De Dolle Brouwers of Esen, Belgium, is one of the most hallowed and highly respected breweries in the world. The De Dolle Beers-such as their flagship lineup of Arabier, Boskeun, Dulle Teve, Export Stout, Oerbier, Stille Nacht, and Oerbier Special Reserva, are highly sought after, as are their many barrel-aged specialties.

The brewery was founded in 1980 in Esen, near Diksmuide in West Flanders, by the four members of a cycling club. This area has a rich history of brewing, something husband and wife team Kris and Els Herteleer point to as one of the reasons for starting a small brewery from scratch.

“Around the turn of the century, the village had six breweries and two distilleries, which primarily were used only part-time. The history of the brewery goes back to 1835, when doctor Louis Nevejan founded the brewery, later with distillery,” Kris Herteleer says.

The first of the flagship beers was “Oerbier” which means original beer.

De Dolle was one of Belgium’s earliest of the “new” microbreweries that were opened in the 1980’s. The brewery and tasting cafe were run for many years by Els and Kris. In fact, Kris handled the brewing, and Els was in charge of the Oerbar cafe. Now, their three sons, Boniface (age 27) Benjamin (25) and Balthazar (29) help run the cafe and brewery.

In fact, they have largely taken over day to day operations of the brewery, with Boniface doing the brewing under his father’s Kris’s supervision. Kris told me recently: “It should be interesting for Oerbier lovers to know the latest news. My son Boniface wanted to study to be a master brewer, and I let him do that.”

Boniface Herteleer had this to say: “I studied biochemistry at the Odisee School in Ghent. It used to be called The Higher Technical Brewery School of the former KAHO Sint-Lieven.”

He added: “I did my work placement at Beerselect in Ghent. After that, I studied accountancy for a further three years while working at the brewery.”

About taking over as brewer of De Dolle Brouwers, Boniface had this to say: “It’s a huge weight on my shoulders. But at the same time, it’s also a great honor. My dad built the brewery from scratch to where it is today. So it’s an honor to be able to carry on building the family business.”

As far as taking over the day to day operations of the brewery, Boniface had this to say: “My dad is 70 years old. He’ll always be around at the brewery, keeping an eye on things. But its now been two years since I officially started working full-time in the brewery. Before that, though, I’d already been working more or less full-time at the brewery for three years, while I was studying.”

Boniface added: “I chose my course of study when I was 18, and in doing so, I’d effectively chosen the De Dolle brewery too. No one ever said I had to take over the brewery, but it would be a real shame for my dad and for many beer lovers if De Dolle Brouwers were not to carry on.”

That’s great news for beer lovers around the world!

“My bother Benjamin studied communication, and uses his skills to handle the Instagram and other social media of the brewery,” Boniface says.

Boniface remarked: “All three of us, me, Benjamin and Balthazar, practically grew up in the brewery here at De Dolle. From a very young age, we used to putter about in the brewery and help out wherever we could – bottling, making boxes, preparing orders, collecting empty glasses from the bar…so we have known this place all of our lives.”

Boniface says: “Benjamin and I have started to leave our mark on the brewery. We’ve reintroduced a few old traditions, such as bringing honey back as an ingredient in Boskeun. It hadn’t been used in the recipe for quite some time. The response from beer lovers has been very positive.”

He added: “We’ve also brought back Oeral on tap in the Oerbar – the lighter version of our Arabier. That way, we’re keeping up with the times a little, given that driving and drinking are prohibited.”

As to De Dolle’s current production level, Bonfiace had this to say: “We try to make forty brews of 30 hectoliters (hl.) In the good old days it was 50 brew days per year. Now we are happy of we make forty brews, but that is also on the decline.”

Note that 1,200 hl of beer is about 1,022 U.S. barrels. That’s a very small production for one of the world’s most revered breweries. This tells you a lot about the very high quality of the De Dolle brews!

Boniface continued: “Our cellar isn’t particularly large. That’s where we produce our reserve wine barrel-aged brews, which we call Reservas. I reckon it can hold a maximum of thirty 200-liter barrels. Each barrel is left there for at least a year; some (particularly ‘Stille Nacht’) are left for two, or even three years. So we can’t really add many new barrels. Everything is limited in the Reservas.”

Boniface added: “We’re experimenting a bit with the casks in the cellar. We’ve now got White Port casks containing Dulle Teve. I’ve got high hopes for this! We’ve also got Red Port with Oerbier. And two casks of dessert wine: Sauternes.”

He added: “These are small-batch experiments. Which makes them very limited and rather fun. It’s great to try something new and see if it works out. And so far, it’s all going very well indeed!”

Read on for more about these experiments below!

Note also that Kris is an accomplished artist, who created the images for the De Dolle beer labels, and also draws watercolor paintings. He also crafts the “Oerbiermen” seen below.

Over the years, De Dolle has done many experiments with barrel-aged beers, some of which are among the most highly acclaimed in the world.

Kris remarked: “So, in the last couple of years, we had barriques of Priorat wine, a small high quality wine that features excellent results. Now, as a change, Boniface gets red Burgundy wine barrels, and they are filled with Stille Nacht for a couple of years.”

Boniface says: “The Priorat barrels were very good barrels. We used them to age our Oerbier in. We have two versions of them. In the first one, we aged Oerbier for twelve months in. In the other version, these are former Ferrer Bobet barrels, and Oerbier was aged for eighteen months in them.”

He added: “We have two big Hungarian Oak barrels (larger than the normal 220 liter size) that we have been aging Oerbier in. The wine house is Attila Gere in Villany, Hungary. We are expecting great things from these beers.”

Kris continued: “With those beers, you better bet on having patience. And trust on the quality of the wine itself. We have always taken powerful red wine barrels for many of our barrel aging projects. Note that Bourgogne has more finesse. Yes, we also have Alan’s Sauternes as a white wine, which he has told you about. We also have two barrels of Hungarian oak, but we have not yet tasted them properly. Also, we have Oerbier Reserva being aged on Priorat barrels to come in the future, and Dulle Teve Reserva on Port wine, both red and white.”

That sounds absolutely amazing! So, there are multiple De Dolle barrel-aging projects going on at present, to say the least.

Another of the currently maturing experiments was the brainchild Alan David Ross, a De Dolle Brouwers superfan. Alan is a co-founder of the Old Money Tickers group on Facebook, and has been well known on various beer websites, such as Beeradvocate and Ratebeer, since 2004.

Alan currently lives in England, but is a native of Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is a huge lambic fanatic, in addition to being a big fan of other Belgian beers.

Alan had this to say: “So for me, Stille Nacht Reserva was always the white whale of De Dolle Brouwers back when I got more heavily into craft beer around 2006. Stille Nacht Reserva 2000 was already a white whale. My first try of Stille Nacht Reserva was actually the 2010 batch, which was released in 2013.” 

Alan added: “Recently, I noticed the brewery was experimenting with different barrels, and I wondered if they would let me place a couple of more experimental barrels there, that I could acquire through my connections, just for a bit of fun. So, I approached Boni (Boniface) and Kris, who were not opposed to the idea. But they said the barrels had to be special.”

Alan added: “I was able to obtain a couple of Premier Cru Classé Sauternes barrels, freshly emptied and shipped the next day, uncleaned. Boni and Kris thought this would be a worthy experiment, and agreed that one barrel will be used for Stille Nacht Reserva, and one barrel for Dulle Teve Reserva. When empty, both will be used for Oerbier Special Reserva.”

Alan continued: “The key was that barrels are almost always cleaned and then sulfur is used to stop bacteria while they are put in storage for sale. It’s extremely rare to get such prestigious barrels uncleaned and shipped express to be filled immediately. The barrels had held the wine for 5 years.”

The cafe at De Dolle, the Oerbar, is open from 2 pm to 7 pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Tours are offered on Sundays. It is located at Roeselarestraat 12B in Esen (Diksmuide.) The postal code is 8600.

Kris Herteleer had this to say: “My wife Els and I are very happy and proud that our sons have chosen to join us in the business, so that what we have built here at De Dolle Brouwers will continue for many years to come!”

The future of De Dolle Brouwers is bright, with Boniface set to take over as the brewer, and his brothers helping run the brewery and cafe. That’s great news for beer lovers across the world!

For information about tourism in Flanders, see here.