If you’ve been to any beer bar or beer festival in the last couple of months, you must already have noticed the posters or flyers, for BXLBeerFest. In just a week— Saturday the 25th and Sunday 26th of August 2018 to be exact—the biggest, cleanest, freshest, and tastiest beer festival dedicated to artisan beer in Brussels, will take place for the second time at Tour & Taxis, and we sure hope you can all make it!
Biggest
The beer and brewery list of BXLBeerFest was already impressive last year, but this year they managed to get even more breweries to the festival, now totalling sixty breweries—well, one cidery—from all over the world. They’re bringing over 400 different beers in total, and being ‘limited’ to four taps for each brewery, this means there will be 240 different beers available at any given time. Since most breweries will have more beers than available taps, they’ll replace it with another beer whenever a keg is empty.
To keep track of what is and isn’t available, like last year, BXLBeerFest will have all available beers listed on an Untappd menu which during the whole festival, will be updated live!
The 5.000 m² of Tour & Taxis sheds and surroundings used for the festival, provide ample space for the brewery stands—organised in ‘islands’—and for visitors to move around between them, a seating area, a beer shop, rooms for tastings and cooking workshops, and food trucks and stands.
Cleanest & freshest
Clean as a descriptor for a beer festival might be a bit strange, but the struggle to keep your glass clean is real at a lot of beer festivals… At BXLBeerFest, you don’t have to carry around a glass all day, but you just go up to one of the bars, and you’ll receive your 15 cl of beer in a freshly cleaned glass. After you’ve emptied it, just leave it at any bar, where it will be collected by someone from the glass cleaning team.
To further assure the quality of the beer, each beer is kept in cold storage until just before it’s tapped, meaning it will be in the best possible condition, when it’s served.
Tastiest
Nobody can last through a beer festival like this without proper food, but sure enough, BXLBeerFest has this covered as well. Among the food trucks and stands, you’ll find fish and chips at Bia Mara, burgers at El Camion, cheese at La Fruitière, meaty delights at Holy Smoke, pizza at Ranzani, and hot dogs at Fermenthings.
If you’d like to learn more about cooking with beer—as an ingredient or an accompaniment—there are several cooking workshops, with some of the best local chefs.
Something new this year, are the private tasting sessions, led by the brewers themselves. In these, you can learn a bit more about the beer, the background, and profile, together with the person that actually made it. Some tastings have sold out already, so if you’re interested in a particular one, it’s best to book these in advance using the website.
“No pink elephants, no gnomes, no monks. Just honest, craft beer!”
As last year, it’s very important for the organisers all the beers—and food, for that matter—is produced in an ‘honest’ way: brewed by the brewers themselves—not outsourced—with high quality ingredients. The team behind this festival remained the same: Jean Hummler, owner of Moeder Lambic and as such a pioneer in the Brussels craft beer world, Olivier Desmet, owner of the famed beer restaurant Nüetnigenough, Kevin Desmet, beer lover and the blogger behind BelgianBeerGeek.be — one of the blogs that inpired us to start a blog of our own —, and Vincent Callut, the craft beer communications specialist behind MeetMyBeers.com. Together, they aimed to organise a ‘craft’ beer festival interesting for the experienced beer geek, as well for the occasional beer lover, the beer amateur, and the casual visitor or tourist. If it’s anything like last year, we’re sure they’ll accomplish exactly that!
tl;dr
Beers
- Over 400 beers from 60 different breweries (see list below) from all over the world!
- 4 taps per brewery, so pouring 240 different beers at any given time
- Live updated menu at Untappd
- Private beer tastings, led by the brewers
- Bottle shop with about 160 differents beers
- Some exclusive to the shop!
Bites
- Food from high-quality food trucks.
- Culinary workshops
Buy
- Access for 1 day and festival glass for € 6,13 (0n site: € 10,00)
- Access for 2 days and festival glass for € 10,27 (0n site: € 15,00)
- Access for 1 day, festival glass, and 20 tokens of €1 for € 24,71 (0n site: € 30,00)
- Access for 2 days, festival glass, and 20 tokens of €1 for € 28,81 (0n site: € 35,00)
- A variety of Beer Talks with tasting included for € 21,65
- Additional tokens are available on site for € 1,00 a piece
Be at the BXL BeerFest
- On Saturday August 25 and Sunday August 26 2018
- From 12:00 until 21:00 each day
- Tour & Taxis – Sheds 3, 3a + 4a
BXLBeerFest
Havenlaan 86c Avenue du Port
1000 Brussel
http://www.bxlbeerfest.com
bxlbeerfest
Brussels breweries
Other Belgian breweries
- 3 Fonteinen
- Alvinne
- Belgoo
- De Blaugies
- Du Brabant
- De Cam
- Cazeau
- De Dochter Van De Korenaar
- Dok Brewing Company
- Hof Ten Dormaal
- Jandrain-Jandrenouille
- Lambiek Fabriek
- De Leite
- De La Lienne
- Minne
- D’Oude Maalderij
- De Ranke
- Siphon
- Tilquin
- ‘t Verzet
Breweries from Canada
- Cidrerie Chemin Des Sept – (1 Beer)
- Dieu du Ciel!
- Dunham
- Pit Caribou
Breweries from Catalonia
- La Calavera
- Espina de Ferro
Breweries from Denmark
- Beer Here
- Penyllan
Breweries from England
- Burnt Mill
- Mills – England (4 Beers)
Breweries from France
- Brasserie des Garrigues
- Hoppy Road
- Popihn
Breweries from Germany
- J. Kemker
- Schneeeule
Breweries from Italy
- 50&50 Craft Brewery
- Birrificio Italiano
- BrewFist
- Ca’ del Brad
Breweries from the Netherlands
- De Kromme Haring
- Nevel – Netherlands
- Tommie Sjef
Brewery from Northern Ireland
- Boundary
Breweries from Italy
- Nepomucen
- Pracownia Piwa
Brewery from Scotland
- Black Isle
Breweries from Sweden
- Beerbliotek
- O/O
Brewery from Switzerland
- Brasserie des Franches-Montagnes (BFM)
Breweries from the United States
- Alewife
- Black Project
- Jester King
- Lord Hobo
- Pizza Boy