There’s only a few days to go until BXLBeerFest will start, probably the biggest craft beer festival that will take place in Belgium this year. Almost 50 breweries from all over the world, are bringing over 300 different beers, bottled, canned and kegged. Add clean glasses for each and every beer, a permanently updated Untappd beer list, half a dozen of food trucks and a pop-up restaurant, and it is bound to be a great success. The only thing there isn’t enough of, is time: two days are just too short to try everything!
At a lot of beer festivals it can be quite challenging to keep your glass clean. Often there are no actual brushes, water is slowly turning brown, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen any beer glass detergent being used during a festival… BXLBeerFest turns the whole system upside down. For starters, you don’t receive a glass when entering the festival, which you then have to carry around all day. Just go up to one of the bars, order your beer — or even several beers, if you’d like to do a horizontal tasting, for instance — and you’ll get a freshly cleaned glass from behind the bar. When you’ve emptied your glass, just leave it at any bar, where it will be collected by someone from the glass cleaning team. Like at most beer festivals, you can keep the glass as a souvenir. Just don’t leave with it until you’re really done tasting, since you’ll have to leave your access bracelet in return.
BXLBeerFest will also be the first beer festival in Belgium to have all available beers listed on an Untappd menu which will be updated live during the festival! For Untappd users, this means they can subscribe to receive alerts on their mobile device whenever a new keg is on! Just keep in mind the serving type “Take Home” means the beer is (only) available at the festival beer shop!
It is also refreshing — pun intended — to see the cold chain is respected: all the beers coming from abroad were transported in cold storage, and on site the beers are stocked in a refrigerated container as well.
When there are so many beers to try, one needs sustenance to keep going. Luckily, BXLBeerFest has this covered as well. Not only is there a mini food truck festival next to the ‘shed’ — featuring El Camion, Pinpon mobile, La Fruitière, Holy Smoke, SINstreetfood, Ranzani13 pizza, and, on Sunday only, hot-dogs from Chez Jan — there’s a pop-up restaurant as well, led by Dirk Myny from Les Brigittines.
So order your tickets now, if you haven’t already — it’s cheaper and quicker than buying them at the door — and get ready for a weekend of beer tasting! Maybe take Monday off…
tl;dr
Beers
- Over 300 beers from almost 50 breweries from Brussels and the rest of the world!
Bites
- Food from high-quality food trucks.
- A pop-up restaurant by Dirk Myny from Les Brigittines
Buy
- Access (2 days), festival glass and tasting leaflet for € 9,00 (0n site: € 15,00)
- Access (2 days), festival glass, tasting leaflet, and 9 tokens for € 25,00
- Additional tokens for € 2,00 and € 1,00 a piece
Be at the BXL BeerFest
- On Saturday August 26 and Sunday August 27 2017
- From 11:00 until 20:00
- Tour & Taxis – Sheds 3, 3bis +4bis