Podge’s Belgian Beer Tours

Taste of Trappist Tour

Friday 10 June – Tuesday 14 June 2022

This new Tour is for those who like their Trappist beers. It is designed to take in one of the days of the new Vleteren Tournée Trappiste Festival which runs from Saturday 11 to Sunday 12 June 2022 at the “De Sceure” venue in the West Flanders beer-village of Vleteren. The festival is designed to focus on traditional, artisan Trappist beers, cheeses, chocolates, liqueurs and wines from all of the worldwide Trappists (more correctly known as The Cistercian Order of Strict Observance). Chefs will be there to make tasty dishes with Trappist products. The Tour is designed to visit the more northerly Trappist monastery/breweries/brewery taps in Belgium and the Southern Netherlands.

Orval grows on trees in Chelmsford

Our base for this Tour is the gorgeous Flemish city of Ghent and we are staying in an ex-Monastery! It is the Hotel Monasterium PoortAckere in central Ghent which is only an 8-minute walk from the great beer café Het Waterhuis aan de Bierkant on the River Leie (Fr. Lys). The hotel incorporates the Pugin-Neo-Gothic chapel, cloisters and much of the nineteenth century nunnery built over the original medieval PoortAckere monastery built on this spot in 1278.

We are based in Chelmsford in Essex and we use Eurotunnel from Folkestone to get to and from Belgium in our UK hired coach. Most of our Travellers join the Tour at our main pick up point outside The Woolpack Pub, 23 Mildmay Road, Chelmsford CM2 0DN and most come from other parts of the UK, with some from further afield, especially USA. Lots of our Travellers stay the night before a Tour (and often the night of our return) at Chelmsford Travelodge only a few minutes walk from The Woolpack or at the Premier Inn near the Railway Station, about a 10 minute walk to the pick up point at The Woolpack. We all usually pop in to The Woolpack the night before departure for a meet, greet and a few beers with Siobhan who is your Tour Manager, Tour Guide and drinking pal for the duration.

Our Galloways luxury coach (49 seater coach with toilet) starts from Suffolk and on the way to Chelmsford picks up at the following if required:

Ipswich, Crown Street, IP1 3HS (opp. NCP Car Park)

Colchester, Southway, CO2 7BA (pull-in adjacent to Chapel Street South)

Chelmsford, The Woolpack, 23 Mildmay Road, CM2 0DN

Dartford, BP Garage (formerly Esso) 474 Princes Road, DA1 1YT. On the return leg we drop off at Dartford Railway Station DA1 1DR

Swanley, Unit 4, Moreton Industrial Estate, London Road, BR8 8DE

Maidstone Services J8, M20 Kent, ME17 1SS

Ashford (Eureka Leisure Park) Premier Inn, Eureka Leisure Park, Rutherford Rd, Ashford TN25 4BN

Stop 24 Services, J11, M20, Kent, CT21 4BL

Stationsplein, Adinkerke, Belgium

The full, timed itinerary is set out below. If you would like to join us please send Siobhan an email or call her on +44 (0) 7722 724 558 for details on how to secure a place and pay the £130pp deposit for this Tour, or if you have any questions about this Tour.

Detailed Tour Itinerary

Day 1 - Friday 10 June 2022

06.15hr Coach pick up at The Woolpack, 23 Mildmay Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM2 0DN.

07.00hr Coach pick up at Howdens, Unit 4, Moreton Industrial Estate, London Road, Swanley BR8 8DE.

08.00hr Coach pick up at Stop 24 Services, J11, M20, Kent, CT21 4BL.

08.15hr Arrive Folkestone Eurotunnel.

09.50hr Eurotunnel Train crossing from Folkestone.

11.30hr Arrive Calais.

12.30hr Arrive at our first stop in glorious Belgium at the Heksenstoel, just over the French border in Loker. The Witches Chair is in a very witchy part of Belgium where many woods, cafes and hills are called after lady sorcerers. This is a gorgeous cafe restaurant serving traditional Flemish food and we'll stop here for lunch, which includes a choice of Flemish Stew made with nearby Trappist Monastery 3 Monts beer. The cafe are Orval Ambassadeurs and La Trappe Gouveneurs and have 100 beers on their menu, with most of the world’s Trappist beers on offer.

15.00hr Leave Lunch Stop.

15.45hr Arrive for a quick beer stop at Keuvelkroeg Arbeidershuis in Ledegem. This cosy cafe is a new visit for Podge's Belgian Beer Tours and has over 100 beers on their card and we are coming here because they specialise in Trappist beers, so you can get your tastebuds 'in' early. They have a boules court outside. Yes.

17.15hr Leave Keuvelkroeg Arbeidershuis in Ledegem.

18.15hr Arrive at our Hotel in Ghent, the Monasterium PoortAckere. This is a former 19th century monastery with, apparently a lot of 'nooks and crannies'. There are cloisters and a neo-Gothic chapel. Our hotel is centrally located and travellers have the evening free to explore the cafes, bars and restaurants of the beautiful city of Ghent, which has some fabulous bars. Travellers will be armed with Podge’s Central Ghent Bar Guide and Map*.

Rochefort Beer in its home at Rochefort Abbey

Day - Saturday 11 June 2022

10.00hr After a leisurely breakfast* we leave the hotel on foot for a walking beer tour in Ghent. Siobhan is your guide to the beautiful city of Ghent and we'll have a leisurely saunter through the lovely buildings, squares and waterways of the centre to arrive at:

10.30hr Gruut Brewery for a beer tour* and tasting* at their new venue. The city brewery, or Stadsbrouwerij Gruut is an unusual brewery where a herbal mixture (gruut) is used instead of the usual hops. The brewery uses modern technology but brews according to old traditions. Gruut Brewery was founded in 2009 by brewing engineer Annick De Splenter, descendant of a brewing family who owned the Riva brewery in Dentergem, now a subsidiary of Duvel Moortgat. In order to replace the important place of hops in the beer a lot of research had to be done into a suitable herbal mix to use instead. They were helped with a subsidy from a Flemish innovation fund. The brewery has moved twice and brew some beer here for local consumption, but larger export brews are brewed at Bavik brewery. Gruut was the Flemish name for the herb mix put in Medieval beer and often consists of Common heather (Calluna vulgaris), Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), Horehound (Marrubium vulgare), Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), Sweet gale (Myrica gale) and Yarrow (Achillea millefolium). The coin depicted on the beer label is a "gruut", the local name of the Groot, a coin that was used during the reign of Emperor Charles V. They have a comfy tasting cafe and offer their wheat beer, a blonde, an amber, a brown and the stronger Inferno. We'll settle in for a herby experience.

12.30hr Leave Gruut Brewery on foot.

12.45hr Arrive at Restaurant De Abt near St Baafs Cathedral. The Abbot restaurant is a specialist in Orval cuisine and we'll have lunch here. One of the choices in a Chicken dish made with Orval beer. This building has a special relationship with Orval beer. The Abt or Abbot Restaurant is named after a chap called Karel van der Cruyssen who owned this house and who became the Abbot of Orval Monastery in the 1930s and who had the idea to start brewing to raise money to rebuild the Monastery after the French Revolution left it in ruins.

15.15hr Leave Lunch venue and walk to meet the coach;

15.30hr Coach picks us up at Bus Parking Bijlkoekaai, Ghent.

15.45hr Arrive at the new Heilig Hart Brouwerij in Wetteren, inside a Church and they have a project for storing and maturing beer in giant Roman clay amphorae. Here we will have a brewery tour* and tasting*.

17.00hr Leave Heilig Hart Brouwerij in Wetteren.

17.30hr Coach drop at Trappistenhuis, Brabantdam Ghent for a crack at their big, big beer list. They are one of the cafes nominated as an Orval Ambassadeur and also a La Trappe Trappist Gouverneur. Since 2002 Orval brewery promotes its annual Ambassador d'Orval/ Ambassadeur Orval label, and makes awards to cafes provided they meet certain criteria. In 2022 420 pubs and restaurants have been awarded the label (you can see little tin enamel signs in the venues). Most are in Belgium, but it may surprise you that 28 are in the UK. A committee decides if the venue has the knowledge and service standards required which include high visibility of Orval in their café, a choice of cold or cellar temperature Orval and a dry glass, and usually varying ages. The brewery make anonymous visits to candidates to check all is good. All successful venues are invited to Orval Brewery each year for a presentation of their plaque and silver trout trophy. The candidate who has shown the most motivation and love for Orval gets the Magna cum laude trout in bronze. The Trappistenhuis serves the dark Chimay Blauwe/ Blue on draught. This nice cosy evening café is a 17 minute walk to the hotel. Or carry on with a night on the (tiles) town.

Cafe Trappisten, Westmalle

Day 3 - Sunday 12 June 2022

10.00hr After a leisurely breakfast* we leave the hotel by coach.

10.45hr Arrive at excellent Bierhalle Deconinck in Vichte. Brilliant warehouse, nice people, loads of beers. An opportunity to take some of your favourite Belgian beers home (having regard to the new inbound UK controls). Discover why they are known for 'Flanders largest choice for drinks' with a choice of over 1400 Belgian and foreign beers. We may drop off those who don't want to buy beer to take home at the nearby Den Hert in Vichte, unofficial brewery tap for Brouwerij Verhaeghe next door.

12.15hr Leave Bierhalle Deconinck in Vichte.

13.00hr Arrive at Tournée Trappiste at the indoor and outdoor venue De Sceure, next door to the Molenhof in Oostvleteren for an afternoon at the Trappist Festival. The Tournee Trappiste is a new taste and experience festival, in which Trappist® products are placed in the spotlight. It has been conceived and hosted by the local beer club VZW The Beer Pilgrims Vleteren. In addition to just about all ALL Trappist® beers in the world, they will have Trappist® cheeses and Trappist® wines for tasting in the De Sceure hall. Every Trappist® brewery will have a stand where their beers can be tasted and where information about the beers can be obtained. There is also a cheese and wine bar, where Trappist® cheeses and Trappist® wines can be purchased. There is a sales stand provided by Trappist® Tribute De Kloostergang, where beers, glasses, chocolate, mustard, and more tasty Trappist® items can be purchased to take away. In addition, there are 3 food stands (meat, fish and veggie), where each chef will offer two dishes, each containing at least one Trappist® product. The monasteries taking part are Westvleteren (B), Westmalle (B), Orval (B), Chimay (B), Rochefort (B), La Trappe (NL), Zundert (NL), Engelszell (AUS), Spencer (USA), Tynt Meadow (UK), Tre Fontane (IT), Achel (B) (In January 2021, the Achel beers of the St. Benedict's Abbey in Hamont-Achel lost the Authentic Trappist Product label, as the brewing process was no longer supervised by monks on site (they had sadly all died out) but the beer remains a Trappist beer, as the Saint Benedict Abbey falls under the Westmalle Abbey and the abbot of Westmalle Abbey visits the Achelse Kluis every week and supervises the brewing and other activities there), Mont des Cats (Fr), Cardena (SP) and Lilbosch ( NL). The event has the seal of approval of the International Trappist® Association. Next to the venue the Vleteren Tourist Office is holding a craft and arts market. The entrance to all is free. Beer will be served in tasting glasses of 15 cl. The tasting glasses, together with a program booklet with all information about the products, costs € 5. Upon departure, the glass can be exchanged back for € 2 or you can keep it as a souvenir.

16.00hr Leave the Trappist Festival at Oostvleteren.

16.45hr Arrive at Gaverhopke Brewery in Waregem. The brewery has been going a few years but moved recently here to these pretty square courtyard buildings where we can relax and have a go on the bouncy castle. Or not. You could perhaps try one of their beers and have a peek at the brewery.

18.00hr Leave Gaverhopke Brewery in Waregem.

19.15hr Arrive back in Ghent for a big rest or a big night out.

Day 4 - Monday 13 June 2022

10.00hr After a leisurely breakfast* we leave the hotel by coach.

11.45hr Arrive at La Trappe, near Tilburg in the Netherlands (technically called De Koningshoeven Brewery), This is a working monastery, big church, brewery, tasting café, restaurant and shop (manned by a monk). Huge site, loads to see. Try and spot the red 1960 monastery fire engine. We'll make our way to the Tasting room in a reimagined modern version of the old thatched sheep barn and have a beer* from their big selection. Modern brewing by monks here restarted in the 1980s, on a smallish scale but by 1999, the ever present problem, dwindling monk recruits meant that they set up as a subsidiary of large commercial brewer, Bavaria, who took over operations. This caused rumblings in the International Trappist Association, the body that governs the labelling of goods as Trappist. They claimed that this new method of operation was against the regulations that permitted the beer to display the Authentic Trappist Product logo. Whilst the beer continued to be brewed within the abbey walls, the arrangement with Bavaria was felt to be too commercialised. As a result, the brewery withdrew their use of the logo on 1 December 1999. However, the brewery continued to label the beer as Trappistenbier. By 2005 they were back in the fold again and the beers were granted the right to display the Trappist logo again. As part of this settlement, the monks have taken a more active control of the brewery day-to-day operations. In a similar way to Orval, Brouwerij de Koningshoeven adopted a similar award system and again certain conditions must be met, serving la Trappe beers ‘in an appropriate way and with the right attention.’ They have guidance on keg and bottle storage, pouring the beer. You are supposed to hold the glass and bottle at the bottom, with the logos facing the guest. Bring both to eye level and pour carefully without letting the beer bubble into the bottleneck. Let the beer flow gently along the wall of the glass and straighten the glass in half and froth if necessary until the froth comes just above the rim. The beer should not foam over. The bottle neck should never touch the foam or glass. Leave the yeast with about 1 cm of beer in the bottle. La Trappe Trappist beer from the bottle should not be skimmed with a palette knife. So now you know! With the Witte/Wheat beer (the only Trappiste Wheat beer in the world) you loosen the yeast by “rolling” the bottle and add the yeast. You will see that this yeast sinks through the beer like a cloudy veil. The Trappist Shop here opens at 13.00hr for all your trappist product needs.

13.15hr Leave De Koningshoeven Monastery, Brewery La Trappe in Tilburg.

13.45hr Arrive at Cafe Den Hoek , in Zundert, Netherlands, one of the two unofficial brewery taps of the Trappist Brewery Abdij "Maria Toevlucht" up the road who brew Trappist Zundert Beers. The nearby monastery Abdij Maria Toevlucht is closed to mortals De Kievit (Peewit or Lapwing) Trappist Brewery and makes Zundert 8 & more recently Zundert 10 beer, purple logos and labels with a nice Lapwing/Peewit/Kievit bird on the labels. This is a pretty café has been run for 90 years by the same family, the Havermans. A billiards table was installed in 1957 and Louis, born in 1956, was growing up to be a very good billiard player. Louis took over the business in 1981 and part of the banquet hall was converted into a billiards centre which now has 6 billiard tables. Den Hoek enjoys national and even international fame because of the many top competitions that have taken place here, especially the Eredivisie matches and during the well-known three-cushion tournament between Christmas and New Year. The newest generation, Jeroen is a brewer by profession, and they like to cook with beer. So, we will have a Zundert beer* here and a group meal.

16.30hr Leave Den Hoek, Zundert.

17.00hr Arrive at Arrive at Cafe Trappisten, in Malle, the brewery tap for the incomparable brewers of the world’s best beer, Westmalle Tripel. They also brew the brown Dubbel and the lower gravity Extra which you see around more these days and which they tell us the monks drink. Yeah. This Brewery Tap is a big café restaurant and shop, home to the best Triple and Dubbel beers in the world. Period. We'll rest here for a drink. You ought to try the famous half and half - a drink made up of half Westmalle Triple from a bottle topped up with Westmalle Dubbel van't vat. There is a shop where you can buy soap made by Nuns. You can walk to the Monastery, but it is surrounded by big, high brick walls to keep us dirty earthlings out.

18.15hr Leave Cafe Trappisten in Malle.

19.30hr Arrive back for a free evening in the pearl of Flanders, Ghent.

Chimay beer en masse...

Day 5 - Tuesday 14 June 2022

10.00hr After breakfast* check out of hotel. Coach leaves for our last day.

11.30hr Arrive at In de Vrede, Westvleteren. The Westvleteren 12 Black Beer is the uber-Trappist beer, and we've saved it til last. All was going quietly in this sleepy uncommercial brewery until 2005. Then everything went nuts. That year the influential website Ratebeer in their first ever award of 'Best Beer In The World' declared Westvlet 12 to be the one to go for and all hell broke loose in this heavenly spot. The clamour to taste the beer was so great that hordes deluged the monastery. The street where the monastery, brewery, tasting cafe and shop could not handle the traffic and was made one-way shortly after winning the Best Beer award. These three beers have always lived at the more mystical end of the Trappist brewers, but you need to try them. The shop here is good and sometimes sells small carry outs of beer if you are lucky. And soap made by nuns.

13.30hr Leave In de Vrede, Westvleteren.

14.00hr Arrive De Leute at Oeren. An old favourite, we haven't visited on Tour for some years. This is a beautiful historic old Westhoek farm building cafe, where we will have a meal and our last beer of the Tour. For a change, they feature beers from De Bie Brewery.

16.45hr Leave De Leute at Oeren.

18.15hr Arrive Calais.

19.50hr Leave Calais on Eurotunnel train crossing.

19.25hr Arrive Folkestone.

19.35hr Coach drop off Stop 24 Services, J11, M20, Kent, CT21 4BL.

20.30hr Coach drop off Howdens, Unit 4, Moreton Industrial Estate, London Road, Swanley BR8 8DE.

20.45hr Coach drop off Dartford Railway Station DA1 1BP.

21.30hr Coach drop off Junction of Lady Lane & Mildmay Road, Chelmsford CM2 0EA.

21.40hr Coach drop off Travelodge Hotel, 128-136 Parkway, Chelmsford CM2 7GY.

21.45hr Coach drop off Premier Inn Victoria Road, Chelmsford CM1 1NY.

Trappist beer at St Sixtus Monastery Brewery, Westvleteren. Siobhan's fav, the 5.8%abv blonde.

Tour Price is £895 per person sharing a twin or double room

Single Supplement: £245

We regret that we need to charge a single supplement for travellers who require their own hotel room. This is because increasingly hotel room prices are quoted with very little difference between single person or two person occupancy. If you are travelling alone and want to share a room with another traveller please contact Siobhan as we are regularly able to pair up travellers in twin rooms to avoid the need for payment of the Single Supplement.

Included in the cost of this Tour are:

Hotel accommodation and breakfasts;

Hotel city taxes;

Luxury coach travel on a 49 seater coach with toilet;

All brewery visits, tours and brewery beer tastings;

Entrance fees to attractions, museums and historical sites;

All items marked with an asterisk above and on the individual detailed tour itinerary when issued;

Copies of Podge’s City Bar Guides and Maps for the town where we stay or spend some time;

Still and sparkling water on the coach;

Pick up from Ipswich (at bus shelter outside Crown House, Crown Street, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP1 3HS (opposite NCP Car Park), Colchester (Southway Chapel St South Layby) or Chelmsford (The Woolpack, Mildmay Road). Arrangements can be made for different joining points on the way to Folkestone or even on the other side of the channel.

Travellers are responsible for the costs of all food and drink apart from items marked with an asterisk on the detailed itinerary plus all passport and insurance costs.

Personal insurance is not included in the Tour price but is strongly advised, as is carrying the free UK Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC) which is the 2021 replacement for the old EHIC. You can still use your EHIC card so long as it is in date, then you need to apply for the GHIC replacement online.

If you have any questions or would like to join us please send Siobhan an email or call on +44 (0)7722 724 558.

All Tours are subject to our Terms and Conditions.

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