Barrel cleaner Moriau

In 2010, the municipality of Beersel presented itself as a 'Lambic municipality'. To make this clear to everyone, a barrel washer was placed on the roundabout of the Kesterbeeklaan. A 'washing machine' for lambic barrels that used to be used by the Moriau brewery in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw.

The story of the blendery starts around 1880. Johannes Moriau was a brickmaker but also worked as an employee at the Merlo brewery in Forest as a beer cutter. The latter profession fascinated him immensely and he decided to set up his own blendery. With the last bricks of the brickyard he built a warehouse.

In 1920 his son Leopold took over the blendery, which in turn was continued from 16 March 1956 by sons Jan and Pierre. After their daily tasks such as visiting customers, accounting, preparing, tasting, bottling, delivering,... they relieved their wives behind the bar. At the peak of the blendery, they were assisted by about 15 seasonal workers.

On March 1, 1983, the blendery was effectively closed. One of Jan's sons, Jos Moriau, continued the beer trade on his own until 1993, although there are sources who report that after that there was still sporadic stabbing.
Moriau's gueuze still exists: first the recipe of the Moriau gueuze was brewed by the De Neve brewery, now by the Boon brewery, which selects special Lambics for Moriau and is also responsible for bottling.

De Lambiek