Philippe Minne of Brasserie Minne is wild about innovation at his designer-made new brewery in Baillonville, Belgium.
Philippe Minne has come a long way he founded Brasserie de Bastogne in 2008. Now he and Catherine Minne, his wife, run under the slogan ‘From wild Belgium’, have a boar as a symbol and changed the name to Brasserie Minne. All this to go with a spanking new architectural wonder of a brewery in Baillonville, south-east of Brussels. It is the fruit of a collaboration between the Minnes and Philippe Meurisse, a bio farmer.
The new site received its first mash tubs in December 2018 to increase production from and has started its first test brews, with more running off the line as capacity increases from 10 hectolitres to 25 hectolitres.
Minne says he is driven to keep on learning, improve the process and explore the diversity of fermentation styles. Brasserie Minne is known for its lactic, wild and mixed fermented beers as well as their classic beers. For example in April the brewer announced the release of new barrels of Wood Stout and Ardenne Wild 2018 along with Super Triple Rhum, a limited edition of its classic Ardenne Triple using rhum agricole barrels.
At the Leuven Innovation Beer Festival 2019, where the Beer Idiots interviewed him, Minne brought:
- Super Sanglier, Session IPA, 4.5%: uses cascade & mosaïc hops for a light, fruity taste.
- Rouge Ardenne, Fruity sour, 7%: A lactic fermented beer blended with a barrel aged beer.
- Wood Stout 2018 edition, barrel-aged stout, 8%: the brewer’s classic spelt stout in Belgian whisky barrels.
- Mad Min, sour, 9.5%: Red ale aged in Madeira Barrels.
- Hazy Lazy, Neipa, 6%: Neipa variation with Ardenne wheat and fruit.
Links: Brasserie Minne
See the other fantastic Beer Idiots interviews at Leuven Innovation Beer Festival 2019
- André Janssens of Brouwerij Hof ten Dormaal, Belgium
- Pekka Kääriäinen of Bryggeri Helsinki and Lammin Saht, Finland
- Philippe Minne of Brasserie Minne, Belgium.
- Patrik Hellström of Bryggverket brewery, Sweden.
- Casper Vorting and Gitte Holmboe own Bøgedal Brew in Vejle, Denmark.
- Julien Bretheau of À Tue-Tête, Switzerland.
- Iacopo Lenci, brewmaster and owner of Birrificio Brùton, Italy
- Pim Zomerdijk of Brouwerij De Moersleutel, the Netherlands.
- Paul Herbert of UK-based Kent Brewery.
- David Cohen of Dancing Camel Brewery, Israel.
- Robin Barden of Edge Brewing, Barcelona, Spain.
- Breandán Kearney of Siphon Brewing, Damme, Belgium.
- Stephen McGirr of Wicked Weed Brewing, Asheville, North Carolina, USA.
- Vasyl Mikulin of Varvar Brew, Kyiv, Ukraine has been mixing his experimental beers.
- Botond Prischetzky, brand manager at Monyo Brewing, Budapest, Hungary
- Pia Morgenroth, founder of G’Bräu, Berlin, Germany.
