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New Spring Beer Festivals

New Spring Beer Festivals

Published on 1st April 2024

The beer festival season has well and truly started for me! After a very enjoyable trip to CBFS24 in Stuttgart in February, I visited two more beer festivals in Belgium I had never been to yet: The Beer Experience in Zolder, and Fest’IPA in Namur.

The Beer Experience – 24-25 March 2024

First up was The Beer Experience, which I visited on the 23rd of March. I arrived quite late—it was a two train trip, all the way to Zolder—so it was in full swing by the time I entered. There were lots of familiar faces, bot among the visitors and the stand holders, but more importantly, also a lot of breweries I hadn’t tried any beers of yet!

The location was quite special—an old mining site—and I didn’t quite get around to exploring all of it. Neither did I had the time to ‘experience’ all aspects of the festival fully, with its art exhibits spread out over the buildings, since there were simply too many beers to try! I did get to enjoy some of the live music, though!

This definitely is a festival I will visit again, and allow a bit more time for next time!

I also skipped the food trucks for once, since I had my heart set on something I can only get the way I want it in Limburg, it seems: a döner kebab in Turkish bread that doesn’t get squished in a panini grill, and with green peppers on the side. The appropriately named snack bar De Mijn had exactly that!

After a beer festival, train trips with a change to get home are always a bit risky, but I didn’t miss any connections, and made it back to Brussels without a hitch.

Fest’IPA – 19-20 April 2024

The next discovery was Fest’IPA in Namur. I already discovered that Namur has something to offer for beer lovers, but I hadn’t been to any events here yet. Fest’IPA is an event by Namur Capitale de la Bière, the organisation behind the festival with the same name, but also some other beer events in the city.

The location for the festival—La Nef—was already quite special. It was in fact the desecrated Notre-Dame church of Namur, but a lot of the artwork was still in place.

No entrance fee, no tokens, just one bar with six beer pumps and a couple of fridges. Apparently that’s all you need, since I had a great time tasting some of the beers they had selected. If I didn’t have to get up early the next morning, I would happily have spent a couple of hours more!

So that’s another, completely different, beer festival to look out for next year!

CBFS24 & Frankfurt HHH

CBFS24 & Frankfurt HHH

Published on 4th February 2024

It has been a while since I have been on a trip worth blogging about, but last weekend I travelled more than 1000 km on trains, providing me with plenty of things to show and tell… My main destination was Stuttgart, for the CBFS24 – Craft Beer Festival Stuttgart. Since I would never be able to be back in time in Brussels for the BMPH3 hash on Sunday, and I had to change trains in Frankfurt am Main anyway, I decided to run with the Frankfurt Hash House Harriers instead.

Continue readingCBFS24 & Frankfurt HHH

Razernij 2023

Published on 19th August 2023

Beerdrinkers & Hellraisers

After a cloudy morning, the sun warmed up the festival terrain in Rumst, just in time for this year’s edition of Razernij to start!

There was a nice selection of breweries again, just enough to try new beers all afternoon, to then return to favourites when the concerts really kick off.

My Belgian Summer Holiday – HOPZ!

Published on 22nd July 2023

So I originally didn’t plan to post something about this day trip to a beer festival. However, this festival—HOPZ!—turned out to be quite different from many others…

For starters, it was a bit further away—all the way in Hamont, the very end of a train line—necessitating a train change, which can be quite risky… (I might post about my Van Moll Fest adventure after all, to illustrate this point)

But secondly, it wasn’t the kind of beer festival where you meet the same persons you meet at every beer festival. I actually didn’t see a single familiar face! Some of the attending breweries were familiar though, but from at least half of the breweries present, I hadn’t tried a single beer yet.

Most of the breweries present were Belgian, although there were some Dutch breweries and one German brewery as well.

Quite a pleasant surprise was their glass cleaning policy: just go back to the bar where you received your glass initially, and you’ll get a freshly cleaned and rinsed glass each time you hand in your dirty glass!

They published their beer list well in advance, so I knew there would be plenty of new beers to try. Most of the beers on my list were above 7% ABV though, so it was quite a challenging list to get through…

With the help of some snacks, I did survive it though, and eventually successfully got on the train I intended to take. I even managed to not miss the train change in Antwerp Berchem! Having a peanut sauce soaked dinner probably helped…

My next day trip: Bruges!

FyneFest Trip – Day 8

Published on 5th June 2023

Adventures in Aberdeen

After a last breakfast at FyneFest—a bacon and egg breakfast roll from Hector & Harriet—it was time to walk back that mile to the bus stop—albeit an invisible one—for my Citylink 926 back to Glasgow.

After quickly getting a coffee to go from Laboratorio Espresso, I headed to Glasgow Queen Street station for my ScotRail train to Aberdeen.

I arrived in The Granite City a bit too early to check in at my Travelodge, so I first visited The Craftsman Company, for another coffee, and a beer. There are not enough places like this that do both specialty coffee—this one even roasts in-house—and craft beer!

In the evening I planned to go the the hash of Aberdeen H3, but it was about 35km out of the city, and not that easy to get to by public transport. I was supposed to catch a ride with another hasher, but he himself had a problem getting to Aberdeen in time. So off I went by myself, two and a half hours in advance… First I had to catch a train to Inverurie, and change onto a first bus there. I had about half an hour for this, so I seized the opportunity to visit BrewDog Inverurie—right across the square from the bus stop—and pick up the pin they didn’t have when I did my Flying Scotsman trip.

After that first bus, I had to get on the same line in the opposite direction, since apparently it serves different stops. From that last stop, it was still a three kilometre walk to the start of the trail…

The hash was totally worth it though: a beautiful trail, a ‘sweetie check’, the most amazing beer stop location, and lots of nice hashers!

The way back to Aberdeen was a lot easier and quicker: I got a ride back with one of the hashers.

Back of the hotel I first had a shower, to wash off four days of camping and a hash through at times quite some dense growth.

After that I somehow managed to drag myself outside for a last beer at BrewDog Castlegate. They soon called last call however, so it would stay at just the one.