Tap Handle #370: Haacht - Primus Belgian Lager
Rarity: Very rare
Mounting: internal 3/8" nut
I'm a sucker for taps featuring swords and daggers. I also make a point to grab rare foreign taps, some of the hardest taps to get. This tap fits both of those characteristics. It's a real beauty, from the subtle, textured symbols on the blade to the awesome horse and knight at the base of the hilt (the top of the tap). This tap only surfaced recently at a pretty reasonable price, but I expect the supply to dry up fairly soon.
Click through to learn more about the Haacht Brewery, their Primus lager, and to see more photos of this striking tap...
Haacht Brewery was founded in Boortmeerbeek, Belgium in 1898 by Eugène De Ro. De Ro was a fermentation engineer running a dairy before he turned his attention to brewing top-fermented beer. In 1902 he brewed a bottom-fermented beer that was so popular that the "Brouwerij en Melkerij van Haecht" was at the top of the Belgian brewing world by 1913. In 1929 the dairy was closed to allow the brewery to expand production into other types of beer: Bock, Export, Pilsner and Stout Ale. In 1937 the brewery sold a record 50 million litres of beer. The brewery opened a bottling plant dates in 1950, De Ro's last major action before his son-in-law Alfred van der Kelen took over management of the brewery in 1951. Haacht Brewery continued to expand by buying out several smaller breweries, increasing distribution throughout Belgium.
Alfred van der Kelen died unexpectedly in 1968 and was succeeded by his son Frédéric. Between the 1970s and the 1990s Frédéric dramatically expanded the company's property portfolio. In 1972, they acquired the French brewery Brasserie du Coq Hardi, that had been founded in 1894. In 1995, Haacht also bought a wine castle in the Saint-Emilion region of France where it produced 2 wines. In 2000 they acquired Bierbrouwerij De Leeuw in the Netherlands, that had been founded in 1886. Since the early 1990's, the brewery invested heavily in new production technology. After the upgrading of the fermentation, lagering and filtration units in 1990 and the brew house in 1994, they implemented a new bottling hall. In 2006, new warm chambers were built, exclusively for the refermentation of the Tongerlo abbey bottled beer. Frédéric van der Kelen is still at the helm, and has made Haacht Brewery into the third largest pilsner brewer in the Belgian market. They currently brew 20 varieties of beer.
Source Material
Haacht website
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