The Bierhappening is an annual beer festival which brings 1,700 beer lovers to Zottegem in East Flanders.
Each year the organisers brew their own special beer for the occasion. You can read more about that beer here: BLES Bierhappening | Beer Club Brews for Zottegem Festival.
The Belgian breweries and beer firms pouring at the festival are for the most part local to Zottegem. BLES, the organising beer club, sends out invitations for the festival to breweries in the region first, giving them a week to secure their spot before extending the invite to other Belgian breweries and beer firms that they’d like to be there.
THE BIERHAPPENING
In no particular order, here are the 21 Belgian breweries and beer firms that attended the Bierhappening in 2014:
1. BROUWERS VERZET
Pictured above, Koen Van Lancker and Alex Lippens not only have academic brewing qualifications from the University of Ghent, but they hold down professional full time brewing jobs at larger Belgian breweries. The third partner, Joran Van Ginderachter, is currently working in the craft beer sector in the U.S.
Their side brewing project, Brouwers Verzet, literally, the ‘Resistance Brewers’ has become such a success that they’ve opened up their own biercafé (Café Local). They gypsey brew out of Brouwerij De Ranke in Dottignies.
“It is always nice to pour at a festival in East Flanders,” says Alex. “We decided to take just one keg of each of our beers to the festival but it went so well that at 8pm we were sold out. It was also a perfect time to test our self made ‘Jockey-box’: a tap installation used a lot in the U.S. Thanks to the Bierhappening we were able to sort out some teething problems so that we can use it more effectively for the next beer festival.”
Type: Gypsy Brewers
Location: Anzegem (brewing at Brouwerij De Ranke)
Beer of Note: Rebel Local 8.5% (ABV)
Website: https://www.brouwersverzet.be/
2. BROUWERIJ ALVINNE
Alvinne was a female spirit from the local folklore of the Zwevegem region close to where the brewery is based.
Marie, Sander and Melissa Dhooge from Bierhalle Deconinck (pictured above from left to right) were handing out the Alvinne beers on this occasion.
They are considered to be one of the more experimental breweries in Belgium, a case in point being their Mano Negra Chili Stout, a 10% ABV strong dark ale which has been aged in Bourbon barrels with the addition of what feels like an Archipelago of hot chilli peppers.
Initially it’s dark chocolate, caramel and toffee – but within 5 seconds the burn comes on and slowly (and unstoppably) makes its way down the back of your throat.
Interestingly, the Cuvée Sofie – a winey woody sour ale which has been aged for six months in St Emilion barrels – is named after Sofie Van Rafelghem, beer sommelier and teacher, who also happens to be Press Secretary and Editor on the BLES committee.
Type: Brewery
Location: Moen-Zwevegem
Beer of Note: Cuvée Sofie (10% ABV)
Website: https://www.alvinne.be/
3. WIEZE BEER BELGIUM
Brewery Wieze is a relatively new beer firm which was pouring its Tripel at the Bierhappening for the first time.
“The BLES Bierhappening is a great festival to meet all kinds of people who like to drink a diversity of Belgian beers,” says Sales Manager Gilles Van Den Driessche. “Every year there are some new beers to reveal, this year it was our turn to show the Wieze Tripel!”
Type: Beer Firm
Location: Gijzegem-Aalst (brewing at Brouwerij Roman)
Beer of Note: Wieze Tripel (8.5% ABV)
Website: https://www.wiezebier.be/
4. VLIEGENDE PAARD BROUWERS
Andy Dewilde of the ‘Flying Horse Brewers’ had the longest queues at his stall during the festival.
In 2011 Andy was awarded the the title of ‘Best Craft Beer Home Brewers of Belgium’ by Brouwland for his Préaris Quadrupel.
He started having his beers contracted commercially later that year and in 2013 the international beer rating website, Ratebeer, awarded him the title of ‘Best New Brewer in Belgium’. This month, their Préaris Grand Cru won silver at the Brussels Beer Challenge 2014.
It all gets very interesting with their Quadrocinno, which is brewed with coffee beans from Costa Rica and which this year was voted the best dark beer at the Zythos Beer Festival. It also won bronze at the Global Craft Beer Awards in Berlin.
Type: Beer Firm
Location: Oedelem-Beernem (brewing at De Proefbrouwerij)
Beer of Note: Préaris Quadrocinno (10% ABV)
Website: https://www.prearis.be/
5. BROUWERIJ TOYE
“This is a very important festival for us because it was the first time we had participated here,” says brewer Geert Toye. “We find it very important to promote Goedendag in this region.”
The Goedendag was a weapon used in Medieval Flanders of the most horrible incarnation which effectively combined a club with a spear. Think of a massive vicious pike pole adorned with a lining of nasty metal spikes below the tip. Oh, and with rust. It was probably rusty.
Folklore has it that the weapon was used to great effect in 1302 to greet the Franco-militia during both the revolt of Bruges and the Battle of the Golden Spurs in Kortrijk at which the Flemish enjoyed historic victories against the invincible French army of knights. While ‘Goedendag’ does literally mean ‘Good day’ in Flemish, the name of the weapon is thought to derive from ‘dag(ger)’ which in those times meant ‘spear’. So a ‘good spear’. Good name for a beer, right?
Type: Brewery
Location: Marke-Kortrijk
Beer of Note: Goedendag (8% ABV)
Website: https://www.goedendagbier.be/
6. DE HOEVEBROUWERS
Cooking from a tiny brew kettle in their kitchen since 2001, De Hoeve Brewers won an amateur brewing competition in 2006 and graduated from a home brewery to a ‘nano’ brewery.
Such was the demand for their beers at that stage, that they were forced to find more capacity than their 80 litre kettle afforded them and so they now brew out of Brouwerij De Graal. Their dream is to install a small brewery on their farmstead in the years to come.
Hilde Squire and Kjell Spoormans (pictured above) shared with me their Ertegemse Trekkers, a top-fermented cloudy orange concoction which is brewed with Jamaican pimento.
Type: Beer Firm
Location: Zottegem (brewing at De Graal)
Beer of Note: Ertegemse Trekker (6% ABV)
Website: https://www.dehoevebrouwers.be/
7. BROUWERIJ JESSENHOFKE
Marie-Rose Kelchtermans (pictured above) was holding the fort at the Brouwerij Jessenhofke stall. Their beers carry the ‘Belgian Hops’ logo which signifies that they are brewed using at least 50% of hops from Belgium.
“We’ve been going to the BLES festival for many years,” says Jessenhofke owner Gert Jordan. “We love it because the people are always very curious for new beers and new flavours.”
Type: Beer Firm
Location: Kuringen-Hasselt (brewing at De Proefbrouwerij)
Beer of Note: BUFO (4.8% ABV)
Website: https://www.jessenhofke.be/
8. BROUWERIJ HUYGHE
Joris Dheedene (above on the left) and Patrick De Waele (three over) are Huyghe’s Head Brewmaster and Quality & R&D Manager respectively, pictured with some of their colleagues from the Melle brewery.
Huyghe are most famous for their pink elephant. It’s the symbol associated with their Delirium Tremens beer, a Belgian Tripel with an effervescent character and complex citrus fruit aroma which is fermented with three different kinds of yeast.
The bottle is quite unique, an opaque ceramic affair with a colourful blue label showcasing numerous images one might encounter in the state of delirium tremens.
Type: Brewery
Location: Melle
Beer of Note: Delirium Tremens (8.5% ABV)
Website: https://www.delirium.be/
9. BROUWERIJ ROMAN
“For our brewery it is important to be present at the BLES festival in Zottegem,” says Gert Niemegeerts of Roman brewery.” This beer festival is almost ‘in our backyard’ (only 15 km from the brewery) so we see our presence as vital. The visitors already know most of our beers, but they still like to come over to us after discovering new beers at the other stalls. We were really happy with how the 2014 edition went for us. There was a great ambiance, and we had the chance to present our ‘christmas beer’: the Adriaen Brouwer Wintergold 2015 which will be produced in limited edition.”
Type: Brewery
Location: Mater-Oudenaarde
Beer of Note: Ename Tripel (8.5% ABV)
Website: https://www.roman.be/
10. BROUWERIJ HET ANKER
Johan Bogaerts was representing Het Anker, a brewery in Mechelen which produces a range of beers named after the golden coins issued by Emporer Charles who grew up in the city in medieval times.
Het Anker also joined the small group of ambitious breweries who have started to make their own whiskey.
Type: Brewery
Location: Mechelen
Beer of Note: Gouden Carolus Classic (8.5% ABV)
Website: https://www.hetanker.be/
11. ‘T GIESBAARGS MUURKEN
The street after which this beer firm are named is not just any street. It is a ramped cobbled slope known as ‘The Wall’, which became a household name in Belgium when the Tour of Flanders cycling race used it as its penultimate gruelling stair-climbing challenge between 1973 and 2011. ‘T Giesbaargs Muurken is the name given in local dialect to this monument of Flemish cycling history.
“Like every year, we really enjoyed the festival,” says Geert Bellman (pictured above with Mady Cornelis). “The location is perfect: all the brewers are together in a room which is big enough that everyone has their own space but not so big that you can’t see the other end of the room. For the visitors it is possible to taste a lot of beers without them having the idea that they can’t taste them all. Brewers and visitors are able to talk about the beers and to enjoy them together.”
Type: Beer Firm
Location: Geraardsbergen (brewing at De Proefbrouwerij)
Beer of Note: Muurken Bruin (7% ABV)
Website: https://www.muurken.be/
12. BROUWERIJ VAN DEN BOSSCHE
Willy and Marc Van Den Bossche (above) are Brouwerij van Den Bossche, best known for their Pater Lieven range.
But their Buffalo Belgian Stout is the beer they have brewed the longest, a dark brown beer of 9% ABV, which is the beer Van Den Bossche have brewed the longest. It’s malt-forward, with a chocolate, butterscotch and mocha flavour profile which is likely to be too sweet for the hardened stout drinker.
Type: Brewery
Location: St-Lievens-Esse-Herzele
Beer of Note: Buffalo Belgian Stout (9% ABV)
Website: https://www.paterlieven.be/
13. BROUWERIJ SLAAPMUTSKE
Jan (above on the right) poured me an afternoon nightcap. John Versyck (on the left) even wore his own Slaapmutske.
The name comes from an incident in 1999 involving Jonas, the baby of Slaapmutske founders, Dany De Smet and Marleen Vercaigne.
Jonas was crying. Babies do that sometimes. So what did they do? They dipped his dummy into a brown-red spicy beer of 9% ABV which they were brewing at the time and for which they had no name. Immediately, Jonas stopped crying and fell asleep. Marleen turned to Dany. “It’s a real Slaapmutske,” she said. A real sleeping hat. A nightcap. The beer had its name. An example of responsible parenting in Belgium.
“The BLES Beer festival is one of the best festivals there is,” says Dany. “It is ‘only’ one day, so not too much overload for the brewers and breweries to get it organised, and on the other hand, there are a lot of people in that one day. We have participated in all editions since we started the brewery and we’ll be back next year for sure.”
See you guys then.
Type: Beer Firm
Location: Melle (brewing at De Proefbrouwerij)
Beer of Note: Pressklubben (10% ABV)
Website: https://www.slaapmutske.be/
14. BROUWERIJ HET SAS
The name of the brewery dates back to the middle ages when Spanish conquerors built a water channel controlled at it’s head by a gate in Boezinge next to where the brewery was created. Sandrine Desender (above) informed me that the Flemish dialect for such a ‘sluice’ is ‘Sas’.
They’re a brewery embedded in the the local region and on a drive around the outlying villages and towns of Ieper, you’ll see a Sas Pils sign on almost every little café.
Type: Brewery
Location: Boezinge-Ieper
Beer of Note: Christmas Leroy (7.5% ABV)
Website: https://www.brouwerijhetsas.be/
15. BRASSERIE DES LÉGENDES
Johan Potargent and his colleague Rita (pictured above) showed up from Brasserie Des Légendes in the Hainaut province of Belgium. The brewery is a combined enterprise since December 2006 between La Brasserie Ellezelloise and La Brasserie des Géants (Goliath).
Given that there’s so much folklore in the area, the references to ‘legends’ and ‘giants’ in their titles seems appropriate. The bottles themselves have interesting artwork and retro swing-top lids.
Type: Brewery
Location: Irchonwelz-Ath
Beer of Note: Quintine Amber (8.5% ABV)
Website: https://www.brasseriedeslegendes.be/
16. BROUWERIJ THE MUSKETEERS
The Musketeers are four friends who studied brew engineering at Flanders’ best brewing school but couldn’t find a job in a brewery when they graduated. They set up in a garage and started brewing like real troubadours, moving around to distribute. Now they are have their beers contracted at De Proefbrouwerij.
Tim Pede and Annelien De Pelsmaeker shared a troubadour beer with me. “For The Musketeers brewery, the BLES festival was super,” says Tim. “It was well organised with a lot of visitors and we received some very positive reactions to the troubadour beers. I am personally from Zottegem and I know that this is an important festival for the region.”
Type: Beer Firm
Location: Ursel (brewing at De Proefbrouwerij)
Beer of Note: Troubadour Magma Tripel Yeast (9% a.b.v.)
Website: https://www.troubadourbieren.be/
17. BROUWERIJ VAN EECKE
Brouwerij Van Eecke produce the notorious Poperings Hommelbier, a beer created in 1981 to celebrate the hop culture in the Poperinge region of Belgium.
‘Hommel’ is the Poperinge dialect for ‘hop’ but it also means bumble bee in Flemish.
Its drinkability and full flavour makes this one of my ‘go-to-beers’.
Type: Brewery
Location: Watou-Poperinge
Beer of Note: Hommelbier Fresh Harvest (7.5% a.b.v.)
Website: https://www.brouwerijvaneecke.be/
18. BROUWERIJ EUTROPIUS
Barbara Pratz and Wouter Vermeersch (pictured above) named their operation after the patron saint of the village Heule where their brewery is based.
As members of their family died in the region during the First World War, they’ve brewed a sweet and bitter beer called ‘Remembrance’ in memory of the fallen in Flanders 100 years ago.
The Vinkenier, their golden amber ale is named after a local Flemish sport in which locals trained their birds (‘vinks’ are ‘chaffinches’) to sing as many songs as possible in one hour. The sport claims 13,000 enthusiasts (vinkeniers) and traces its origins to the activities of Flemish merchants in the 1500s.
At 10.8% ABV, the Vinkenier will probably have you singing like a bird.
Type: Brewery
Location: Heule-Kortrijk
Beer of Note: Vinkenier (10.8% a.b.v.)
Website: https://www.brouwerij-eutropius.be/
19. DE BIERZOTTEN
Such is the strength of BLES as a beer club, they have a junior wing called ‘De Bierzotten’. Steven Lecompte, Jarissa Maselyne and Bart Vanpachtenbeke (from left to right above) were pouring the beer the youth club brewed themselves at Brouwerij Den Triest and explained to met that its members were between the ages of 16 and 30.
“We participate at the BLES festival to promote the existence of the De Bierzotten,” says Steven. “We brew our own beer every year and run several other activities such as tastings, quizzes and attending other beer festivals. The festival is one of the largest in Belgium when you take into consideration the number of visitors. This year over 1,700 people came on one day.”
Type: Gypsey / Youth Group / Hobbybrouwers
Location: Zottegem (brewing at Brouwerij Den Triest)
Beer of Note: Pandoeringe (8.5% a.b.v.)
Website: https://www.debierzotten.be/
20. BROUWERIJ DE RYCK
Brouwerij De Ryck celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2011. Four generations after it opened, it is still in the hands of the De Ryck family.
Under the guidance of Anne De Ryck, the Herzele brewery has enjoyed success with their Arend Tripel. It has won medals at consecutive European Beer Star Awards in recent years.
Anne’s son, Bram Van Melkebeke (pictured above) works at the brewery with his mother and sister Miek.
Type: Brewery
Location: Herzele
Beer of Note: Arend Tripel (8% a.b.v.)
Website: https://www.brouwerijderyck.be/
21. BROUWERIJ CONTRERAS
Frederik De Vriez (pictured above) married into the Contreras family. He now brews and runs the brewery with his wife, Anne Contreras, daughter to Willy Contreras and granddaughter to Marcel Contreras, each of whom owned and ran the brewery in their time.
They are perhaps best known for producing the Valeir range of beers but one of their Tonneke is one of their most interesting. It’s a ‘Speciale Belge’, a style which was born at a competition held at the beginning of the last century to try to counter the popularity of pils beer in Belgium.
In 2008, the Tonneke was designated as a ‘regional product’ by the Flemish Centre for Agricultural Marketing. You can buy it in bottles of 25cl. Or if you’re feeling more extravagant, you can order it in oak barrels of 30 litres.
Type: Brewery
Location: Gavere
Beer of Note: Valeir Extra (6.5% a.b.v.)
Website: https://www.contreras.be/
THE BIERHAPPENING 2015
We already turn our attention to next year’s happenings.
Which Belgian breweries and beer firms will be there next year?
