Brussels brewery En Stoemelings sells off equipment to avoid bankruptcy
Almost 10 years after establishing itself in the Marolles, En Stoemelings brewery has sold its production facilities to the owners of four popular pubs in Brussels in an effort to avoid bankruptcy. “Despite several attempts to revive the company thro
Almost 10 years after establishing itself in the Marolles, En Stoemelings brewery has sold its production facilities to the owners of four popular pubs in Brussels in an effort to avoid bankruptcy.
“Despite several attempts to revive the company through the various crises of recent years, selling the facilities proved to be the only solution to avoid bankruptcy, preserve the brand and continue our development in Brussels,” co-founders of En Stoemelings Samuel Languy and Denys Van Elewyck said.
The two entrepreneurs opened their first brewery in Marolles in summer 2015 before moving production to Laeken. The beers Curieuse Neus, Jawa and 1897, developed with Cantillon for Union Saint-Gilloise, were sold in the capital until successive crises eventually took their toll.
In order to raise the funds needed to pay their creditors, Languy and Van Elewyck sold the production equipment to entrepreneurs Camille Roy and Maxime Léonard. The pair operate four pubs in Brussels: three Amère à boire cafés (Flagey, Uccle and Saint-Gilles) and L'Impasse (Ch telain).
“We used to have beers made for our cafés by different breweries, such as La Source and Jandrain-Jandrenouille,” Roy said. “From now on, we will brew our beers ourselves.”
En Stoemelings' brewer, Grégoire Piel, will stay on to lead production at Amère en Fût, whose name refers to the packaging that will be used exclusively for Amère à boire and L'Impasse beers.
“There will be no cans or bottles – there will only be stainless steel kegs and a very short supply chain, as the distance between Laeken and our various bars is no more than 10km,” Roy said.
The market for microbreweries in Brussels is highly competitive, even without accounting for the major breweries they must also compete with.
“Everyone makes good beer, so the margins are small,” said Arthur Ries of brewery Beerstorming.
“A lot of breweries are in trouble for many different reasons. Prices have generally gone up, logistics are complicated for small businesses, and the weather is also having an impact.”
Brewery L'Annexe is one of many to feel the squeeze – these days they make more lemonade than beer.
“I think there’s saturation in Brussels,” said L’Annexe’s Max Lagrillière.
“We were the seventh brewery in Brussels and I think there are about 20 now. That growth cannot continue, the market isn’t big enough for that.”
En Stoemelings’ three Brussels flagship beers will still be brewed and bottled by a subcontractor and its owners will also continue with their project Expérimentation Sauvage, a series of complex beers aged in barrels. Those 75cl bottles are mainly for export.
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