Podge’s Belgian Beer Tours

Tour 92 / Belgian Beer from the Wood

Thursday 3 May – Tuesday 8 May 2018

This Tour is based at the excellent four star Hotel Keizershof in the beery city of Aalst where we will explore old Flemish Reds & Browns, Lambic beers and barrel-aged beers. This Tour will include a day experiencing the fourth biennial Rondje Roodbruin, a one day tour around the traditional breweries producing the world-renowned Flemish Red-Brown beers.

Rodenbach Brewery.

For this Tour we will take the coach on the 09.20hr Eurotunnel crossing from Folklestone to Calais and return on the 19.50hr from Calais to Folkestone for the return leg. On this Tour we hope to visit these excellent breweries:

• Rodenbach Brewery in Roeselare, the grand-daddy of all Belgian brewers from the wood. If you have never been, this vast brewery and its cathedrals of foeders make it possibly the most beautiful and photogenic brewery in Belgium, and probably the world. Here we will have a brewery tour* and tasting*.

• 3Fonteinen Lambic O droom in Lot. Legendary 3 Fonteinen brewer/blender Armand Debelder and his partners spent much of 2016 converting a former warehouse into a new complex designed to centralise the breweries operations and allow visitors to see the end-to-end making of Lambic beer. As we will see, it houses a coolship, blending facilities, barrel-ageing rooms, a bottling plant, a bar, tasting rooms and a shop. A brewery will be added in due course. We’ll have a tour* and a taste of Armand’s lambic here*.

• Oude Maalderij (The Old Maltings) in Izegem. Up to recently Jef’s beers were cuckoo brewed at various breweries around Flanders, but late 2016 he started brewing in an impressive brewery constructed on site. He brews a range of barrel aged being Qantelaar Oak Aged, Leviathan (a barley wine aged in Ardbeg whisky barrels), The Kraken (a barley wine aged in Andalusian brandy barrels and Chtulhu, a blend of the last two. We will have an oak-aged tasting at Jef’s*.

• Toye Brewery in Marke on the outskirts of Kortrijk. Geert hand built this brewery which took him three years to get into production using bits of old breweries he had collected over the years. He also went on a welding course so that he could stick them together. His main production is Goedendag (Good Day and also the name for the pikes used in the Battle of the Golden Spurs – have a close look at the bottle label) which is an 8%abv blond beer but he now has a brown and a barrel-aged beer and we will have a tour* and tasting* in his tasting room.

• OostEke Brewery at Gavere. Here we will be sampling some their oak aged beers which are very good indeed.

On this tour we hope to arrange a special opening of the beer café, shop and tasting room Ambarosa in Aalst so that we can try some regional East Flanders beers including the superb and hard to find Glazen Toren beers. STOP PRESS - we have just added to this Tour a beer and chocolate tasting experience at a café in Bavegem. If you would like to join us you'll need to send a deposit of £150 so please call Podge on 01245 354677 or send Podge an email.

Tour Price £835 per person based on sharing in a twin or double room

Single Supplement: £235

If you are travelling alone and want to share a room with another traveller please contact Podge as we are regularly able to pair up travellers in twin rooms to avoid the need for payments of Single Supplements.

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.

All itinerary times are local and approximate.

Personal insurance is not included in the Tour price but is strongly advised, as is carrying the European Health Insurance Card available online, by phone or via the Post Office.

If you have any questions or would like to be added to the interested list please send Podge an email or call him on +44 (0)1245 354677.

All Tours are subject to our Terms and Conditions.

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