Interview: Rodenbach brewmaster Rudi Ghequire

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Brewmaster Belgium

INTERVIEW CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

JL: Has there ever been a batch of beer that you refused to release to the public?

RG: No, never. We will not have it. You can avoid that by being careful, checking and double checking, and by educating your people.

JL: Alexander is the most recent beer you brewed?

RG: This beer was created in 1986 as a celebration beer for the 150th anniversary of the brewery. The company was founded in 1821 by four brothers who owned the brewery and had a very special preservation method of beer, a preservation that people nearly did not know any longer, mixed fermentation.

JL: What is the difference between this beer and the base Grand Cru?

Grand Cru is a blend of 2/3 old mature beer and 1/3 of young beer. Alexander is just like Grand Cru, 2/3 old beer, 1/3 young beer, and sour cherries…It [last] existed between 1986 and 2000.

JL: Why relaunch now?

RG: That’s a good question. We have three beers, and we stopped Alexander. We created a Vintage range. Based on the Vintage and Caractère Rouge, we try out what will work and the needs of the market. We don’t make mass production. We make really high quality production. The question was coming last year, and got back to Belgium, because of two trips I made, one in spring and one in fall. Everyone wants to have Alexander back, and that was the reason why we felt this was now the moment to do that.

JL: You just spent four days in California. What lessons about beermaking can you and other Belgian brewers take from California?

RG: We can learn from each other. A lot of Californian brewers have learned about our styles and tried to make that as good as possible. Here, you have a very great beer culture. We try to be the reference. It’s good that there is a lot of activity around sour beers. We must be careful that our market position will not be damaged by people that did not understand the philosophy about sour beer. Sour beer was a way of beer preservation, not for making the product sour.

JL: Which beers do you enjoy drinking when you’re not drinking Rodenbach beers?

RG: Most of the time I’m drinking Rodenbach beers because this is my job. If I’m at the brewery of my son, I will drink his beers. Brouwerij De Kazematten. He has a small town brewery where they make very special beers and try to make new styles. It’s a small brewery with a visitor center in the city of Ieper. It was a very important city during the first World War. The whole city was destroyed by German bombing. English soldiers had defended that village. There are three very old casements built in 1680 that survived the first World War, and the bombing. In the old tunnels and casement, they have realized a brewery.

JL: What is your son’s name?

RG: Maarten.

JL: Did you expect him to become a brewer?

RG: He is a brewery owner. He is a brewer also, but he’s into more fundamental research. He studied as a brew engineer, but now he works at the University of Leuven and does fundamental research.

JL: When people hear your name in the beer community, what do you want them to think?

RG: The brand I defend, Rodenbach. Also, that Rodenbach is a food beer and goes very well together with food. That it is sessionable, that there’s a great consistency. That it has never been duplicated. That it is unique.

JL: Do you still enjoy your job as much as when you first started?

RG: I think more. Once it sticks on your skin, you cannot remove it.

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Joshua Lurie

Joshua Lurie founded FoodGPS in 2005. Read about him here.

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