6 generations of lambic brewers
‘Hof ter Kwade Wegen‘ may be an ominous name – it literally means ‘the farm of the bad roads‘…
Yet it is at this old Vlezenbeek farm that a beautiful brewing history has been written since 1822.Yet it is at this old Vlezenbeek farm that a beautiful brewing history has been written since 1822.
Indeed, that was the year that Joos Frans Lindemans promised fidelity to Françoise Josine Vandersmissen, the sought-after daughter of Maria Anna Van Dorselaer and Petrus Jacobus Vandersmissen, the owners of the farm.
Joos Frans loved life on the farm, but he wanted to show he could do something else as well. In the evening, with his hands still aching from having ploughed the land, he would work at brewing lambic. During the winter months, the seventy-five hectares of his farmland and meadows had little work to offer the many working men and women. So they joined him in the brewery. That is how what was originally a hobby quickly became the farm’s main activity.
Since 1822, six generations of pioneers have succeeded each other at ‘Hof ter Kwade Wegen’, first as farmer-brewers, then – starting in the second half of the 1950s – as just brewers. Under the influence of these six generations of Lindemans, the brewery has become one of the leading producers of lambic in the region and in the world.
