Andrew Daines, Director – UK and Ireland at Visit Flanders, provides insider tips about beer culture in Belgium to Stuart Forster.
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2026 marks the 10th anniversary of UNESCO adding beer culture in Belgium to its representative list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
After a lunch celebrating the restoration of the Ghent Altarpiece, Andrew outlined why Belgium’s culture is unique and special. He talked about celebrated styles of Belgian beer, beer festivals in Belgium and some of the many places to enjoy Belgian beers.
The recommendations relating to Belgian beer below are drawn from what he said:
Beer culture in Belgium
UNESCO recognised that beer in Flanders and elsewhere in Belgium has a unique place in the culture of the region. We have very distinctive beers. Belgium is a small country but we have an absurd amount of different styles of beers. They’re not consigned to history; they continue to evolve. I think that’s one of the really exciting things about Belgian beer.”
The history of brewing in Flanders and elsewhere in Belgium can be traced back centuries.
Belgian beer styles
A real strength of Belgian beer is the diversity of styles. In the west of Flanders, you get red-brown Flemish ales. They are slightly sour and characterised by Rodenbach in Roeselare. The Duchesse de Bourgogne, a beer by Verhaeghe-Vichte, is another good example.
Many of the producers in the Pajottenland blend as well as brew, such as 3 Fonteinen. They lend young lambics and older lambics to produce geuze, which are generally tart, and have many different flavours. They then may add fruit, such as Schaerbeek cherries, to make kriek; something that nowhere else in the world can do in quite the same way – although there are many international breweries producing sour beers.
Best places to try Belgian beer
You can go to almost any café in the region and find an interesting beer. A good café will have someone behind the bar who will take their time to find you a beer that you will genuinely love. It’s seeking out those places that are a little bit special.
In every town and city across Belgium, you will find one or two bars that have a list of beers that numbers 200 or 300…more than you will drink in an evening!
Belgian Beer World
For people arriving in Brussels, there’s Belgian Beer World, which is a visitor attraction that opened in 2023. It’s in the Bourse, the old Brussels stock exchange. It’s in the centre of town and is a beautiful building.
They’ve created a really nice beer experience. Whether you’re seriously into beer or just slightly curious, it’s interesting. It’s a worthwhile way of spending a couple of hours to give you an introduction to many of the different facets of Belgian beer. Like all great beer experiences, it ends with a drink, in this instance on top of the Bourse, so you get a beautiful view across Brussels.
Bruges Beer Experience
There’s also a good beer experience in the centre of Bruges. Bruges Beer Experience is just off the Market Square in Bruges.
Antwerp City Brewery
The Antwerp City Brewery, about 20 minutes walk from the station, has a good beer experience around their brands (Duvel Moortgat). It’s part of a village where you’ve also got a chocolatière and includes the cheese shop of Frédéric van Tricht, so you can make a foodie day.
A lot of breweries offer a beer experience. Every brewery has a story to tell.
St Bernardus’ rooftop bar
St Bernardus in Watou is an abbey brewery. They used to brew under license the beers of another nearby abbey, Westvleteren, which is now a Trappist brewer. A few years back, the rules around brewing Trappist beer became a lot stricter. It now has to brewed within the abbey walls and overseen by at least one of the monks.
St Bernardus had the recipes and still brews pretty much the same beers. They’ve got a nice beer experience. You can see the bottles being filled. It’s very fascinating. They’ve got a nice brasserie, Bar Bernard, on top of the brewery. It has 360-degree panoramic views over the adjacent hop fields into the salient, where the battlefields of the First World War are. It’s a great place to spend some hours, particularly in the summer months.
Beer festivals in Belgium
There are lots of beer festivals in Belgium.
Toer de Geuze
Every two years there’s a big festival called Tour de Geuze on a weekend in May. About 14 or 15 breweries and blenderies open their doors. There are all sorts of festivities and they run buses between the breweries. That’s a great way to try beers from all the breweries and blenderies, and meet some of the brewers and some of the real characters behind it.
When: May 2028
Where: Near Brussels
Brussels Beer Weekend
Brussels Beer Weekend is at the Grand-Place. You’re drinking beer in the most beautiful square in the whole of Europe. That’s a very special experience.
When: 4-6 September 2026
Where: Grand-Place, Brussels
Poperinge Beer and Hops Festival
Poperinge’s Beer and Hops Festival happens every three years. Poperinge is a city that thrived during the First World War because it was always behind the front lines.
When soldiers were billeted, it was the nearest place they could go to. So, as you can imagine, the whole bar scene blossomed at that time. It’s in West Flanders, an area where they grow a lot of hops.
When: 18-20 September 2026
Where: Poperinge
Bruges Beer Festival
The Bruges Beer Festival takes place within a five-minute walk of the centre of Bruges, in the new convention centre. That has a big range of beers, so that’s pretty good.
When: 12-13 September 2026
Where: Bruges Meeting & Convention Centre (BMCC), Bruges
Antwerp’s Bollekesfeest
In Antwerp, the famous beer is De Koninck, which is ball-shaped, and colloquially called Bolleke. The beer festival is the Bollekesfeest.
When: 21-23 August 2026
Where: Grote Markt, Antwerp
Places to try lambic beers
Several cafés specialise in lambic beers.
In Brussels, Moeder Lambic is a great place that does that.
If people are in Ypres for the First World War and tourism, there’s a back street cafe called Kaffee Bazaar (Boomgaardstraat 9, Ieper). They do a really great range of lambic beers.
Cantillon is in the Anderlecht area of Brussels. That’s definitely worth a trip. If people are going by train, on the Eurostar, it’s easy walking distance of the train.
In quite a lot of cafes you’ll now find beers from breweries like Boon.
Pairing Belgian beer with food
Cooking with beer and pairing food with beer are great ways of appreciating beer culture in Belgium. One of the typical dishes from Flanders, Stoofvlees – known as carbonnade flamande in French and Flemish beef stew in English – is made with a Belgian beer. It pairs well with Belgian beer. It can be made with a lambic beer, a gueuze, or a dark beer.
There are lots of places where you can enjoy food and beer together. There’s a really nice place in Leuven called Hop (Vaartkom 1a, Leuven) for beer and food.
Worth knowing…
Beer culture in Belgium is more than just the beer itself. It’s the whole culture of drinking beer.
Every beer and every brewery has a specific glass. You’ll always get the beer served in the proper glass. They’re not pint glasses, so you can really savour the flavours and respect the strength – often they’re a little bit stronger than British beers.
The Ghent Altarpiece
The top of this post mentioned the Ghent Altarpiece, the masterpiece also known as the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. Hubert and Jan van Eyck completed the work in 1432.
It is displayed at St Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent. The restoration of the artwork will continue until the spring of 2027.
Map of Belgium
The map below highlights Flanders in the north of Belgium:
Visit Flanders
Head to the Visit Flanders website to discover more about the region’s beer culture.
Books about Belgium and Belgian beer culture
Planning a trip to experience beer culture in Belgium? You can buy the following books from Amazon.co.uk:
Belgian Trappist and Abbey Beers: Truly Divine by Andrew Verschetze.
Good Beer Guide Belgium by Tim Skelton.
The Belgian Beer Book by Erik Verdonck and Luc de Raedemaeker.
The Rough Guide to Belgium and Luxembourg.
Further information
Thank you for visiting Go Eat Do and reading this post about beer culture in Belgium. You may also appreciate posts on the Toer de Gueze and the revival of a lost Belgian beer style.
Stuart Forster is an award-winning travel writer and a member of the British Guild of Beer Writers.
Andrew Daines has been the Director UK and Ireland for Visit Flanders since 2012. Andrew is equally passionate about travel and tourism as he is about food and drink – so Flanders could well be the perfect destination for him. Despite his best efforts over the past 14 years, the list of Belgian beers he’s still not tried remains far too long!
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