. barley, hops and yeast. Taken from a rear table, dishes of malted barley were handed round so that tour members could take a few grains for tasting. Six other ingredients used by Het Anker for brewing were also introduced. From right to left on the front table in the photo above, these were: Licorice, Anis, Chamomile, Dried peel of Curacao oranges (sourced from Spain), cumin and coriander. Marc mentioned that Licorice and Anis are only used for Het Anker's strong, dark ruby red Christmas beer. Chamomile has the effect of softening the flavours from the other ingredients.

From here we were led through to the main brewing hall which has large windows and is next to the the old maltings building.

The top parts of three copper kettles are visible in this area. Marc explained that these were installed in 1946 and that nowadays one of the two smaller ones is not used, the second is used for introducing hot water to the malt and after filtering this wort is transferred to the larger kettle, on the left of the photo, for boiling and the introduction of bittering hops.

After further filtering, the wort is cooled by the modern heat exchanger, on the left of the photo, to 22-25 degrees centigrade before transfer to 'yeasting tanks' for 6-7 days. The yeast is then removed and the beer is transferred to storage tanks. The new bottling hall is in Mechelen's industrial zone and beer is transferred there by tanker vehicles. Each brew is 12,0000 litres and there are two or three brews a day (Monday - Friday).

In a nearby area with a timeline display, Marc discussed the history of Brouwerij Het Anker, situated in the Beguinage, which began as a brewery for the beguines but was later purchased by the family Van Breedam. It is still an independent family firm.

Marc showed us an earlier 'open' heat exchanger which was once used as the second stage of a cooling process.

He then led us up more steps to look at the cooling tank on the roof which was once used as the first stage of a cooling process taking the temperature down to 72 degrees centigrade.

Note that unlike Lambic breweries, this tank was not used as part of a wild fermentation process. From here we could look east above the rooftops to the centre of Mechelen.

We took a different route on the way down passing several floors of Gouden Carolus single malt maturing whisky. Marc explained that there was not enough room for storage at the whisky distillery on the family's farm in Blasveld.

The final stage of the brewery tour was a tasting in a first floor room with a bar at one end.

Tim with Gouden Carolus Tripel

Our first 15cl glass was of blonde Gouden Carolus Tripel (9% ABV, EBU 22). Marc challenged us to identify the ingredients which included coriander, chamomile, cumin and orange peel.

The second sample was dark Gouden Carolus Classic (8.5% ABV, EBU 16).

There was an opportunity to give Marc a copy of West Berkshire CAMRA magazine 'Ullage' which he was interested to read.
It was after 2.30pm when we left the tasting room to visit the brewery shop and then some of the best pubs and bars in Mechelen.
We did not visit the brasserie at the brewery but this is open daily from 10am.

Thanks to Marc and Het Anker Brewery. A visit to the brewery is recommended.