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== History ==
Like many lambic breweries and blenders, the history of 3 Fonteinen starts well before the official founding of the brewery as we knowo know it today. The founding of 3 Fonteinen dates back to at least 1883 (though possibly as early as 1849) when Jacobus Vanderlinden and his wife Joanna Brillens opened an inn with a beer blending business on the side in the town of Beersel, now Hoogstraat 13, Beersel (currently “De Drie Bronnen”, renamed after Gaston and Raymonde moved out).<ref name=GeuzeKriek>Jef Van den Steen, [[Books#Geuze & Kriek: The Secret of Lambic Beer|Geuze & Kriek: The Secret of Lambic Beer]], 2012</ref> In Dutch, the name 3 Fonteinen means ''three fountains'' and originally referred to the hand pumps that were used to serve the three types of beer at the inn: lambic, faro, and kriek.
[[File:Gaston Bottling.jpg|thumb|right|Gaston Debelder preparing to bottle]]
The inn and café changed hands several times over the years until finally coming into the possession of Jean-Baptiste Denaeyer Vanderlinden, son of Jacobus, who also became the mayor of the town of Beersel. Vanderlindend was widely considered to be the best lambic blender in the town. In 1953, Gaston Debelder, along with his wife Raymonde, purchased the building and named the business “3 Fonteinen”. In Dutch, the name 3 Fonteinen means three fountains and originally referred to the hand pumps that were used to serve the three types of beer: lambic, faro, and kriek. In 1961 the Debelder family bought property on the Beersel church square. The building was demolished, but the warehouse underneath was preserved. Though Armand (Gaston’s son) refused to put his lambics in kegs today, the original 3 Fonteinen lambics were indeed kegged. In [[Books#Wild_Brews:_Culture_and_Craftsmanship_in_the_Belgian_Tradition|''Wild Brews: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition'']], Sparrow notes that when Gaston and Raymonde took over the brewery, bottled beer was still a niche product. Before the war, “there was only lambic that you bought from brewers. The kegs that were kept in café cellars had to be emptied within 14 days. If the beer was not sold, it was tapped into bottles.” It is important to remember that at this point, the use of the term keg still referred to a small wooden cask rather than the modern, industrial steel kegs.<ref name=WildBrews>Jeff Sparrow, [[Books#Wild Brews: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition|Wild Brews: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition]], 2005</ref>