Het Anker

Located in the town of Mechelen in the Flanders region of Belgium, the Het Anker Brewery was founded in 1872 when Louis Van Breedam purchased the site of what had once been a brewery and hospice run by a community of Beguine nuns. He modernized the facility - it became one of the first steam powered breweries of the time - and his heirs would later greatly expand its influence.

By the 1980s, like many family owned breweries of the time, Het Anker found it difficult to compete with large commercial breweries, and entered into partnership deals which never succeeded as intended.

In the late 1990s, Het Anker, helmed by a fifth generation of the Van Breedam family, became independent again, and both focused and diversified its business. Today, the flourishing brewery includes both a restaurant and a hotel while producing a dozen or more ales exported around the world.