2018 Featured Brewery – Delirium
The Festival Featured Brewery for the 8th Annual NABBF is Browerij Huyghe founded in 1906 by Leon Huyghe in city of Melle in East Flanders, Belgium. Their “flagship” beer is Delirium Tremens, a golden ale. Joining us this year is their Brewemaster Filip Devolder.
Filip Devolder
Born in Dentergem, his father worked in the Brewery Riva, that was only 500 meter from their house. So he got interested in the making of great beers early on. Starting at age 16 and continuing to his early 20s, he worked a vacation job in the brewery.
He studied in Gent for Brewmaster (brew engineer) from 1986 till 1990. The last year in school he had to work 3 months in a brewery to make his thesis. Following school was military service. He is married with two children a daughter and a son who also seeks to follow his father into brewing school to be a Brewmaster.
He started in the lab at Brewery Riva in June, 1991. The prior year Brewery Riva took over the Liefmans Brewery in Oudenaarde and there were a lot of problems there with the quality of the beer, with the workers, ….. For that reason he had to go immediately to Brewery Liefmans to solve all these problems.
- 1991 – 2004 : Brewmaster, Production Manager and Environmental Coordinator in Brewery Liefmans. I did beerdinners in USA in 1996 and 1998 for the promotion of the Liefmans beers (Sour beers like Goudenband, Liefmans Kriek and Framboos, Old Bruin), Straffe Hendrik, Vondel and Lucifer. In brewery Liefmans, I was responsable for some new beers like the Fruitesse fruitbeers, Jan van Gent, Liefmans Glühkriek.
- 2004-2007 : Quality Manager and Environmental Coordinator for the group Riva-Liefmans-Straffe Hendrik and production manager Brewery Liefmans.
- 2007-2008 : stopping all the brewing processes in Brewery Riva and Liefmans for the curators.
- 2008- present: Brewery Huyghe : Here he is one of the three brewmasters in the brewery. He is Purchasing Manager (the purchasing of all ingredients, packaging and investments), Environmental Coordinator and Quality Coordinator. In Brewery Huyghe, he also leads the efforts to make the brewery to the most sustainable brewery of Belgium. It may already be that but he still seeks to make it better.