Brussels in one more brewery richer, as of this weekend. On Saturday October 6, to be precise, Nanobrasserie de L'Ermitage open their doors to the public for the first time. The brewery, located less that 200 metres from Cantillon in a knot of streets in Cureghem bounded by Gare du Midi and the Brussels inner ring road. L'Ermitage was founded by three college friends from Brussels - François Simon, Nacim Menu et Henri Ben Saria - and started their professional careers gypsy brewing at Brasserie de Bastogne in 2016.

As with other new breweries in the city, they always had in their minds a plan to open their own brewery in Brussels, and they eventually settled on an old cigarette depot in Anderlecht, spread over two rooms at the back of an inner courtyard of an apartment block on Rue Lambert Crickx. The new space includes a tap room alongside the brewery, festooned with wooden pallets, filament lightbulbs, and street art commissioned for the space.

Having started out focusing their core range on low-ABV, sessionable pale ales and IPAs (La Lanterne being their first and flagship beer), their core line-up now includes a porter (Noire du Midi), and for the opening weekend, they are launching a rye stout brewed in collaboration with London brewery Anspach and Hobday. Cantillon at last has company in Anderlecht.

*Disclosure - we share the same graphic designer (Krump)*