Brouwerij Strubbe has remained family owned for six generations, since Carolus Strubbe established it in the town of Ichtegem in the 1830s. Like many Belgian brewers in the early to mid-20th century, they responded to popular taste by shifting production from ales to lagers. Nevertheless, they continued to produce their traditional sour beer which remained popular even as the lagers did not bring the profit they'd hoped for. This sour ale, after some reformulation and improvement, became the Strubbes Bruin in 1982. The Strubbes Bruin was further refined to create Ichtegem's Grand Cru, which thus has a lineage leading back to the brewery's founding.
