What’s a better thing to do on a rainy Friday night in Brussels than to visit a brewery. This time we’re visiting Nanobrasserie l’Ermitage in Anderlecht, a stone’s throw away from Brasserie Cantillon.
Nanobrasserie l’Ermitage is a small independent brewery with a wide range of beers, including some wild beers. Besides the brewery with taproom, they have two other locations. A bar in Saint-Gilles, and a shop selling natural wines also in Anderlecht. The taproom with bar has a nice urban vibe because of all the beautiful street art on the walls.
In the taproom, they not only serve their own beers, but beers from other breweries too. Today, for instance, we are drinking ‘Vent d’Est’, a collab between Brasserie des 4 Vents and Brasserie Cantillon. This beer is a mix between a porter and Cantillon’s 3-year-old lambic. In terms of flavour, that is exactly the description I would give. Both beers add little to each other in terms of flavour, but go well together. The sour funky flavour of the lambic is preceded by the malty caramel flavour of the porter. A fine beer.
Next, we drink L’Ermitage’s own ‘Saison Lambic Fruits des Bois’. A fantastically delicious sour beer based on lambic from Gueuzerie Tilquin and a saison from L’Ermitage fermented with 170 grams of forest fruits per litre. The forest fruit mix consists of blackcurrant, raspberry, red currant, blackberry, wild blueberry. The salty smoky dry sausage, which can be ordered at the bar, tastes excellent together with this beer.
Unfortunately, we did not have more time to taste more beers, but a glance at the bottle list tells us we’re definitely coming back here soon!