Glass half full kind of place

Antwerp’s premier beer festival is a wonderful time to experience the city, finds Neil Geraghty

On a late summer’s evening in Antwerp’s palatial central square, The Grote Markt, a cheerful beer festival, the wonderfully named Bollekesfeest is in full swing.

On an outdoor stage Gers Perdoel a popular Dutch hip hop artist has the crowds singing along to one of his catchy hits but by the food huts all eyes are on a robotically controlled vintage car which is doing some snazzy disco moves. To a funky Bee Gees soundtrack the car spins round, its side panels start flapping and the boot opens and closes to the rhythm.

Some young children are watching with wide eyed fascination but when the car moves towards them they run back and hide nervously behind their parents’ legs.

Suddenly, the car’s bonnet springs open and a mechanical arm pops out clutching a jar of Haribo. Instantly the kids’ fear disappears and they run forward squealing with excitement to grab their favourite sweets.

The Bollekesfeest is guaranteed to induce sniggers among English speaking visitors but Bolleke in Flemish innocently translates as little bowl and refers to the goblet shaped glass in which Antwerp’s most popular beer, de Koninck, is served.

An amber hued pale ale with a refreshing spicy bouquet, de Koninck has been brewed in Antwerp since 1833 but recently an even older brewing tradition has been revived in the city. At a hut decorated with vintage style posters of a sailor swigging a beer in front of a 1930s ocean liner, I stop to try a seef beer.

Until the First World War buckwheat was a traditional flavouring for Antwerp pale ales but with the rise in industrial beer production, the recipe was lost until Johan van Dyck, a former director of de Koninck started a crowd funding campaign to rediscover it.

After months spent rummaging around libraries and interviewing relatives of employees from the old breweries he finally found an old recipe and in 2012 to great acclaim relaunched the beer.

Light, cloudy and with an irresistible citrus aroma, the beer has become a popular fixture of Antwerp’s mellow drinking culture which in the summer transforms the pedestrianised historic centre into a sea of lively terraced bars.

To learn more about Antwerp’s beer traditions the following morning I jump onto a tram to the de Koninck brewery which has an excellent self guided visitors’ trail with humorous

interactive video installations.

Visitors start by having their hands scanned. A hand is the symbol of Antwerp and refers to the legend of a Roman soldier, Brabo who cut off the hand of a giant and threw it into the River Scheldt.

The next room is decorated with hundreds of Bolleke glasses where a comedy duo speaking English and Flemish explain the complexities of Belgium’s widely differing beer glass shapes then a mad scientist probes the microscopic goings on during the fermentation process. Best of all is a vintage delivery van which in true Benny Hill style, takes visitors on a virtual fast forward tour of Antwerp.

From de Koninck I head over to one of Antwerp’s most famous bars, de Kulminator which has long been rated the best place in the world to drink a beer by the influential Ratebeer website.

I walk in and the eccentricity of the place is striking. A giant porcelain teddy bear and a Buddhist shrine flickering with candles decorate the bar. Tinkling harpsichord music provides an almost monastic atmosphere, a feeling heightened by

Clockwise from main: Bollekesfeest; Antwerp’s Grote Markt; enjoying a beer in Koninck brewery

groups of bearded beer enthusiasts who sit in silence hunched over glasses.

I feel completely out of my depth and so order the silliest sounding beer on the menu, the Wild Funky Wit. It’s a wheat beer fermented by micro flora scraped from oak barrels and flavoured with bitter orange and coriander. In common with other wheat beers it has a sour kick which quickly dissolves into an extraordinary fizzing lemony finish.

After the beer I wander back to the festival, order a plate of delicious grey shrimp croquettes, and walk over to the stage where a folk rock band has the audience dancing round in circles of high kicking merriment.

In the wee hours as I walk back to my hotel, a man on a penny farthing cycles past, raising his top hat to wish me good night, a surreal gesture in this delightful eccentric city. ■ Brussels Airlines offers a Hi-belgium

pass for £129. The price includes return flights from Edinburgh to Brussels (25 minutes train ride from Antwerp), unlimited train rides in Belgium and activities vouchers

for two cities in Belgium. For more information on Antwerp visit www. visitantwerp.com and for Flanders, www.visitflanders.com

I feel completely out of my depth so order the silliest sounding beer on the menu