From beer-tasting as a hobby to building an ultramodern brewery!

2000

When we started a closed beer-tasting club at the end of 2000, no one would have dared to dream that 15 years later we would have a super brewery. The beer-tasting club was then still called “The Order of the Drunken Sparrow” with a logo of two sparrows with a beer in their Nest.

During tasting interest grew in everything to do with beer. We also sometimes sampled somewhat less tasty beers, and after a short while a ‘maybe we can do better ourselves’- feeling originated.

Then in 2006 a number of our tasters decided to follow a beer brewing course at a local beer guild, and we soon bought a small installation ourselves.

2006

The end of 2006 saw the production of the first amateur brews. From then on, beers were regularly brewed by trial and error.

A nice third place at the Dutch Open Championship for Hobby Brewers was the sign to continue working with one of the recipes. Obviously the then 50-litre kettle soon became too small, and we looked for a brewery where we could brew this beer and where we particularly could stand at the kettle ourselves. Ultimately the first 500 litres were brewed at Boelens in Belsele.

We launched this beer as ‘Festivaltripel’ at the first edition of our beer festival. The beer was, and still is, a fruity triple beer with a slight bitterness and spicy aftertaste.

Then it was time for the Schuppenboer beer to see the light of day.

Because we all originate from the Turnhout, the link with playing cards was an obvious choice.

2003

It soon became clear that this choice resulted in high recognisability and popularity of our beers, while it also appeared to be an ideal steppingstone for naming our subsequent brews.

The success of the first beer, the Schuppenboer, was so great that we immediately had to go in search of a larger brewery. When we were also at the maximum capacity at 't Hofbrouwerijke in Beerzel, the capacity was tripled with the kettles at the Scheldebrouwerij in Meer.

2014

In the meantime we have obviously not just been marking time – we have also been creating a number of test brews while distributing the Schuppenboer.

The next beer was created to the master brewer’s taste, an extra bitter beer. And Hertenheer was born.

After the Schuppenboer and Hertenheer followed Schuppenaas, then Kleveretien, and Koekendam as the last in the line. Our ambition to put a ‘Big Line’ on the market had been achieved in 2014.

2015

We have brewed several special varieties of a number of these beers. Accordingly, several months of maturing in wooden barrels gives an exceptional taste to the Schuppenboer Whisky Barrel Aged.

We also had the pleasure of introducing Dead Man’s Hand. This is a jet-black beer with roasted malt and a high alcohol level (10 per cent). A real Russian Imperial Stout.

Two Faced Jack originated from successfully mixing our existing beers. After much mixing, and obviously also a lot of tasting, we found an ideal mix between our Schuppenboer Grand Cru and Kleveretien.

2015

The beers from Het Nest are doing well everywhere, with different national and international prizes also being won.

The quality of our beers has also not escaped the attention of foreign importers.Our beers are currently exported to the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Russia, China, Taiwan, Japan and the United States.

To be able to support this growth, in 2015 we built a brand-new, ultramodern brewery on the Beyntel industrial estate on the Turnhout and Oud-Turnhout border.