De Ranke Brewery

De Ranke grew from a home-brewing experiment into one of Belgium’s clearest modern statements about hop character. Founded by Nino Bacelle and Guido Devos, the brewery emerged in the 1990s as Belgian mass-market beer was becoming sweeter and more neutral. Its answer was uncompromisingly traditional: natural ingredients, whole Belgian hop flowers, bottle refermentation, and beers built around lively bitterness rather than disguising it. From hobby to brewery Nino Bacelle began experimenting with beer in 1981 while connected to his family’s drinks business in Wevelgem. In 1994 he commercialised his own beer, Guldenberg, brewing at Deca Brewery in Woesten. After meeting fellow amateur brewer Guido Devos through the H.O.P. beer-tasting association, the two joined forces in 1997 and transformed Brewery Nino Bacelle into Brewery De Ranke. The name refers to the hop plant, whose cones provide beer’s principal flavouring ingredient. A deliberate return to raw materials De Ranke’s founding philosophy was shaped by concern over disappearing small breweries and the growing use of hop extracts and industrially neutral flavour profiles. The brewery committed itself to natural raw materials and traditional methods, while allowing newer techniques only when they improved quality. Its beers remain unfiltered and unpasteurised, and the brewery uses whole hop flowers grown in the Poperinge region rather than pellets or extracts. A permanent home in Dottignies For its first eleven years De Ranke brewed at Deca. In 2005, Bacelle and Devos established their own brewery in Dottignies, in Hainaut near the linguistic border. The move gave the partnership a permanent home and helped anchor its identity in a Belgian region where farmhouse ales and hop-growing traditions remain part of the local brewing landscape. De Ranke’s defining character is a deliberate union of traditional brewing methods and assertive bitterness from whole Belgian hop flowers. Wevelgem and, initially, Deca Brewery in Woesten, West Flanders, Belgium; the brewery’s own facility was established in Dottignies, Hainaut, in 2005. 1997 1981: Nino Bacelle began experimenting with brewing beer. 1994: Bacelle commercialised Guldenberg as Brewery Nino Bacelle, brewing at Deca in Woesten. 1997: Nino Bacelle and Guido Devos joined forces and established Brewery De Ranke. 2005: De Ranke established its own brewery in Dottignies.