Top 10 Breweries in Brussels
Brussels holds an unusual place in world brewing. It is home to one of the oldest and most demanding brewing traditions — spontaneous lambic fermentation, which relies on the airborne microflora of the Senne valley — and it is also a modern craft beer city that has grown quickly since 2010. Old and new sit together more comfortably here than almost anywhere else, partly because the lambic producers' insistence on local character gave the newer independents a template to follow. (For the national picture, see our top 10 breweries in Belgium.)
1. Cantillon Brasserie, Brussels
Cantillon is the world's most famous lambic brewery and arguably the most important working link to pre-industrial brewing practice. Founded in 1900 by Paul Cantillon and still run by his descendants, the Van Roy family (Jean Van Roy is the current brewer), it produces spontaneously fermented lambic using traditional copper equipment and wooden barrels in a nineteenth-century building in the Anderlecht district, adjacent to the Midi/South train station. The coolship (koelschip) — a large, shallow open vessel in the attic — is where warm wort is exposed to ambient air for overnight inoculation with the specific microbial ecology of the Senne valley.
Cantillon's Gueuze (a blend of one, two, and three-year lambic), Rosé de Gambrinus (raspberry), Kriek (cherry), and limited series including Lou Pepe and Mamouche (elderflower) are produced in strictly limited quantities. The brewery doubles as the Brussels Gueuze Museum: visitors buy a ticket for a self-guided tour that ends with a tasting, and it is closed on Wednesdays, Sundays and public holidays, so check before you go. For wild-ale brewers on every continent, Cantillon is the reference point for spontaneous fermentation.
2. Brasserie de la Senne, Brussels
Yvan De Baets and Bernard Leboucq began brewing together in the early 2000s — their Zinnebir dates from 2002 — and opened their own brewery in Molenbeek in 2010, quickly becoming the most important of Brussels's new traditional-minded independents. The beers — Zinnebir (a Brussels pale ale), Taras Boulba (an extra-hoppy pale ale), and Stouterik (a Brussels stout) — are rooted in Belgian tradition but carry a dry, hoppy bitterness that was unusual in the city when they appeared. In 2019 the brewery moved to a much larger site at Tour & Taxis, with a shop and bar on site. Fair prices and consistently high quality have made De la Senne the benchmark for the modern Brussels scene.
3. Brussels Beer Project, Brussels
Brussels Beer Project (BBP) was launched in 2013 by Olivier de Brauwere and Sébastien Morvan, and its "Beer for Life" crowdfunding campaign — an unusual way to start a Belgian brewery at a time when the scene was still conservative — paid for its urban brewery on Rue Antoine Dansaert. Babylone (brewed with unsold bread), Delta (an IPA), and Jungle Joy (a tropical pale ale) have been its best-known beers. BBP keeps a strong identity as an urban Brussels brand built on sustainability and community. The Dansaert taproom in the city centre is one of Brussels's most visited craft beer bars, and in 2022 the company opened a larger "Port Sud" brewery on the canal in Anderlecht.
4. 3 Fonteinen, Beersel (Brussels suburban area)
Though based in Beersel rather than Brussels proper, 3 Fonteinen (Three Fountains) is inseparable from the Brussels lambic scene. The family's café-restaurant in Beersel dates back to 1953, when Gaston Debelder took it over, and his son Armand Debelder (who died in 2022) built the blendery into one of the most revered names in lambic. Its Oude Geuze and the cherry-heavy Oude Kriek Intens Rood are among the most sought-after lambics in the world. In May 2009 a faulty thermostat overheated the storage room and ruined tens of thousands of bottles, nearly bankrupting the company; the damaged geuze was distilled into "Armand's Spirit", and 3 Fonteinen returned to brewing its own lambic in March 2013. It is one of the great comeback stories in modern brewing.
5. En Stoemelings, Brussels
En Stoemelings was founded in 2014 by Samuel Languy and Denys Van Elewyck, who opened a tiny brewery in the Marolles in 2015 before moving to larger premises at the Greenbizz workshops in Laeken. The name is Brussels dialect for "on the sly", and beers such as Curieuse Neus and Jawa became local favourites. The company was declared bankrupt at the end of 2024, but its flagship brands returned in 2025 through a partnership with Bières de quartier — check current availability before you go looking.
6. Brasserie de l'Abbaye des Rocs, Montignies-sur-Roc (day trip)
A day trip rather than a city stop — Montignies-sur-Roc is in Hainaut, near the French border — L'Abbaye des Rocs was founded in 1979 by Jean-Pierre Eloir, who built much of the original kit himself, and is often called Belgium's first microbrewery. Blanche des Honnelles (a strong white beer) and the dark Abbaye des Rocs Grand Cru are its best-known beers. It predates the current craft movement by decades and is still a family business.
7. Brasserie Saint-Feuillien, Le Roeulx
Another Hainaut day trip, south of Brussels in Le Rœulx, Saint-Feuillien has been run by the Friart family since 1873 and takes its name from the Premonstratensian abbey of Saint-Feuillien that once stood nearby. The Tripel, Blonde, and Saison are the core range, and the Saison is particularly good. It is a long-lived family brewery worth the detour.
8. No Science Brewing, Brussels
No Science was launched in 2016 by Maxime Dumay, a Chimay native who started as a homebrewer and tested his early beers on the regulars at Moeder Lambic. It is a small, largely one-man operation based at the Greenbizz workshops in Laeken, part of the wave of breweries returning to Brussels's canal district, with a compact range that includes a well-regarded Heavy Porter.
9. Brasserie Surréaliste, Brussels
Named with a nod to Brussels's place in the Surrealist movement, Brasserie Surréaliste was founded by brothers Edouard and Charles Grison and specialises in hop-forward and sour beers. It brews in the basement of a 1932 Art Deco former banana warehouse near Rue Dansaert and serves them upstairs in a flamboyant room of chandeliers, church furniture and a glass roof — one of the most striking places to drink in the city.
10. L'Ermitage, Brussels
L'Ermitage was founded by Nacim Menu, Henri Ben Saria and François Simon, who started as gypsy brewers in 2016 before opening their own brewery in a former cigarette depot near Gare du Midi in Anderlecht. The focus is on lower-strength, sessionable pale ales and IPAs — Lanterne is the flagship — plus a porter, Noire du Midi, and most of the beer is drunk in Brussels itself.
Explore on the map
The Brussels lambic producers and city breweries sit in a compact area, which makes a dedicated beer day entirely feasible — and the city's café culture fills any gaps between brewery visits. Open the map to plan a route from Cantillon through Brasserie de la Senne to 3 Fonteinen in Beersel.