Hi! My name is Björn Desmadryl and I'm the founder of The Brew Society brewery. Let me take you on a journey through our story, from the ingredients to your glass.

Ingredients

Producing our craft beers always starts with a careful selection of the ingredients: water, barley malt, hop and yeast. The final brewing result depends on precise procedures, times, temperatures and, the list just goes on! I'd like to tell you about the key steps in the brewing process here.

Malting

We have the different types of grains bought in Belgium malted at a malt house. We have extremely high standards when it comes to selecting malt because malt plays a pivotal role in the colour, aroma and taste of beer.

Milling

Once it makes it to the brewery, the malt goes straight to the grain mill. The malt is wet milled so that it can dissolve in water during the next step of the brewing process. Our brewing masters refer to this as milling the malt.

Mashing

Mashing (maischen in German) is where the coarsely milled malt and brewing water are mixed in a mash tun. During this process, we mix the water and malt into a mash. This process converts the starch in the malt into fermentable sugars. We're able to determine the composition of the wort by adjusting how long (or short) the malt is heated. And that’s how we influence the mouthfeel and head of your beer. A few hours of patiently waiting later, a sweet extract called wort is produced, which will go on to be separated from the residual grain in the lauter tun.

Lautering

The residual grain and mash are separated during the lautering stage. Once the process is complete, the residual grain is collected in a silo, where it is later picked up and distributed among dairy farmers. What’s left after the residual grain has been removed from the mash? Wort. Wort is a sugary liquid that turns into beer not long after boiling.

Boiling

The wort is boiled to sterilise it, potentially to make it cloudy and to give the hops their characteristic bitterness. Towards the end of the boiling process, our brewer adds some additional aroma hops. The hops used in our beers are grown right here in Belgium. After an hour of boiling, the bitter-sweet liquid passes through a network of stainless tubes to the fermenters in our fermentation chamber.

Fermentation

The word beer can really only be used after fermentation. We add fresh yeast to our brew, so that these cells can convert the wort’s sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. And once again, it’s another exercise in patience. That’s essentially what brewing is all about, giving those micro-organisms the time they need to do their job.

Conditioning

Once the primary fermentation is finished, the dead yeast is separated from the new beer and the beer is allowed to rest and mature in lager tanks. The maturation or lagering process creates special aromas, i.e. at this stage, the beer's distinctive taste is refined.

Centrifuge filtration

It’s now time for the second filtration stage in the brewing process. This second filtration stage is needed to remove any residual yeast and cloudiness.

Lab and testing

Quality comes first at The Brew Society, which is why our lab ensures that we're always able to work to the highest standards. Those standards include running physiochemical, microbiological, and organoleptic (sensory analysis) tests on beers before they're bottled.

Bottling

Once we’ve got the lab's go-ahead, the beer heads to the bottling plant, where the finished beer is pasteurised and filled in every format imaginable. From bottles, to cans and barrels – you name it. It’s all done to the highest standards using our state-of-the-art Krones filling installation.

Tasting

After all that hard work, we finally get a chance to taste what we've made and savour the good times in life. Cheers!