Video: Ulrich Deboeck, co-owner/brewer, La Grande d’Ame, Herent, Belgium talks about how he and three friends started brewing in a garden and ended up going commercial.
Ulrich Deboeck, co-owner/brewer, La Grande d’Ame, Herent, Belgium started brewing about 10 years ago with three friends in a building in a garden. Herent lies about 30 km from Brussels.
They were passionate and started with a hobby brewing installation. Deboeck, a former ABInBev employee. The partners put together a warm and a cold room and learned while brewing. They got a bit bigger and started visiting beer festivals to find out what people thought about their brews.
“I can say that reactions are positive and that gives us a little bit courage to do some more interesting stuff,” said Deboeck in an interview with the Beer Idiots.
La Grande d’Ame currently has two beers. Lili is a double wheat beer and Lola is a chocolate stout. Both beers come in at 7.5% alcohol.
Their goal is to have a small brewery with a pub, but more work is needed to get to that stage Deboeck said.
On the site they state: “With the little French wordplay in our name we refer to the soul in bottle, but also the soul or spirit of our brewery. We like brewing and creating tasty beers, we do so with full enthusiasm, put our soul into our beers and want to express that pleasure.”
Photo above: Ulrich Deboeck, co-owner/brewer, La Grande d’Ame, Herent, Belgium. Below: the labels or Lola and Lili beers.
