Cafe De Koekoek

Gone by and young lambic.
The number of cars in the parking lot promises a lot of activity in café De Koekoek. Nevertheless, we enter an empty café. The light flickers on. While we warm ourselves close to the stove, Jean-Marie, a retired postman, descends into the cellar for two glasses of young lambic from Girardin.

The future of Café De Koekoek, open in 1880 and now in its fourth generation, is uncertain. The 90-year-old Elisa-Maria De Wandeler, or Maria for short, has been in charge here for 62 years. Every now and then the friendly lady strides in and out of the café. Her deepest wish is that the café will outlive her. Let us certainly hope that her two sons, Jean-Marie and Gerard Van den Eynde, will be able to keep De Koekoek alive for a long time to come.

Hikers are pouring in by bunches. De Koekoek is a popular stop on the Kruisborre walk. This beautiful walk leads you through the center of Asse and waves through a piece of Brabantse Kouters, the northwestern part of the Green Belt. While urbanisation is advancing from Brussels, the Brabant Coulters invite you to disappear for hours in its nature and its history. You can end here with a delicious lambic, gueuze or kriek: a regular one, a sweet one if desired, or perhaps rather a fifty-fifty. The sandwiches with farmer's ham or cottage cheese quickly find their way to the hungry walkers who quietly chat or palaver about the things of everyday life. Here in this popular pub people can still talk freely with each other; There is no music playing here.

A second glass of Girardin lambic is brought to us. The young beer is straw blond and hazily cloudy. The aroma is fruity and slightly sweet and clearly has some 'cauliflowers' (DMS) in it. The taste is slightly sweetish, somewhat sour and then mildly bitter. Brewery Girardin is praised in lambic circles for its excellent young lambic or 'joenk'. Café De Koekoek is the ideal place to subject this statement to your own taste buds.

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