ABESCO Competitors

Alarmed by a trend of making formerly bitter beers sweeter to please a bigger audience, Guido Devos and Nino Bacelle decided to start their own brewery. Brewery De Ranke was born and immediately took its own course, without compromise. Following their own taste, they start producing bitter and well-balanced beers. De Ranke makes the conscious choice of using only whole hops in the brewing process, so no hop extracts or pellets. These whole hops are the reason behind the distinctive hoppy, often bitter and well-balanced flavours of the De Ranke-beers.“Because we use whole hops brewing is more labor-intensive and it takes longer”, the brewers explain. “But when you take taste, quality and brewing tradition into account, using whole hops is the only logical choice we can make.” The De Ranke-team gets international praise for re-introducing hop flowers to Belgian brewing and we are known for our authentic beers with pronounced flavours. The brewery is still viewed by many in the international brewing world as one of the pioneers for hoppy, bitter beers. But the brewery has a strong reputation for making sour beers as well. We use our own beer and let it age in wood barrels, later we make a blend with Lambic.

Brewery Het Anker is a family-run brewery that has been brewing beer in Mechelen’s Grand Beguinage for six generations. During a visit with a guide you will discover one of the oldest breweries in Belgium. In 2010, the family farm in Blaasveld was turned into a whisky distillery. Since then, Belgian whisky has been distilled there from the malt mash of the Gouden Carolus beers. “Batteliek” opened in early 2022: a micro-brewery, micro-distillery and lemonade factory in a former church. A wonderful place where you can enjoy home-made drinks in the restobar or during a creative workshop!

Welcome to the LinkedIn page of the Lindemans Brewery. Six generations ago, in 1822, the Lindemans family started brewing lambic beers at a farm in Vlezenbeek near Brussels. This happened during the winter, when there was less activity at the farm. Thanks to the growing success of Lambic, Gueuze and Kriek, the brewery became more important and consequently, in 1956, the farm activities stopped altogether. Because of the increasing demand of Lindemans' Lambic beers, the antiquated brewery's production couldn't keep up, so the Lindemans family decided to build a new brewery in 1991 next to the old one, to meet the growing needs of the market without any loss of quality. Yes this expansion was not the end of it; More beer to produce and to sell, meant a need for more people. We had new bottle line installed in 2014, together with new offices for our growing team. In 2018 the warehouse received a significant expansion as well. Who's to say what's next? In any case, we're looking forward to what the future brings, with a mindful eye to where we came from.