Autoportraits

At the Cantillon Brewery in Brussels, where they brew Lambic, a spontaneously fermented beer of barley malt and wheat that is aged for up to three years in wood barrels, then used as the base for Gueuze and fruit beers like Kriek (cherry), Framboise (Raspberry), and Faro. The wild bacteria and yeasts are native to the Senne valley that Brussels lies in. Lambic is only brewed in the Pajottenland region of Belgium (southwest of Brussels), and at the Cantillon Brewery. They have been using the same processes since they opened in 1900. This unusual process gives the beer a distinctive flavor: dry, vinous, and cidery, with a slightly sour aftertaste. Lambic beer originates with the working classes of the region some 500 years ago who appreciated a weak, quenching drink that could be produced cheaply and easily on the farm. The lambic is a flat beer, since all the carbon dioxide escapes from the barrels. It is later combined with younger lambics and bottled to undergo further fermentation to produce the carbonated Gueuze. Fruit is added and aged for 2 months to make fruit beers.

This is at the cemetary Pere Lachaise, where now over 300,000 people are buried or cremated. I went there to look at the memorials of those who were deported to Nazi concentration camps or died fighting for France. The cemetary is named after a Jesuit priest who lived on the land that the cemetary now occupies. It became a cemetary during Napoleon's rule, and slowly grew in size and popularity as many celebrities were buried there.