Today we went to Lindemans Brewery for a quick tour where we learned about Belgium's traditional Lambic beer. Our tour guide Nestor, which roughly translates to the oldest and wisest in the group, began the tour of Linddemans Brewery outside, where we learned of the traditional square farm layout.  In the 19th century there were over 300 farms that brewed Lambic beer; however, there are now only 9 and Lindemans Brewery is the second largest! We next saw the room in which the Lambic beer is brewed .

However because Lambic beer is seasonal, they were not brewing at the moment. In addition to Lambic beer being seasonal, it also has two other key characteristics. First, Lambic beer is a wheat beer. And second, the most important, is that it requires spontaneous fermentation.  The four ingredients in the beer include wheat, malt, water, and hops.  When the beer is cooling, the windows are left open so that the microorganisms, a natural yeast, can enter the beer. An interesting fact is the true Lambic beer can only be brewed in Belgium due to these natural microorganisms.

We were fortunate enough to end the tour with a taste test of Lindemans Beers. We tasted both the old limbic and new limbic beers., each with a unique taste and appearance. They varied from a very sour taste to very sweet and fruity. Old limbic beer has 3 requirements: more than 3 years old, they are kept in wooden barrels, and they receive a second fermentation while in the bottles.

We next had a traditional Belgian meal at Molensteen where we had a white asparagus soup, complimented with freshly baked bread. For the main entre, We also had a seasoned chicken, Belgian fries, and salad served with a French dressing. We got two types of water (sparkling and regular), but only a few people tried the sparkling. It's funny little things like water are even different in Europe!

After Molensteen we took a short bus ride to the Waterhof Dairy where we were met by Koen Van der Muelen who owns and runs the dairy with his wife, Els. The dairy sits on a 500 year old farm that is 85 hectares of land. Although this farm is very old, Koen and Els have only been operating their dairy for about fifteen years.

First we went to a barn to look at calves. The calves are sectioned off into three different groups: 3 months old, 5 months old, and 7 months old. After seven months the calves can go out into the pasture and graze with the older cows. A cow can start getting milked once it starts having calves. An interesting fact is that most of the cows get pregnant through artificial insemination, if a cow fails to be pregnant after three inseminations, a bull at the far end of the barn will try to do the job. This is typically between two and a half and three years of age. Up until 2004, Koen milked the cows himself, but that year he invested in a robot that now does all the milking for him. We were amazed by this machine because it makes the cows look so smart!  When the cow feels that she is full of milk, she walks over to a stall that is right next to the robot where she is fed while she is being milked. Once the cow is in the stall, it closes and the robot starts doing its job. The robot has a laser system so it knows how to find each utter, clean each utter, and do the milking all by itself. Each cow has a number that the robot reads so that it knows which cow certain milk came from if a problem arises with the milk. It can also tell how much food to give each cow based on how much the cow has eaten in the past and how many times the cow has gotten milked that day. In a year, one cow can produce 10,000 liters of milk and Koen has 60 cows, so his dairy produces 600,000 liters of milk each year, that's a lot of milk! With this milk, Koen can make pudding, butter, yogurt, cheese, and (most important to us) ice cream. After seeing a few cows get milked we got to try ice cream from the Waterhof Dairy shop. All the flavors were to die for and there were so many! Typically, Koen makes 60 kinds of ice cream and 50 kinds of sorbet (take THAT, 31 flavors!).  Different types of cheeses, butters, fruits, and desserts are also sold in the shop.

Today was a very enlightening, interactive, and interesting day! We were able to see and learn so much! On behalf of everyone here, we would like to extend a huge thank you to Nestor, Koen, and Els because they made this wonderful day possible!