Earlier this year I was given the opportunity to preview the documentary film, Bottle Conditioned, a few weeks before its public release by Bullfrog Fims. Directed by Academy Award nominated filmmaker Jerry Franck, the documentary explores the world of lambic beer.
Before discussing the film, let me say something about lambic beer. Lambic is one of the world’s most iconic beer styles. It is a sour wheat beer, brewed by using spontaneous fermentation. In other words, unlike most beers which are brewed using yeast selected by the brewer, lambic uses wild yeast that is naturally present in the environment. Authentic lambic is brewed in one small geographic region – Pajottenland and the adjacent Zenne Valley, which lie southwest of Belgium’s capital city Brussels.
Exactly how long lambic has been around is unclear – some sources suggest it was first brewed in the 13th century, while others date its origins to the 15th and 18th centuries respectively. The weight of evidence suggests an 18th century origin to be the most likely. In addition to Lambic, there are several derivatives. These include fruit lambic, faro, and gueuze. Of these gueuze is considered the “most noble”, being often “likened to champagne”.
Gueuze, is made by blending a young Lambic (one year old) with older (two and three years old) lambics. As the young lambic is not fully fermented, a secondary fermentation occurs in the bottle. No two batches of gueuze are the same as the yeast used in their production comes from the natural environment, making it “impossible to produce a standardised product”. Following fermentation, lambic is aged in wooden barrels (usually wine) for several years. Because of seasonal variations in the microflora in the Pajottenland and Zenne Valley lambic can only be brewed between October and May.
Bottle Conditioned, tells the story of three lambic producers/blenders (Cantillon, 3 Fonteinen, and Bokke), the people who own and run them, and their visions of the future. As we learn in the film, after a period of decline, lambic today is experiencing something of a renaissance. In the early 1950s, there were several hundred producers/blenders of lambic in the region, with each village having two or three. In the subsequent four decades, however, consumer demand for lambic went into free fall. Jean-Pierre Van Roy (Co-Owner of Cantillon) lays part of the blame at the feet of Coca Cola, which was introduced into Europe after World War II. Coca Cola’s arrival was part of a larger trend in which standardization of tastes became a dominant force. Van Roy likens Coca Cola to a drug that arrived “violently” in Europe. As Coca Cola became more popular, people developed a taste for sweeter drinks. Changing consumer tastes were also reflected in the growing popularity of less-expensive mass-produced Lagers, against which lambic producers found it impossible to compete. Faced with this reality, one response by some lambic producers was to add saccharine to their blends, thus making it sweeter and more appealing to consumers. As a result, product quality and authenticity were compromised, although it did allow some lambic producers to survive. In a paper published in the International Journal of Heritage Studies, Arie Stoffelen, interviewed some 1980s lambic/gueuze drinkers. According to one of them:
“I drank old gueuzes in the 80s. You had to have a lot of courage and sacrifice to empty the glass . . . There was a lot of bad stuff on the market”
During this period, a small number of lambic producers, whose practices remained loyal to the beer’s authenticity, refused to add sweeteners. To survive, some leveraged lambic’s cultural heritage to generate customers and boost sales. In 1979 Jean-Pierre Van Roy established the Brussels Museum of Gueuze, with the goal of generating income to help keep the brewery alive. It was a resounding success. Cantillon is still in business and today, the brewery attracts over 30,000 visitors per year.
As recently as the 1990s, consumer interest in lambic remained at a very low ebb. The industry was moribund and the few brewers/blenders who were still in business faced a bleak and uncertain future. However, beginning in the early 2000s, lambic started receiving more attention, particularly in international markets. This renewed interest in lambic coincided with the growth of craft beer and a spurning, among a growing number of beer drinkers, of the bland-tasting, homogeneous, mass-produced Lagers.
This resurgence in lambic’s popularity brought with it both challenges and opportunities, each of which presented questions that had to be answered and decisions that had to be made. Many of these questions and decisions revolved around the future of the industry. As we weave our way through the film it becomes quite clear that there are competing visions about that future, competing visions within families and competing visions between producers.
On the one hand, there are producers like Cantillon’s Jean-Pierre Van Roy for whom tradition and protecting the heritage of lambic are important. Van Roy bemoans the emphasis that the younger generation of brewers’ place on “production, turnover, and profits”. According to him, “the beauty and aesthetics” of producing authentic lambic “doesn’t interest them”. In a recent interview with The Brussels Times, Van Roy bemoans the use of lactic acid by some lambic brewers. Lactic acid, with its attendant sourness, is produced naturally during the fermentation process. However, Van Roy notes that some lambic brewers add lactic acid to the coolship, thus reducing the length of time it takes to produce a lambic from several years to 4-5 months.
Van Roy is also dismissive of the modern beer drinker – “When I see people drink beer nowadays, I’m horrified”, he says. He dislikes the way many of them analyze beer as they drink it, taking notes, lining up bottles and taking photographs. This, Van Roy says, is “atrocious”. At one point in the film, Van Roy laments that “I am simply from a different time”.
The viewer is left in no doubt that tradition and protecting the heritage of lambic are important to Jean-Pierre Van Roy. At the same he realizes that it is perhaps time for him to acquiesce and let the next generation implement their ideas and fulfill their visions. In the case of Cantillon, the next generation is represented by his son Jean. Jean has a more holistic, and some might argue, more realistic vision of the future. He recognizes that the world is changing, and that competition is escalating. For example, he observes there are a lot of good fruit beers being produced using secondary fermentation.
Jean’s observation is supported by the Tour De Geuze, a biennial celebration of lambic held in Pajottenland and the Zenne Valley where new products are often unveiled. For example, at the 2024 iteration of the event, Brewery Kestermont unveiled two new lambics, one brewed with blood orange and one brewed with bergamot. A visit to the website of Cantillon displays a wide range of lambics, including variations containing blue honeysuckle, raspberries, and rhubarb.
At one point in the film, Jean-Pierre outlines his desire to use some of Cantillon’s production space for the purpose of extending the brewery’s museum displays. His son objects on the grounds that valuable brewing capacity would be lost. Jean-Pierre accuses his son of only wanting to “produce, produce, produce”. In the end, it is the son who prevails, and the new museum space is built (at a cost of 1.6 million Euros).
Another lambic producer we meet in the film is Armand Debelder of 3 Forteinen Brewery. Debelder took over the running of 3 Forteinen from his parents in the early 1980s. As noted above, this was a tough time for lambic. But he persevered, continuing to produce authentic lambic. Shortly after appearing in the film, Debelder pased away from prostate cancer. By then, however, Debelder had passed the reins of 3 Forteinen to his business partners Michaël Blancquaert and Werner Van Obberghen.
In the film we learn that 3 Forteinen is receiving a 25 million Euro investment from a private equity firm. When news of this investment broke, some of the responses (particularly online) bordered on vitriolic. One online posting asked whether 3 Forteinen was more interested in generating shareholder profits than in producing good beer. Others accused them of selling their soul, of becoming a factory. Critics felt that there are dangers associated with becoming “too big”. Responding to the criticism, Werner Van Obberghen, Managing Director of 3 Forteinen points out that the volume of lambic produce is irrelevant if quality standards are maintained. 3 Forteinen, he insists, will always privilege quality. He accuses detractors of missing the point in their call to “make lambic rare again”.
Raf Souvereyns, who we also meet in the film, has progressive ideas. Souvereyns is the owner of Bokke Blendery (~100 km outside of Pajottenland). Souvereyns is not a brewer. He buys wort from lambic breweries, putting it in a coolship for spontaneous fermentation. A producer of mainly fruit beers, Souvereyns likes to push the limits of what can be done. He is quite happy to jettison a traditional technique if he feels it is not delivering for him. He uses the terms “deconstructing” and “reconstructing” to describe much of what he does. He talks about the infinite combinations of different fruits, and the experimentation that this involves.
Bottle Conditioned is film that pits tradition and heritage against non-conformity and innovation. On the one hand, we have Jean-Pierre Van Roy who values tradition and heritage; on the other we have Raf Souvereyns who is forging ahead with new and creative ideas. As I watched the film, I found myself sympathizing with both perspectives. Yes, I want to be able to drink lambic produced using traditional methods and recipes. At the same time, I am not opposed to tasting something new and experimental.
When Bullfrog Films invited me to preview the film, they asked that I provide a short blurb that they could use for promotional purposes. So, I will end this blog entry with my blurb:
“Bottle Conditioned is a must-see love story for anyone interested in the resurgence of one of the world’s most iconic styles of beer – lambic. As with most love stories there are hopes and dreams, anxieties and fears, tensions and conflicts. Bottle Conditioned has all of these, and more, as director Jerry Franck takes us deep into the world of lambic and the people who produce it; a world where competing visions of the future are discussed and debated. If you only watch one beer film this year, make sure it’s this one.”
Further Viewing and Reading:
Franck, Jerry. 2022. Bottle Conditioned. Reading, PA: Bullfrog Films.
Mulder, Roel. 2018. Lambic: The need for a new historical narrative. Journal of the Brewery History Society, Volume 175: Pages 2-13.
Stoffelen, Arie. 2022. Revitalising place-based commercial heritage: A cultural political economy approach to the renaissance of lambic beers in Belgium. International Journal of Heritage Studies, Volume 28, Issue 1, Pages 16-29.