On May 27, 1990, four boys – decked out in full armour and carrying swords and shields – were paraded around their hometown astride a giant model horse six metres high, two metres wide, and five metres long.
The horse’s head was a wooden sculpture dating back to the 1600s, decorated with ostrich feathers and festooned in the red and white colours of the city. Its black tail was fashioned from the hair of 30 living horses.
It was the centrepiece of the Dendermonde Ommegang, a procession that takes place once every 10 years. The spectacle celebrates the legend of the Ros Beiaard: a magical horse, known for its strength and intelligence, and said to have carried the Four Sons of Aymon as they fled from emperor Charlemagne.
The four boys atop the horse were the Veldeman brothers: Gert, Stijn, Stefaan and Toon. They were selected against strict criteria: They had to be four consecutive brothers, without a girl in between; all born and living in Dendermonde; whose parents and grandparents were born in Dendermonde; and aged between seven and 21 years old on the day of the procession. The Veldemans were treated like heroes by the spectators, who cheered and celebrated with beers in hand.
Claire Dilewyns was born in Dendermonde three days later. She, too, has three siblings: Anne-Cathérine, Julie and Hélène. But together, they are four sisters – and the rules dictate that only brothers can ride the horse. Claire Dilewyns would never be allowed to serve Dendermonde at the Ommegang.
2000
Two days short of her 10th birthday, Claire watched her very first Ommegang. Roy, Nick, Ken, and Dean Coppieters were the brothers selected to ride the Ros Beiaard in 2000. Claire watched them soak in the adulation.
At the time, she was helping her dental technician father with his newfound hobby of homebrewing. Vincent Dilewyns had brewed his first beer in December 1999 in his garage. Together with her sisters, Claire assisted in bottling beers and cleaning equipment. Bit by bit, she learned about the technical processes of mashing, fermentation, and packaging.
Vincent Dilewyns’ first beer was named Vicaris Tripel, a reference to his name (“Vi” for Vincent) and to his profession (cariës refers to tooth decay). The name also hints at the inspiration Vincent took from the Trappists (vicaris means “vicar” in Flemish).
The first batch was a small one for Anne-Cathérine’s communion party. Then another for a local historical society exhibition. Vincent arranged for a larger batch to be brewed under licence at contract facility De Proefbrouwerij, 25 km away in Lochristi.
Vicaris
Then in 2006, the Dilewyns were invited to the Zythos Bierfestival in Sint Niklaas, where Vicaris Tripel won the Zythos Consumer Trophy for the beer most appreciated by festival attendees.
Before long, the Dilewyns had beer distributors, retailers, and enthusiasts showing up at their front door, all seeking out Vicaris Tripel. “We received thousands of people in buses from all over the country,” says Claire. “It was the start of something new and big for us as a family.”
After the Vicaris Tripel came Vicaris Generaal, a Belgian dark strong ale of 8.5% ABV named for Dilewyns’s wife, Genevieve Leysen – the ‘general’ of the family. The third beer was Vicaris Tripel/Gueuze, an innovative blend of the Tripel with Lambic from a Pajottenland producer.
Like the Ros Beiaard Ommegang, their fourth beer was seasonal. Vicaris Winter is a spiced winter ale brewed once every year, in July, so it has time to ferment and condition appropriately for release in October.
It’s a boozy beer of 10% ABV with a roasted, caramel-like malt character, red-fruit esters, and hints of liquorice and star anise. By the time the Dilewyns released Vicaris Winter, their side project had exploded.
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2010
As the next group of Dendermonde brothers – Maarten, Niels, Dieter, and Michiel Van Damme – prepared to mount the Ros Beiaard horse in 2010, the Dilewyns were mounting up for an adventure of their own.
Two of Vincent Dilewyns’s daughters decided to start a commercial brewery with their father: Anne-Cathérine would work in production; Claire in marketing, accounting, and sales.
The youngest sister, Hélène, studied biochemistry, and would potentially join the brewery in the future. Julie would go on to work in customer care engineering, but as a trained chef she would also help with catering at brewery events.
In March 2010, the Dilewyns installed their new brewing system in the Hoogveld industrial estate in Dendermonde, where flax was historically processed.
At one of the first hospitality trade expositions that the family attended, they arrived late to the event and struggled to erect their stand. A young man named Kristof Bastiaens offered to help. He worked for the Barry Callebaut Group of chocolate producers that were also exhibiting at the exposition. Vincent invited Bastiaens to the Dilewyns’ stall for a beer, where he met Claire. Today, the couple are married with two children.
In 2017, Anne-Cathérine Dilewyns decided she wanted to pursue other projects and left the brewery. Vincent Dilewyns planned to retire. And so, Claire Dilewyns became the head of Dendermonde’s only brewery.
2020
The Dendermonde Ros Beiaard Ommegang of 2020 could not take place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so the four selected brothers – Marteen, Wout, Stan, and Lander Cassiman – did not get to ride the horse until May 2022.
For this edition, Brouwerij Dilewyns brewed the official beer of the Ommegang, named simply Ros Beiaard. Attendees cheered while holding Vicaris beers in their hands.
In 2022, Kristof Bastiaens quit his job as sales director at the Barry Callebaut Group to work full-time alongside his wife as co-owner of Brouwerij Dilewyns.
Just as Vincent strove to innovate, so too do Claire Dilewyns and Kristof Bastiaens. Vicaris Lino is a blonde ale of 6.5% ABV infused with flax fibres, which the brewery describes as “the first beer in the world brewed with flax.” Vicaris Nano° is an alcohol-free lager. All Brouwerij Dilewyns’ beers are produced today in Vincent’s preferred – without filtration, centrifugation, or pasteurisation.
The next Ros Beiaard Ommegang in Dendermonde is scheduled for 2030, but if the rules remain unchanged, the couple’s children, Juliette and Leonie, will never be selected to ride the horse, just as Claire Dilewyns never made it. Nonetheless, she’s left her mark on the town.
The brewery she owns and runs produces beers which have become an integral part not only of the decennial Ommegang celebrations, but of the life of the city in the years in between.
Since Brouwerij Dilewyns began, the symbol on the brewery logo – which still appears on every bottle and glass – depicts a horse, carrying four people on its back. The outline of their clothes and the way their hair flows wildly in the wind suggest that the four sisters did get to ride the horse after all.
