Snail Beer & Snail Farm

Caracole, an organic microbrewer with a snail logo located near Dinant, Brussels. Sherry, Allison and I have been on a special food tour of Liege and its surrounding neighborhoods all day. By the time we got to the brewery for lunch, I was starving and exhausted. I needed either a double espresso or a nap under the bar. Either way, a beer tasting felt far from what I needed that moment.

Philip, the brewery’s tour guide, has enthusiastically going beyond the call of duty and showing us various bakeries (three in all, each making different regional specialties), strawberry museum (kitschy and a little weird), castles, cheese makers and arranging our picnic lunch. I am not a beer lover but I could not bring myself to disappoint Philip.

Caracole brews four different types of beer: Caracole, Saxon, Troublette and Nostradamus. Starting with Caracole being a light summer beer moving Nostradamus, a dark porter. In the haze of information overload and a pending coma, I remember zero details about the brewery or each beer’s characteristic but I can say without doubt, I LOVE their beer!

This declaration of love holds more weight than detailed tasting notes on the beer cause you see….I love food, I know food, I love wine, I love whisky & tequila, but I don’t love beer. Seeing how I am entirely indifferent to the yeasty brew, this passionate declaration of love for the snail beer means that it is extra special!

From Caracole, we drive to a snail farm, Escargotiere de Warnant.

I’ve been living in eager anticipation of touring this snail farm ever since Sherry suggested to our list of things to do while we are in Liege. Eric Frolli, the owner was meet with a sleuth of curious and occasionally ridiculous questions.

Me: How did you get started?
Eric: When I was a boy, my grandfather used to take me into the woods to find snails and we would eat them. In University, I did a project on snails and I start a snail farm after.

Me: How many years have you had the farm?
Eric: It’s been 25 years.

Me: How many snail farms are here in Belgium?
Eric: Only three but there are about a hundred or so in France.

We stand in front of a large display box in the farm’s showroom and watch the snails mate. Snail sex….slow and slimy but not pornographic in the least.

Me: The snails are hermaphrodites, what is the mating ritual and how do they know if they like each other?
Eric: I don’t know. Only the snails know and they decide.

Me: How long does it take for the snails to be full grown and ready to eat?
Eric: 6 months.

Eric shows us a box of newly hatched baby snails. They are about the size of a pinhead with two black antenna / eyes bits poking up.

Me: What is the land speed of snails?
Eric: About 3-5 meters per hour.

Me: What kind of predators do you have the farm?
Eric: Mostly rats. We put down poisons for the rats and have a small dog that hunts the rats as well. We don’t worry so much about birds as there are only a couple of birds that comes by. The birds will pick up a snail and crack their shell against a rock.

Me: What is your annual production volume?
Eric: About 600,000 snails.

Me: Can you farm all year round?
Eric: No, the snails’ hibernate during the winder months.

Me: How are the snails sold?
Eric: You can’t sell raw snails so we process them here on the farm before we sell them to local restaurants, grocery and etc. We have 12 different recipes. The snails are cooked; vacuumed packed or sealed in a jar before they go to market.

Eric hands us a little aperitif, a sampling of snail pate and snails in profiteroles with butter sauce.

Me: Do you still like eating snails?
Eric: Yes. I often eat them off the line when we prep them.

Me: Have you tasted the snails from the other farms? Do they taste different?
Eric: They taste different depending on what you feed them and also the variety of the snails.

There was no end in my endless curiosity of life as a snail farmer. Eric says to Philip in French, she asks a lot of questions.

Just before the end of the visit, Eric pull out a jar of moisturizer made from snail slim and tells me how it is great for dry skin. I dab a finger full onto my back of my hand and rub it in. It smelled like aloe, not at all like wood rot or rain, which is smell I associate with snails. I wanted to ask him how do they collect the snail slim and process it into lotion but I refrained.

Later, it occurred to me that I should have asked him if the snails take their time when they have sex. It was probably a good thing I didn’t think of it in time and spared this poor man.

Snail Farm. Amazing. Who would have thought!

*Special Thanks To Evelyne De Meulemeester and Visit Belgium for their time and making it possible.