De Halve Maan

De Halve Maan Brewery - notice on the facade at Walplein 26

De Halve Maan ( Half Moon ) is a Belgian brewery in the West Flanders city of Bruges , which has been run as a family business in the sixth generation since 1856. The brewery is a member of the Belgian Family Brewers .

history

A brewery with the name Die Maene on Walplein is mentioned in the city register as early as 1564 . What happened in the following centuries has not been recorded. Henri (Leon) Maes acquired the property in 1856 and, with the support of his uncle Canon Petrus-Johannes Maes, built the Maene into a modern brewery and gave it the name De Halve Maan . The brewed at that time beer was cloudy, fermented and a limited shelf life. It was filled in wooden bins and delivered to the restaurants that way. After the brewer's death in 1867, the sons Henri II and Achère took over the facility. In order to produce better and more durable beer, Henri II learned the latest techniques and the use of other materials in English breweries. On his return he had a malt house built on the property and brewed English beers such as stout and pale ale . In the 1880s, the brothers acquired a modern steam boiler and were able to steadily increase beer output in line with increasing demand. The brothers died at the beginning of the 20th century and so the widows took over the brewery management.

When one of the sons, Henri III, was old enough, he became managing director of the brewery in 1919. Another modernization was considered, and because Germany was now a leader in the brewing sector, he studied the German art of brewing. The new soil fermentation was particularly noticeable; Henry III returned to Bruges with the new knowledge around 1927. By building a new cooling system, he created the prerequisites for producing bock beer here as well . This enabled him to significantly increase sales. In addition to beer, De halve Maan quickly produced new hot drinks such as cola, lemonade and water. From now on he delivered his products with his own horse-drawn cart. In 1946 there was the possibility of an area expansion, Henry III bought part of the seaport . Extensive renovation work could now be carried out in the existing buildings, which secured its market position. In the meantime his son, called Henri IV., Had also become a beer brewer and actively helped in the company. Private individuals with newly built homes had now established themselves as buyers. The brewery continued to deliver itself, but now bought trucks as well as horse and carts . - The food discounters that spread in the 1970s , however, created strong competition. The De halve Mann brewery did not have enough capacity to supply these chains. The company management, reinforced by Henri's daughter Véronique, now concentrated more on their hometown again, had the statue of Saint Arnold , who is the patron saint of brewers, erected on a public square in Bruges and brewed a specially fermented, top-fermented beer for the inauguration. The beer was named Straffe Hendrik after the different generations of Henri Maes and became a great success.

In the mid-1980s, the previous private factory was converted into a publicly accessible home brewery. The former bottling plants and the malt house were converted into taprooms. Véronique Maes had the historic brewery facilities restored and now run it as a museum. She sold the brand name Straffe Hendrik in 1988 to Brouwerij Riva in Dentergem . Production in Bruges was greatly reduced, finally ended in 2002 and continued in Dentergem.

But Véronique Maes' son, Xavier Vanneste, put the brewery in Bruges back into operation in 2005 after a thorough renovation and modernization. The new Brugse Zot beer was launched and caused a sensation. After winning several prestigious quality awards at the highest level for beer, Xavier Vanneste has already expanded capacities in Bruges. As a new attraction, in 2005 he succeeded in setting up the brewery museum of the former De Gouden Boom brewery , whose building had been sold to a project developer, in the basement of De Halve Maan. It got dramatic when the brewery in Dentergem went bankrupt in 2007 , the beer brand Brugse Straffe Hendrik initially went to Duvel-Moortgat . Vanneste was able to buy back the brand from Duvel-Moortgat in 2008. The brewery De Halve Maan produced the Straffe Hendrik and Brugse Zot varieties again, and from autumn 2008 - Brugse Bok .

View of the brewing room, 2014

In 2010, De halve Maan bought space in the Waggelwater industrial park and set up a modern bottling plant and its own logistics center there. For these expansions the German brewery Wolf from Fuchsstadt was taken over , from there a bottle filling plant and a barrel line came to Bruges. In line with the changed customer taste, Vanneste launched Straffe Hendrik Quadrupel in autumn 2010 , a variation of the triple Straffe Hendrik with an alcohol content of 11 percent.

The next expansion step took place in 2019, when De Halve Maan took over the production and marketing of the wheat beer Brugs Tarwebier from Alken-Maes. Vanneste then had the recipe adapted more in the direction of the original brewed by the De gouden Boom brewery, as this had been changed again and again through constant changes in ownership.

Beer line

View of the beer pipeline

To improve the ecological balance, De halve Maan put a double beer pipeline into operation in September 2016 , which connects the brewery on Walplein with the bottling plant in Waggelwater. The pipeline, 3.2 km long and in some places 34 m deep underground, transports Brugse Zot and Straffe Hendrik . The line permanently replaces the beer tankers that transported around five million liters through the city. At one point in the passage to the inn a viewing window has been created (see picture).