Anne-Catherine Dilewyns, Belgium's youngest & newest brewer
Vanberg & DeWulf is importing beers from Belgium’s newest brewery: Brouwerij Dilewyns. New as the brewery is, this family-run brewery has already garnered fame for its delicious, distinctive and proprietary blend of Vicardin Tripel & Girardin Gueuze, and has set up export agreements for France, the United States, Italy and the Netherlands. But perhaps most impressive is,the driving force behind the brewery: the dynamic, utterly winning, indefatigable, straight-talking Anne-Catherine Dilewyns. Barely twenty-four, Anne-Catherine possesses a rare maturity and fierce determination beyond her years. Aside from teaching herself to brew, Anne-Catherine taught herself Italian to communicate with the Italian crew that installed the brewery equipment. Her beer was named “beer of the month” in Holland at a consortium of 41 bars, and in order to make this opportunity as productive as possible, she visited every single cafe to introduce herself – in four days. Don and I are excited to begin importing beer from this spanking new, handsome little brewery in Dendermonde. New breweries in Belgium are few and far between, making her pluck and optimism especially bold and inspiring. Having built a brewery ourselves (Ommegang), Don and I can relate to what she is going through.
During our stay in Belgium, Don and I made numerous trips to Brouwerij Dilewyns. On our fourth visit, Anne-Catherine – dressed in a crisp navy blue button down shirt with the Vicaris name emblazoned over the pocket – greeted Don and me. At the time, the brewery had not yet “officially” opened, and the spirit of enterprise and goodwill literally buzzed through the April air as final preparations for the opening were being made: the first Dilewyns batch, brewed in late March, was conditioning in the lagering tanks, and the warm room was getting “wrapped up”. In the background, we heard someone singing as they painted. Later, Anne-Catherine’s mom brought a hot lunch for the crew.
At lunch, we learned that Anne-Catherine comes by her entrepreneurial brewing skills honestly. In 1875, Anna-Coletta Wauman (Anne-Catherine’s great-great grandmother and mother of eleven children) turned a former benzine oil factory into a brewery. It operated in Dendermonde until WWII, when the brew kettles were confiscated. Anne Catherine has Wauman’s passport, which lists her occupation as “Brew master”.
Of course, it wouldn’t be fair to suggest that only Anne-Catherine deserves praise; the beer recipes are created by her dad, Vincent Dilewyns, and her sister is soon to join the venture. A dentist by profession, Vincent took up home-brewing as a hobby in 1999. Anne-Catherine urged her dad to move from home-brewer to commercial brewer status, and Vicaris Generaal (8.8%) was the first of his beers to be released commercially. Vicaris Tripel (8.5%) followed shortly thereafter. The origin of the celebrated Vicardin Tripel & Girardin Gueuze is a little less straightforward: at the Zythos Craft Beer Festival in Sint Niklaas, Dilewyn’s booth happened to be right next to that of the Girardin Brewery, which makes some of the finest lambic in Belgium. While tasting each other’s wares, they accidentally ended up with a mélange of Vicaris Tripel and Girardin Gueuze, which was so delicious that Vincent decided he had to make it an official beer. After obtaining rights to work with Girardin, a delicious new beer style was born.
After a tour to see the unbelievable progress since our last visit, we sat down in the brewery office over the brewhouse and stockroom.
“Let’s talk business,” Don said.
“Hell, yeah,” replied Anne-Catherine.
The first order of kegs have just arrived. We can’t wait for you to taste the fruits of the family’s labors.
