From cycling club to brewery.
The name came from the neighbours. When a few friends with no experience bought an empty brewery, people simply called them “de dolle brouwers”: the mad brewers. That stubbornness is still in every beer.
- 1835
Doctor Louis Nevejan founds a brewery with a distillery in Esen. The village has six of them at the time.
- 1882
The Costenoble family takes over and brews there for three generations. In the early '80s the brewery falls silent.
- '70
A little cycling club, “De Dolle Dravers”: the brothers Jo and Kris Herteleer, Dirk Coussée and Bernard Veranneman. They know every hill, and every café.
- 1980
After test brews in the washtub they take over the empty brewery. On 11 November they brew the first Oerbier.
- 1998
Kris lays the first Oerbier to rest in old sherry casks. The Reserva is born.
- Now
About 1,200 hectolitres a year. Small enough to keep an eye on everything ourselves.
From the photo album.
Everything drawn by hand.
Labels, posters, characters: Kris Herteleer has drawn them himself from the very start. That's why you can spot a De Dolle Brouwers beer from afar.
