De Cam

Geuzestekerij De Cam is a small blender of lambic located in Gooik, a small Belgian town south-west of Brussels. De Cam was founded in 1997 by Willem van Herrenwedhen. In 2002 Karel Goddeau took over running De Cam, which he continues to do as a weekend job.

Lambic at De Cam

Lambic Sources

De Cam ages and blends lambic sourced from Lindeman's, Girardin, and Boon, as well as brewing their own lambic using the installation at 3 Fonteinen. Each of these lambics is delivered the day after being brewed and cooled at the brewery of origin, and therefore arrives inoculated from spending the night in the originating brewery's coolship. Karel looks at samples of the lambic under a microscope as they arrive to look for relative microbial diversity and cell density.

Lambic Aging and Blending

De Cam ages their lambic in 40 x 1000 L oak barrels recoopered from barrels sourced from Pilsner Urquell. These barrels, the oldest of which date back to Napoleonic times, were initially lined in pitch which had to be scraped off before the barrels could be used for aging lambic. De Cam produces Oude Lambiek (a 3 year old unblended lambic), Oude Geuze, Kriekenlambiek (unblended cherry lambic), Framboise Lambiek (unblended raspberry lambic), Oude Kriek (blended and carbonated cherry lambic), Lambiek Special (lambic produced once a year with varying seasonal fruits), and occasionally a faro. Kriek (1500 L lambic plus 1000 kg whole cherries) and framboise (30 kg raspberries for 100 L of framboise) ferment in stainless steel vessels.

Barrel Cleaning

De Cam cleans their barrels by multiple hours of spraying with hot water followed by burning a sulfur stick inside the barrel. The barrels then sit empty and sealed until their next filling.

References

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