Visit Flanders Unveils Details About the 2015 European Beer Bloggers Conference Post-Conference Excursion Itineraries
Visit Flanders, the official tourist office of the northern region of Belgium, has unveiled three awesome post-conference excursion itineraries for the 2015 European Beer Bloggers Conference in Brussels, Belgium. The beer adventures take EBBC guests on tasty, educational tours that combine touring, tasting, learning, and one-on-one time with the principals and brewers of historic and modern breweries alike. Each excursion can host up to 15 participants and at a cost of just €20 each (including the overnight excursion!), you can hardly deny that extending your EBBC experience is a) affordable and b) guaranteed to provide a really, really fun, intimate, and educational beer experience. Thank you, Visit Flanders, for being a dynamite partner of the 2015 European Beer Bloggers Conference in Brussels!
Pre and post-conference excursions are awesome. There is no doubt about it. And we are excited to be able to offer the following THREE post-conference excursion options that each start on Saturday, August 30th. The most difficult thing about this year’s post-conference excursions is deciding on what one you want to go on! While we are firming up the details on the one-day pre-conference excursion, take a peek at the two, one-day options and the one, overnight excursion that we have to offer this year. How will you be extending your EBBC15 experience this August?
Excursion #1 The Lambic Excursion through Pajottenland
Saturday, August 30
Depart Hotel Marivaux @ 9 am. Arrive back to Hotel Marivaux @ 6:30 pm (optional drop-off at the main train station)
€20. Maximum 15 participants. All meals, tours, and transportation included
Dubbed the “Lambic lovers excursion” by the European Beer Bloggers Conference, this excursion dives into the essence of these famous spontaneously fermented beers. We start the day in the De Lambic Visitor Center for an introduction of the Pajottenland area, it’s beers, and gently rolling rural paradise. Referencing the three wells in the center of the village where inhabitants used to get their water, our visit to 3 Fonteinen represents a step back in time – Owner, Armand Debelder, is considered one of the godfathers of the lambic style and we get to dine on a regional lunch in the brewery restaurant! We visit a second, bigger lambic brewer after lunch. Brewery Boon dates back to 1680 but it was the 1975 acquisition by Frank Boon that transformed this brewery to it’s heirloom status. Boon is also considered a lambic godfather….but if Armand was “David”, Frank would definitely be considered “Goliath!” We finish the day with a totally local beer perspective at the annual festival of De Lambikstoempers which is organized by the local beer club and focuses on all regional products.
Excursion #2 The Antwerp Excursion
Saturday, August 30
Depart Hotel Marivaux @ 9 am. Arrive back to Hotel Marivaux @ 6:30 pm (optional drop-off at the main train station)
€20. Maximum 15 participants. All meals, tours, and transportation included
On the way to Brewery De Koninck in Antwerp, we will pay a visit with the brewer at Hof ten Dormaal, a craft brewery in Toldonk. Owner, Andre Janssens, brews Dormaal beer at his farm brewery. He crafts using hops and barely which he grows himself! The energy for boiling, cooling, and bottling his Dormaal is from his own rapeseed that is processed afterwards as animal feed. In the Spring of 2015 a brand new Beer Experience Center will open its doors in the De Koninck Brewery. We’ll investigate this interactive and multimedia sensation and have a typical Flemish lunch at the authentic brasserie next door before sauntering down “Crafts Lane” to test out chocolate + beer pairings with a master chocolatier. Lastly, we meet the brewer at the microbrewery, Den Triest, which has been in operation for 6 years and serves their prize-winning creations in their cozy café.
Excursion #3 Poperinge/Bruges Overnight Excursion
Saturday, August 30 + Sunday, August 31
Depart Hotel Marivaux @ 9 am. Arrive back at Hotel Marivaux @ 6:30 pm on Sunday, August 31 (optional drop-off at the main train station)
€20. Maximum 15 participants. All meals, tours, transportation, and lodging in Bruges included
This two day beer adventure through West-Flanders dives deep into the brewery and hop culture of the region around Poperinge. We enrich our palates with the unique barrel-aged Flemish Red-Browns from Rodenbach Brewery, tour through Bruges and its new Beer Museum, and meet the principals and brewers behind larger scale productions and microbreweries – all of which combine tradition with innovation in their Belgian beer creations. You’ll meet personalities like Luc Vermeersch of Brewery De Leite who st
arted brewing in 1997 in his small garden shed in Ruddervoorde, revel in the hospitality and dinner at Rodenbach Brewery while visiting with the plant manager, and hang with the brewer at De Plukker who operates a 100% organic production that started out as a hop-growing business before brewing. AND we will get to know Bruges during a historical walking beer tour, a visit to the Bruges Beer Museum in the heart of the city, and a stop to meet the brewer of the quintessential Bourgogne des Flandres style at the nearly-finished new brewery which is going up within a stone’s throw of where Brewery Den Os originated.
For a breakdown of each excursion, please visit the Excursion Page of the BBC website.
You can register to join us on one of the three post-conference excursions when you sign-up for the conference. Already signed up? No problem. Just use the same form you used to register, previously, and make a note in the comments section that you are already registered for the conference and are signing up to go on an excursion. They are only €20! We hope to tour with you after the conference!
About Visit Flanders
Roughly the size of the state of Maryland in the U.S., Belgium packs a beer-centric, historical punch with it’s centuries old brewing history that dates back to the first Crusades when the church allowed abbeys to brew and distribute as part of fund-raising methods. Visit Flanders is the tourism promotion board of the Flanders region of northern Belgium and advocates for all the cultural and tourism opportunities the region has to offer. Home to over 1,500 original beers, Belgians take their beer seriously. And Visit Flanders is serious about taking EBBC15 participants on these excellent, well-organized beer adventures through the Pajottenland, Antwerp, and Poperinge/Bruge regions after the conference!
Photos courtesy of:
Geuze Boon: Kris Jacobs Photography
Pommes Frites & Beer: Antwerpen Toerisme en Congres
Hop Harvest: Brouwerij De Plukker
Bruges City Center: Milo-Profi Fotografie
