Brewery Winderickx

In September 1551 Hendrik De Nayer founded a paper water mill, on a small piece of land 'a cleyn hoorincxken or crommelken' that he had obtained from the municipality.
His descendants also built a 'camme' or small brewery next to their house on this same site, which later became the "Estaminet het Cammeken".

On March 28, 1807, Egidius Winderickx, owner of the Esseltmolen (Zevenbronstraat in Dworp), bought the mill from Bartholomeus Vanderkelen, the former first ships of Dworp.
Egidius had this mud mill demolished in 1814 and replaced it with the current water mill, which is now a residential house.
The building was finished in 1816 and was well ahead of its time. Not much is known about the brick 'camme'.

The oldest surviving notes on beer deliveries date from 1838.
This 'camme' was probably installed in the stone drying building opposite the paper mill. This building was demolished in 1975.
In 1845 the barn was built, which later served as a bottle cellar and lambic warehouse.

In 1859 a new brewery and malthouse was started, in a U-shape around the old 'camme'. Presumably the brewery was finished in 1862, because from then on the deliveries of beer were regularly noted.

A few generations later, Gustaaf Winderickx demolished the old 'camme' and added the space between the malthouse and brewery. On the ground floor, the barrels and barrels were cleaned, the carts boxed and loaded; The grain was stored in the attic.

During the First World War, the German occupiers struck two copper brew kettles, the wort pump and other copperware in 1917. On July 21, 1918, 375 tons and 18 pipes were struck. On their retreat in November 1918, they seized some horses, a large four-wheeled cart, a sail, the horse yarn, straw, wheat and horse beans.

Already when the brewhouse was removed, Gustaaf's brother, August, decided to install a new brewery in the malthouse buildings next to the stream and to set up a modern malthouse in the former brewery wing. The company Relecom from Brussels supplied most of the material. The construction manager Van Genechten supplied a new cooking kettle of 50 hectolitres with a diameter of 190 cm and 200 cm high. In the stirring vat, with a capacity of 50 hl, a batter of 1300 kg of grain deposit could be made, which yielded 62.5 hl or 25 tons of lambic per brew.

In 1928 a shed was built over the stream next to the brewing hall where the steam boiler was bricked in in 1930.
From the 1931-1932 brewing season, the boiling kettles were heated with steam instead of a direct coal firebox. In 1945, a new stirring tub was fitted, which allowed a deposit of 2000 kg, which increased production to 10 tons per brew. In 1959 there was also a larger steam boiler.

The annual production of a brewery is expressed in "kilograms of landfill": this is the number of kilograms of deposited grain batter declared to the Excise Departments. For the 1934-35 season, 114 brews were made for a total deposit of 136,000 kg. In 1947 the deposit amounted to 227,400 kg.

In 1933 August erected a new building between the former barn and the stables to brew a special top-fermented beer.
A year later, the 'Special DUC-ALE' was launched in 33 cl bottle cap bottles. The name was an allusion to the nickname of his father-in-law, Jozef Lindemans nicknamed 'Den Duc'.
It was not a success. Between the two world wars, Faro was the product that sold the best. For this, the 'Meerts' top-fermented beer was brewed in the summer months to be cut with lambic.

August decides to convert the floor malthouse in 1936. The daily production amounted to 3000 kg of malt.
Due to the too small capacity and the too high costs for the supply and removal of the raw material, this activity was no longer profitable after the war. Malt production was stopped in 1956.
During the last war, in addition to barley, sugar beets were also processed. The beets were first thoroughly washed, then diced and then dried or coarsely ground on the slurry.

August Winderickx assumed '1765' as the founding year of the brewery, referring to the inscription in an iron sandstone, on which, in addition to the emblem of the brewers, it also read: 'PEETER WINDERICKX - ELISABETH MEERTS ANNO 1765'. Peeter has never been a brewer in Dworp, but he was at the Rozenmolen in Linkebeek. The memorial stone then ended up in Dworp.

From 1950 onwards, the wage brewing and sales of lambic wort began to fall sharply, before that half of the brews were sold to third parties. The malthouse also had no economic return.
On May 12, 1956, a partnership was formed; 'THE SPRBA BREWERY-MALTHOUSE WINDERICKX' with August's seven children as shareholders. The second son Edgard, who had started working as an engineer-manager at a large Dutch brewery group in 1950, took over the management of the brewery in 1958.
He took steps to obtain the protection of the unique and regional beer 'lambic'. This resulted in the Royal Decree of 20 May 1965 "regulating certain names used in the beer sector", namely lambic, gueuze and gueuze-lambic.

The great crisis in traditional lambic breweries started as early as 1950, and hit hard between 1960 and 1970. No fewer than 32 medium-sized lambic breweries closed their gates at that time. Fortunately, some smaller companies were spared. On February 1, 1968, the last brew of the Winderickx brewery was brewed.
The customers of the brewery and the stock of lambic were taken over by the "N.V. Verenigde brouwerijen De Boeck-Goossens" of Koekelberg.
In turn, this company, which had already acquired seven lambic breweries, was taken over by "Belle Vue- Constant Vanden Stock".
In November 1972, the Winderickx beer business was transferred to the company Dekoninck Gebroeders. Thus came an end to all life in the brewery.

The buildings were transformed into a residential area with 31 apartments.

De Lambiek