When we look back at 2019 from a production perspective, it was a year of significant investments and major changes. We had a 500m2 hall built to house a new barrel line as well as eight new tanks of 50 hectolitres each. Further investments were made with the automation of the bottling plant, the addition of a new automatic depalletiser, packaging machines with an impressive carton erector and sealer – plus, the installation of a large palletiser. It goes without saying that the building work made it harder (than usual) for our team members to carry out their jobs on a day-to-day basis. Despite all the disruption, we managed to meet demand and the required production volumes, for which we are extremely grateful to our staff. Our efforts in the field of quality were rewarded as well. We won two medals at the 2019 Brussels Beer Challenge: a gold medal for Silly Saison and a silver medal for Scotch Pinot Noir Barrel Aged. We have also expanded our team and would like to welcome newcomers Laure Burgevin to the brewing hall, Xavier Guéret and Jason Jacquet in production and bottling as well as Miguel Brisaert, who is teaching the good beer serving to pub owners. Stefanie Borremans is our new sales representative for Flanders, the Netherlands and Germany and Jean-Baptiste Conty takes responsibility for France. We look forward to the future with confidence. 2020 is bound to be a great year with plenty of exciting challenges. We are happy to take up the gauntlet together with you. Quality, flexibility, variety, customer services, in other words, the taste of the brewer; that’s our goal!
Lionel and Bertrand Van der Haegen, Managing Directors