I'm planning a trip to the Dutch F1 Grand Prix in my campervan and will be travelling through Belgium.
So it would be a crime not to try and visit a few breweries on the way there and back.
I see that La Chouffe do brewery tours so that's on the list.
Anyone had any experience of tours or recommendations?
The Belgian beer industry is pretty well geared up to tourists, so most of the breweries do tours and in many cases have dedicated facilities for visitors. From what I've heard, Rodenbach in Roeselare is a great one to visit, with a "cathedral" of foeders.
Bruges is a great place for a long weekend, but if you've got the campervan and are travelling through then I'd take the opportunity to take a more southerly route - you pretty much have to end up on the Antwerp ringroad whichever way you go. Poperinge is the home of the Belgian hop industry - it has a big hop museum which is really nicely done - and also has a ton of WWI history as the main town behind the lines at Ypres. And nearby you've got St Bernardus and Westvleteren. I've only driven past St Bernardus, it's pretty much a farm shed in the middle of fields, but they do have a hop field next door which will be harvesting around that time which might be interesting? Westvleteren is in the middle of nowhere and doesn't do tours, but does have a slick café across the road where you can buy up to 12 bottles of their beer on spec for less that €3 (and is the only place to do so "officially", it's widely available on the grey market for maybe €12 in beer shops in places like Bruges.
De Halve Maan in Brudge is effectively a modern stainless-steel brewery in an old building which still holds onto some of the old fermenters, chillers etc for the benefit of the tourists. Nice enough but I did find it a bit too slick. You can get a far more authentic experience at De Dolle in Esen, near Diksmuide where they still brew in kit that dates back nearly 200 years. You only get one tour a week but it's led by Kris Herteleer himself who is an absolute legend of Belgian brewing, a real character. And the beer's great. Thoroughly recommended if you can make the timings fit.
https://www.beertourism.com/blogs/breweries/de-dolle-brouwers
If you want the bright lights, Ghent is a bit less touristy than Bruges, but is a student town so still has some great pubs. East of Ghent you have Aalst, historically the second hopgrowing area of Belgium but I don't think there's much left there now, and the Senne/Zenne valley which is the home of lambic and also the likes of Bosteels (Kwak/Karmeliet) and Malheur.
On the other side of Antwerp you have Westmalle, then La Trappe is a bit further on south of Tilburg, and the "forgotten Trappist" Achel is on the NL/BE border south of Eindhoven.
Chimay, Orval and Rochefort are all down in the south around the Ardennes so perhaps ones for the way back?
