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INGREDIENTS

The ingredients we use
to brew our beers

Basic ingredients

Water, malt, hops and yeast are the 4 basic ingredients used to brew beer. We would like to explain to you how we source these basic ingredients.

Water

During the brewing process we use water for malting, brewing and boiling beer. After this process, we purify the waste water via our own installation until we attain the quality of surface water. In this way, every week we purify 1,700 cubic metres of water that meets the Flemish standards.

Malt

We buy the malt from malt houses in Belgium and abroad. In these malt houses, the barley soaks up water to germinate at become malt. When choosing malt, we are very critical because the malt is very important for the colour, aroma and flavour of our beers.

Hops

Beer owes its bitter taste to the hop cones of the female hop plant. The hops for our beers come from all over the world such as from Germany, the Czech Republic and the United States. We also often buy hop cones in our own country, more specifically in Poperinge.

Yeast

Alcohol is only present in beer after yeast has been added. Every beer has a specific taste depending on the type of yeast strain used.

We use three types of fermentation: top, spontaneous and mixed fermentation.

Additions

To give our beers a unique taste, we add sugar, spices, fruit or even liqueur to certain beers. Of course, we are not revealing all our secrets, but we gladly share the next three ingredients with you:

Candy sugar

Candy sugar or brown sugar is not only a tasty addition to a pancake, it is also a great addition to beer. We add candy sugar to Kasteel Donker. This results in a surprisingly sweet initial taste and contributes to the beautiful dark colour of our Kasteel Donker.

Herbs

To give beers such as Kasteel Tripel and Brigand a pronounced taste, we like to experiment with herbs. Cinnamon, clove and liquorice are some examples of herbs that are frequently used in the entire brewing world.

Fruit

Our range includes many refreshing fruit beers that are flavoured with cherries, peaches and raspberries. Examples include our St-Louis fruit beers and Bacchus beers. Kasteel Rouge also owes its beautiful red colour to the addition of cherries.

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