The Beer Ambassador
Johan "Wanne" Madalijns

In the early 1980s, when Johan “Wanne” Madalijns was attending Art School at St-Lukas in Schaerbeek to study architectural drawing, he would wander around Brussels, studying the buildings and discovering the city’s cafés. One afternoon, with a few friends, he tasted the complete beer list at café Chez Jean on the Rouppeplein. After that, he wanted to fully understand how beer flavour was created. He soon began collecting beer glasses, and before long, he had switched the rock band posters above his bed for beer lists from various pubs. 

It was also around this time that Wanne met Lieve Suys. Lieve shared similar interests to Wanne: she loved both art and beer as well. Soon after meeting, they began dating, and to impress her, Wanne drew a picture of the two of them holding hands. He gave the drawing to Lieve as a gift. “By making art you can bring all kinds of expressions,” says Wanne. “It provokes reactions and causes communications.” 

Wanne’s resume in beer is impressive. He is the Chairman of the Lambikstoempers, a large and well-regarded beer club whose name comes from the metal tool used by drinkers in the 1950s to mash sugar cubes into their lambic at a time when it would have been more acidic. He also writes for various beer magazines such as De Zytholoog and Bierpassie. In 2017, he was named an Honorary Knight of the Knighthood of the Brewer’s Mash Staff by the Belgian Brewers Federation. 

In 2018, Lieve and Wanne celebrated 33 years together and 25 years of marriage. They brewed a beer to mark the occasion, an artisanal blonde beer of 7.1% ABV with notes of cardamom, juniper berry, paradise seed, and sweet orange. It was an original recipe conceived by Lieve, and the couple brewed the beer together at Brouwerij 4 Pajot in Vlezenbeek. 

The label of the beer featured the illustration that Wanne had drawn for Lieve when they started dating 33 years previously. 

They named the beer ‘t Begin: “The Beginning”.

“Thanks to my steps in the beer world, I have been able to experience many beautiful moments,” says Wanne. “I can express myself in a creative way by writing articles for magazines. I can enjoy culinary delights, attend great events, and taste fantastic beers. But the most important thing is that I get to share my passions for art, life, and beer with my wife and family.” 

The Sage
Rosa Merckx

In 2020, Rosa Merckx, who turns 98 years old next month, was approached by 3 Belgian authors who wanted to publish a book about her life. The book, they said, would showcase her achievements in stewarding the heritage brands at the Liefmans Brewery in Oudenaarde and celebrate her accomplishments as the first woman to become a brewmaster and operations director in a Belgian brewery.

It’s understandable that the authors wanted to secure the deal. Such a book would be gripping. Rosa Merckx began working at Oud Bruin specialists Liefmans in 1946 as a tri-lingual secretary to the brewery owner Paul Van Gheluwe after he knocked on her door to enquire if she’d be interested. He soon discovered that Rosa had an excellent palette and an acute business acumen. Production and management staff took her advice to change the profile of Liefmans products, and the resulting beers—less acidic, milder, and more balanced—became highly successful. 

Rosa then changed the name of the Ijzerenband beer (Iron Ring) to Goudenband (Golden Ring) and in so doing, avoided a lawsuit for Liefmans. It would go on to become iconic (her signature still adorns the label on bottles of Goudenband today). In 1972, after the death of Van Gheluwe, Rosa took over leadership of the brewery and propelled it into Belgian beer folklore. 

One of her main goals, aside from brewing beer, was to create an open culture at Liefmans and to make sure the employees felt cared for. Liefmans employees are still loyal to her opinions to this day. “I always had good vibrations,” she says. “I brought this with me wherever I went.”  

One of Rosa’s favourite places is her backyard terrace. On warm days, she sits outside on the chair and enjoys the view of the garden, a space filled with green, luscious trees. The Liefmans Brewery stands tall in the distance, as if still under her watchful eye. Through the large pane windows a collection of memories fills the house behind her: of raising a family; of happy times spent with friends; and of impressive achievements at work, only a short walk away. “My body may be old but my spirit is still good,” she says. “I believe this is because I lived a fulfilling life.”

Rosa refused to take part in the book project about her life that the Belgian authors wanted to publish. “Why do people need a romanticized version of my life and success,” she says. The reality of our time here is often more gritty than how stories about us are retold—“There have been ups and downs,” she says honestly—and Rosa champions perspective in a way that only the wise and well-lived can. “Life is a funny thing,” she says. “At first you don’t understand why it went that way. But later on, it makes sense, and you know.”

The Postman
Mario “Bolle” Jates

For 20 years, Mario “Bolle” Jates has seen just about every sunrise on his way to delivering post to the people of Belgium’s German-speaking region in the east of the country.

Mario’s grandmother, Amelie, started a small post office in her stone-walled house in the early 1920’s. His father, Richard was a postman too. Ever since he was a child, Mario has watched his family bring new experiences into the homes of others around him: pieces of news from the region; a love letter; a message from a cherished friend; or some previously unknown information which would go on to enrich their lives.

Family and the post have always been connected. His job as a postman, with its early working hours, allows Mario to spend a lot of time with his wife, Alexandra, and two children, Adam (5) and Anna (3). He speaks enthusiastically about fatherhood and watching his children grow, explore, and learn.

When Mario finishes his shift as a postman, he changes from his B-post attire to a collared shirt, one on which the logo “Bollecious” is embroidered on the upper left side. Bollecious is Mario’s side hustle beer business. The name comes from the nickname his friends gave him at University: Bolle. The nickname originated in the title of a song from a German band, J.B.O.—sometimes known in their home country as James Blast Orchester—the lyrics of which describe how you can turn negative situations into something positive and laugh through life even when times are tough.

Bollecious was born in 2014, when Mario and his wife made a holiday advent calendar filled with 25 different beers from all over Belgium for their friends and family. The advent calendar was such a success, that now six years later he sells  500 calendars per holiday season. He has extended the Bollecious business to holding beer tastings and teaching people all over the region about Belgium’s beer culture. The tastings generally feature 4-6 beers, each of which is paired with food. In the early days of Bollecious, the tastings were for small groups. Now he hosts events with more than one hundred people in attendance.

“The best part about teaching people is opening their eyes to something new,” says Mario. “I apply this to all aspects of my life—with my children, Bollecious, and delivering the post.” 

The Hot Air Balloonist
Philippe De Cock

In 2019, Philippe De Cock and his flying partner, Geert Peirsman flew for 90 hours in a gas balloon from France to Bulgaria. It was the longest either of them had ever flown in a gas balloon, an epic flight they took as participants of the Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett, the world’s oldest gas balloon race and the premier event of world balloon racing.  

Philippe had won the Gordon Bennett cup twice before with flying partner Ronny Van Havere—in 1999 (starting in Albuquerque, USA) and in 2006 (starting in Waasmunster, Belgium)—but during this 2019 race with Geert Peirsman, he broke records: the 90 hour flight is the standing Belgian duration record in gas balloon racing. 

It was another major achievement to add to being 4 times hot air balloon champion (the Belgian Ballon Trophy), 2 times gas balloon long distance world champion (Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett), and holder of the European distance record for flying 2,400km to Norway in 2004 during the Gordon Bennett race. Philippe has 36 years of ballooning experience of all types. When he flies today, his balloon carries the logo of his own brewery.

Philippe was born into his grandfather’s meat business. At 15 years old, he left school and began working with his family full time. But after 35 years, he needed a change. So he quit, sold his half of the business, and spent three months in The Democratic Republic of the Congo working for an orphanage. When he returned, he pledged to do something meaningful with his life.

Philippe’s two children, Charlotte and Joseph, expressed an interest in starting a new family business with their father. After a few start-up failures, a building near their home village went up for sale. The building was a ruin, but at one time, it functioned as a brewery, and the idea for Kerel Brewery was born.

The building needed a complete renovation and the De Cocks also needed to learn how to brew. Joseph took a course and practiced brewing on a homebrew kit in the garage for 14 months. They had no beers, no customers, and no sales. But they knew almost immediately that the beer industry suited them more than the meat industry.

“In the meat business, you can’t imagine other production people coming into your business,” says Philippe. “In the beer industry, other brewers are so kind and want to show you how they make the beer and they want to see how you make yours.”

Philippe combines his passion for ballooning of all types with his beer business. He uses his balloon to advertise the brewery. There’s a quote printed on the side of the balloon in the brewery’s familiar font and branding where one word is often crossed-out and replaced for fun and for emphasis: “I can see your life from here and it needs work beer.”

“Now that my ballooning friends know I own a brewery, I think they look forward to our hot air balloon competitions even more,” says Philippe. “They know I bring a few boxes of Kerel beers with me when we compete, and they somehow always manage to land their balloons close to mine. I find this very funny, and I am happy and grateful to share my family’s beer with my friends.”

The Biologist
Cristal Peck

One vivid memory Cristal Peck has of her childhood in Australia is sticking her face into a mug filled with homemade lager to see how many foam bubbles she could cover her face with.

She hated the taste, but wanted to be a part of her parents’ kitchen sink science experiment.

When she was a little older, her parent’s homebrew hobby showed her that beer was about living organisms and their vital processes. Cristal came to see beer as a celebration of biology. Years later, she completed a Master’s Degree in Biomedical Science. Her main goal in life became finding a way to combine her two passions: biology and beer.

In the summer of 2013, Cristal flew across the world from Melbourne, Australia to Berlin, Germany. She had no job lined up and very little money; only a dream to become a professional brewer in Europe. “Moving to Berlin with no plan was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done,” says Cristal. “But something inside of me had always been drawn to living abroad, so I thought it was now or never.”

Cristal’s life in Germany did not turn out how she thought it might. She was living paycheck to paycheck, struggling with a new language, and getting turned down at every brewery she applied to. Determined to break into the beer industry, Cristal wrote articles for the Berlin based magazine Beer, Bars, and Brewers. Her regular online column, called News from the Mash Tun, was about happenings in the brewing industry, from brewery acquisitions and statistics on global beer consumption to quirky anecdotes. It was varied and fun, but finding work in the industry was proving difficult.

Then in 2017, the owner of Berliner Berg Brewery read an article she had written and offered her a job as a brewer. The role allowed her to study mixed culture fermentation with a microscope while also barrel ageing beers and working with different berries to produce a new fruit Weisse beer release every month. Two years later, she was promoted to the role of Head Brewer. “The biology of brewing beer is something that has resonated with me for a long time,” she says. “The fact that you take this long, starch molecule, and you chop it up, and yeast metabolizes it: this was always a very interesting and fascinating concept to me.”

Cristal’s work did not go unnoticed by others in the industry. She was a biomedical graduate with valuable experience in both a lab environment and in a working brewhouse. In the summer of 2019, she received an email from a recruiter in Belgium who was working on behalf of the malting company, Boortmalt.

It was an offer she simply could not turn down. In 2019, Cristal left Germany and moved to Antwerp in Belgium. As Head Brewmaster and Malt Specialist at Boortmalt, Cristal is now able to combine both of her passions in one project. Boortmalt is the world’s leading malting company, supplying barley malt to brewers, distillers, and food industries through their 27 malting plants around the world and their 3 million tonnes production capacity. 

Not only does Cristal brew and carry out lab tests on different malts and yeast viability, but she’s also leading a malt innovation project for Boortmalt’s daughter company, Belgomalt. As part of their Creative Series, she produced a Winter Infusion malt, a barley malt with an infusion of spices such as cinnamon, star anise, clove, and orange peel intended to take Belgian winter ales to a different level. 

She’s now preparing to release a Summer Infusion, inspired by lavender fields and Spanish orange tree yards. Belgomalt claims it’s a malt with a delicate floral lavender note coupled with a refreshing, bright, citrus character.

The Protégé
Michaël Blancquaert

Michaël Blancquaert was an accounting major working night shifts at a hotel.  He had become unhappy with the mundane nature of his job and was craving a role where he could work with his hands. In March of 2010, looking for a change in his life, he applied for a position he had seen in a newspaper. He wanted to work with a small company so that he could enjoy the feeling of being close to his colleagues. He wanted to learn from someone who had experience, and who would invest in him and his future. 

The job for which he applied was production assistant at Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen. When he arrived for his interview, Lydie Hulpiau sat at a table in 3 Fonteinen’s original lambik-o-droom building, and rather than ask him about his qualifications or motivations, the interview took the form of a relaxed conversation over his first ever glass of Geuze. Lydie’s husband, the 3 Fonteinen brewer and blender Armand De Belder, came to say hello, but he was too busy cleaning barrels to talk for long and quickly left. Michaël didn’t know much about beer. But after the interview, he was hired immediately.

If he didn’t see much of Armand Debelder at his interview, he saw plenty of him on the job. Aside from showing Michaël how Lambic is produced during long hours in the brewery and barrel rooms, Armand took the time to teach Michaël the history of Lambic, of 3 Fonteinen, and of the area of Belgium in which it had been born. 

Michaël and Armand would spend time together in the car, driving around the Senne valley, with Armand telling stories about the brewery and the special places he believed were related to Lambic and Geuze. 

Armand took Michaël to old Lambic brewers that no longer existed at that time—Winderickx, Eylenbosch, and Goossens—and would bring him to Gaasbeek Castle and to Café de Zwaan to share with him the forgotten histories of the beer style in the region. Michaël should know these places before producing beer at 3 Fonteinen, he said. Michaël’s interest in this new world grew and the experience fuelled a passion for brewing and blending Lambic.

Early on Sunday, March 6, 2022, Armand Debelder passed away after a two-year battle with prostate cancer. “Not only did we work together, but we also had a great connection,” says Michaël. “Armand was my mentor, my soulmate, and a father figure to me. Not only in the beer industry but also in life.”

Now, 12 years after that job interview, Michaël is part-owner of the brewery, in charge of production at 3 Fonteinen. “I never went a day to work since 2010,” says Michaël. “I can never thank Armand enough for bringing this passion into my life.”

The Conservator
Rudi Ghequire

Rudi Ghequire’s office in Roeselare is museum-like in nature. Located on the first floor of a brewing institution founded in 1821—before Belgium existed as an independent country—the office is filled with antiques, books, art, posters, and documents. It’s an office in which the General Manager and Master Brewer of Brouwerij Rodenbach answers emails and hosts meetings. 

A conservator is a person responsible for the repair and preservation of items of cultural or environmental interest, such as buildings or works of art. This office on the first floor of the Roeselare brewery is a space which demonstrates that the preservation of Brouwerij Rodenbach’s cultural heritage dominates Rudi Ghequire’s life. 

As a child, Rudi would help his parents on their farm and assist his mother in making butter, cheese, and bread. He eventually completed studies in agricultural engineering with the ambition to one day manage his own farm. But then, he accepted a job at the Rodenbach brewery soon after his studies finished in 1982.

“My dream when I was young was to be a farmer,” says Rudi. “It’s still in me, but I have learned there is more than only farming. Beer introduced me to a world that is an extension of farming.”

Rudi was joining a brewery and family with a celebrated history. In addition to being brewers, the Rodenbachs were soldiers, poets, writers, entrepreneurs, and politicians. The old brew house was built in 1864. The oak foeders, some aged 150 years old, are protected as industrial heritage in Belgium. 

When Rudi started at Rodenbach, he worked with his predecessor, Jacques Lambert. After one year, Jacques retired, but before he did, he gave Rudi the Rodenbach brewing book which his father, Leon Lambert, had started writing in 1925. It contains all of the original recipes and raw materials used to brew the mixed fermentation beers for which Rodenbach had become famous. Now that this beer bible was in Rudi’s possession, it was his responsibility to keep it safe and to uphold the brewing techniques of Flemish Red Brown beer which had been passed down by previous generations of brewers.

“I discovered so many things here over the last 40 years,” says Rudi. “I obtained so much knowledge and gathered so many stories. Sharing knowledge is one of the most important things to me and I will share my knowledge about the brewery with anyone who wants to listen to me.”

Rudi’s five most cherished pieces in his office include a painting of Pieter Ferdinand Rodenbach, a map for blind people created by Alexander Rodenbach, the brewing book of Leon Lambert, the first constitution of Belgium (written in Flemish in 1852), and the first flag of Belgium from 1830.

Rudi says he’s always enjoyed history, but feels a special pride in collecting pieces which, in his words, “are the heart and soul of the brewery and Rodenbach family.”

Conserving this heritage has become a healthy obsession. “It is one of the ways to continue the legacy of this family and to keep them alive,” says Rudi. “And it is an honour.”

The Food Innovator
Rosemarie Verlinden

After a long night of catering work at a wedding in 2018, Rosemarie Verlinden fell deep into conversation with one of the wedding guests about food innovation, food waste, and how to make the planet a better place. Rosemarie had always been aware of food waste as a child, but this conversation revealed some startling facts: One third of the food produced worldwide is thrown away, and in Flanders alone, consumers discard 150,000 tons of food every year. Rosemarie and her younger brother Michaël were devastated by these statistics, and quickly embarked on a mission to educate, innovate, and inspire. Something could be done about food waste in the world.

Rosemarie can still close her eyes and remember her experiences with food as a little girl: Specifically, her grandmother Dimpha’s old, wrinkly hands finishing the final touches on her homemade cheese and potato croquettes. Their countryside home was always filled with sunlight, wildflowers, mouth-watering smells, and fresh herbs from the garden. Rosemarie and Michaël spent most of their childhood baking. One day it was cookies. Another it was ‘“crocodile shaped baguettes”. They stole ideas from the stack of children’s cookbooks in the corner of the kitchen. 

Shortly after that conversation with the wedding guest, Rosemarie and her brother Michaël, the creative-science duo, began cooking together in a kitchen which was quite different from their childhood: Atelier M. FoodLab. The FoodLab provides sustainable catering for companies and organisations, as well as assisting companies and producers in “no waste” product development. Michaël was a qualified Bio-Engineer in Nutrition. Rosemarie had a passion for cooking and educating people in sustainability. These things combined made them a force to be reckoned with.

“Food innovation is my baby and at Atelier M. FoodLab, we strive to create original recipes using every single part of a piece of food,” says Rosemarie. “Think leaf to root. For example, my brother and I have created a roasted nut mix with flavours such as BBQ, smoked, and sweet. This was all flavoured with coffee grinds. Even our business cards are made from organic nuts.”

But another significant sustainable waste issue came to light. Rosemarie was informed that the beer industry creates over 150+ tonnes of waste every year during their brewing processes. Rosemarie and Michaël couldn’t believe it. They set about trying to contribute to a solution. In 2019, Atelier M. Foodlab connected with De Wilde Brouwers, a brewery based in Merelbeke, near Ghent, and took on the challenge of creating recipes out of the brewery’s two types of beer waste: draff, spent grain that remains after wort production; and trub, the compounds and hop debris left behind after the wort has been boiled and transferred for cooling. The waste came from three of De Wilde’s beers: Louis XVIII; Termont; and Troggeling.

Rosemarie and Michaël were surprised to find that the process of using beer waste was very similar to working with food waste. The most challenging difference was the mass amounts. But using waste in large quantities meant they had recipes they could also mass produce easily. The waste particles were examined in the food lab and then repurposed. They processed the draff to make it “less fine” and used it as a flour substitute to create mustard and marshmallow cookies. The trub was used as a flavour contributor and as an extra liquid to make meringue custard for an ice cream dessert.

“Ideas are never the issue,” explains Rosemarie. “It’s been great fun figuring out original recipes to produce with residue beer flow but we enjoy the challenge and know this is just the beginning of collaborations with Belgian brewers.”

The Collector
Jef Pirens

When Jef Pirens was young, beer was just a crate of Jupiler that he consumed to get drunk with his friends. Then, on a winter evening in his late teenage years, Jef walked into ‘t Brugs Beertje, a café in Bruges that offered over 300 different styles of beer. The beer menu was divided into categories by region, immediately intriguing Jef. Before the night ended, he bought a few bottles of beer to take home with him to remember his discovery. 

“I always liked stuff,” says Jef, who nows owns and runs brewpub D’Oude Maalderij in the West Flemish town of Izegem. “Not expensive stuff, but things to collect for memories. I wanted to take the bottles home because it was a piece of history and I loved how the labels looked.”

Jef’s fascination with beer escalated quickly. More pubs. More beer bottles to add to his home collection. Jef and his friends eventually began experimenting with brewing their own beer, hosting tastings for friends and family to showcase the different flavours they were producing. But when his friends began to lose interest, Jef doubled down, attending beer festivals regularly, providing tastings in his home, and brewing more often. When he began leaving his weekday job early so that he could brew, he realised his passion was no longer just a hobby.

“I never decided it,” says Jef. “It snuck up on me. I thought maybe ‘this hobby’ needed to be my full-time job. I was already building the business without realising. I was just doing what I loved.”

Officially opening in 2015, D’Oude Maalderij is a brewpub-meets-workspace-meets-home that Jef runs with his girlfriend, Liesbet. When you walk into the pub, you are completely blindsided by a barrage of vintage enamel signs, furniture, games, puzzles, old meters, and other things he has rescued from flea markets and thrift stores. It’s a building filled with a thousand pieces that have nothing to do with each other, but each has its own story that coalesce to tell us about the things that Jef values.

“The pieces I collect are things from a time when people had time to make something beautiful, not just functional,” says Jef.

In the right-hand corner of his bar, for example, is “Magic: the Gathering”, a card game in which wizards cast spells, summon creatures, and exploit magic objects to defeat their opponents. Several names in the game inspired D’Oude Maalderij’s “Monster Series”, illustrated with detailed graphics of sea creatures by his artist friend in Spain, Antonio Brava, and consisting of 14% ABV barleywines aged on a variety of different barrels.

Stepping into D’Oude Maalderij is like stepping into a museum of everything Jef enjoys in his life. “I became tired quite soon of all the different jobs I had,” says Jef. “But with beer, you can never get tired of it because you can never drink it all, brew it all, and know it all. The information is endless.”

Jef is often found standing behind the bar, arm tattoos on display, hair slicked back, talking casually to customers against a background soundtrack of blues and jazz. His main goal was to create an atmosphere that made other people feel good, while staying true to who he is. In doing so, he’s creating memories for everyone who visits.

The Cheese Maker
Andreas Keul

Andreas Keul quit his technology job in the “big smoke” of Brussels city in 2009, and packed his bag for a three-month expedition to work on a milk farm in the Swiss Alps.

He worked 19 hour days herding cows up and down the steep, green hillsides of Alpe Aegina, and fully enjoyed reconnecting with nature in the village of Reckingen where he was staying. It was during this time in Switzerland where he learned all about the process of producing cheese. 

Every Saturday as a young adult, Andreas had come home to witness his French roommate preparing a feast which filled the house with an abundance of different aromas. Now, in Switzerland, his curiosity for food intensified. No office buildings. No cell phone service. Total nature. Just a gratitude for liberating farm work and for the Swiss farming couple who had just introduced him to his life’s purpose of making cheese.

Five years after returning from his trip to Switzerland, Andreas opened his own business, Fromagerie le Valèt in the village of Waimes in Belgium’s Liège province. Not only does Andreas make a unique quality of cheese, but one of his cheeses is “affiné à la Gueuze Cantillon”—“refined with Cantillon Gueuze”. 

To produce this cheese, Andreas pours the Gueuze over three wheels. The cheese is then soaked in the beer for 24 hours before going into the cellar for ripening. This gives the cheese a specific taste: some sweetness, with hints of the beer’s fermentation profile. The yeast on the crust gives it a delicious, potent smell and the cheese becomes a different colour, inside and out.

“It’s a big world of cheese,” says Andreas. “For one producer, their formula can be perfect, and for another [the same formula] could be a total disaster. My field of work is art. I am grateful everyday for my Switzerland experience, and that I get to surround myself with people I love, and have a career that completely fulfills me.” 

The Cyclist
Achim Leufgen

Agroup of cyclists came to a sudden halt in the middle of a forest in the East of Belgium, with 13km behind them and 2km to go on their route. A feast of food and beer was set out for them to enjoy. One of the organisers of the race was Achim Leufgen, who owned a bike shop in Schönberg. Achim had cycled all over, including in unforgiving Italian mountain races with extreme snow and wind pelting his face. But here, the cyclists on this route were stopping for beer and pizza before the end. This was Belgium. And this was Achim’s race.

Achim’s passion for biking, both mountain and road, began in the forests of East Belgium which doubled as his backyard. When he turned 15 years old, he was introduced to the world of mechanics. As he began to learn the ins and outs of cars, he developed an interest in learning the same about styles of bikes. Soon, he could fix and fine-tune bikes for himself and for all his friends whenever they had issues. The passion turned to an obsession and he decided to attend a seven month Masters program in Frankfurt, Germany to further this education in mechanics.

After completing the course in Germany and returning to Belgium, the fixing of bikes for his friends quickly turned into a full time business on which he embarked with his wife, Elke. They called their bike shop “Race Point”. Customers, first local, and soon cyclists from other parts of Belgium, came in search of Achim’s bike expertise. The lines outside Race Point grew longer and longer. The bike shop was only 60 square metres in size and it became increasingly difficult to accommodate their ballooning clientele. When pro-cyclists from all over Europe started showing up, Achim and Elke knew they had to move to a bigger space.

Ten years after opening, Achim and Elke expanded to a new location which had space for them to work on mechanics and help people choose their best performance bikes. Achim hosts bike tours in the summer where he combines his love for cycling, nature, and beer. One of the events Race Point organises for both mountain and road bikers is that specially designed 15km route during which Elke meets the cyclists in the forest with pizza and beers. The beers include Cornet, Chimay, Richtenberger, and La Chouffe, but she also brings along beer made at home by those in the community. The cyclists bond not only over riding, but over another part of their shared Belgian heritage: local, home-brewed beer.

“I feel the most free and myself when I am sitting on my bike, legs pedaling fast, and wind rushing through my body,” says Achim. “With our bike shop, I am able to share this passion for cycling with others, and help them find an appropriate bike that can help them find their joy on the road as well.”

The TV Presenter
Paula Yunes

After a month-long trip to Belgium in 2015, Paula Yunes sat on a flight from Brussels Airport to São Paulo and she cried. She had never considered living anywhere other than in her home in Brazil. But in the previous weeks, the culture, the people, and the beer scene had caused her to fall in love with Belgium. A move was on the cards. Her partner, Valéry De Breucker, whom she’d met in Brazil, was from Belgium. But she had worked so hard to build up her career in Brazil. What would she even do in Belgium? 

In Brazil, Paula started out working a mundane, 9-5 marketing job until a former colleague from university invited her to work in his company selling Brazilian craft beers. She dove head first into the beer world, completing a beer sommelier course, attending beer festivals, and visiting breweries.

As part of this period of discovery, Paula filmed a short video for a Brazilian magazine about beer pairings for the Christmas holidays. A producer saw the video and contacted her with an opportunity to present her own reality TV show about craft beer. The 10-episode show, Cervejantes, focused on a different home brewer that Paula would work with during each episode. “I still dream about the TV show today,” says Paula. “It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. It was my chance to share my passion for beer with the entire country of Brazil.”

Paula worked on a variety of projects for different beer businesses and eventually met Valéry De Breucker, who was originally from Brussels. They started homebrewing. The first beer they created together was The One, a very dry Saison of 6.5% ABV with a fruity, spicy character. After that initial trip back in 2015, it was decided that the couple would move to Belgium for good. 

In Belgium, Paula and Valéry both worked in the beer industry; Paula for a small brewery close to Liège for one year as an intern brewer and Valéry for Fantôme, learning about production and distribution, and the business of beer. The first beer they brewed together when they moved to Belgium was The One, the Saison they had created together in Brazil. It was also the beer they served at their wedding when they were married in 2016.

In 2017, Paula and Valéry decided to quit their respective jobs and open their very own brewpub, Brasserie Atrium. The brewery is located in the village of Marche-en-Famenne, a municipality in the Belgian province of Luxembourg which although small in population, offers the opportunity to serve larger urban areas within a short distance such as Charleroi, Namur, and Liège. 

“Atrium” is a Latin word meaning “entrance hall”, a place which gives access to other environments. Paula and Valéry’s intention was to create unconventional beers in a unique space where people could enjoy new sensory experiences. 

Atrium’s beers have been recognised at international beer awards, particularly The One (6.5% ABV). It’s the beer they brewed first together in Brazil, the first beer they homebrewed after moving to Belgium, and the beer they served at their wedding. The One was named the World’s Best Saison at the World Beer Awards in 2019 and received the Gold Star Award from the European Beer Star Awards in the same year.

Although she now lives in Belgium, Brazil will always be a part of who Paula is and what Atrium does. She incorporates her Brazilian identity into Atrium’s offerings, serving Pão de queijo tapas at the brewpub and creating beers with Brazilian fruits sourced from her home country such as guava and passionfruit.

The Accordionist
Benedikte Coutigny

On the morning of 26 September 2011, Benedikte Coutigny welcomed Queen Mathilde of Belgium to her  ’t Hoppecruyt hop farm in Proven, a small townland of Poperinge. 

After guiding the Queen through the hop vines, she led her into a small bar on the farm where she gave her a private rendition of songs on the accordion. She played old tales of the region’s hop growing territory. It was a very special moment for Benedikte who, now a hop farmer, had given up her dream of studying music years before.

As a child, Benedikte begged her parents to let her attend music school. But concerned about the stability of such a career, they encouraged her to take a different direction. Benedikte went on to become a teacher and worked at an institute for people with disabilities. But she never gave up music; playing her guitar and singing. 

Benedikte was 20 years old when she met her now husband, Wout Desmyter, a 4th generation hop farmer. Benedikte decided to make the switch from teaching to working with him in the family business. She enjoyed the work a lot more than she anticipated, packing the hops, taking care of paperwork, and sometimes helping her husband amongst the hop vines. “When I was younger, I never thought I would be a hop farmer,” says Benedikte. “I am from Poperinge, so I have seen it my whole life. When you are born here, hops are normal. But I didn’t know how many varieties there were and how they actually grew.”

But Benedikte missed the personal connections she had made when she was a teacher. Tours around the hop farm became the remedy to that, showing people how a hop farm works. Twenty years later, Benedikte’s stories and accordion performances have become a core part of ‘t Hoppecruyt’s identity.

“I started learning to play the accordion when I was 30 years old,” says Benedikte. “It’s very useful here on the farm because the sound of the instrument is a nice combination to the old songs I sing from the region about picking hops.”

The different songs she sings at the end of farm tours, accompanying herself on the accordion, date back generations and were sourced from local families, often featuring lyrics in the region’s dialect about picking hops and drinking too much beer. 

Benedikte writes the words of the songs on a board in the farm’s bar so that visitors can sing along with her at the end of their tour. On her visit in 2011, Queen Mathilde of Belgium listened politely as Benedikte played and sang, but she did not join in. She did, according to Benedikte however, leave the farm happy.

The Tarot Reader
Nacim Menu

When you walk into Brasserie L’Ermitage on Rue Lambert Crickx in Brussels, you are bombarded with colorful flashes of art on every wall. Each painting is linked to one of the tarot cards, purportedly used by some to gain insight into the past, present, and future. Nacim Menu is one of the owners of Brasserie L’Ermitage. Together with his co-founders, he named the brewery after a well-known Tarot symbol. 

“The Hermit” is depicted on the tarot card as an old man, standing on a mountain peak, carrying a staff in one hand and a lit lantern containing a six-pointed star in the other. The Hermit card suggests that you are in a phase of introspection, drawing your attention inwards and looking for answers within. L’Ermitage’s flagship beer is an IPA of 5.5% ABV called Lanterne. The Hermit’s lantern is said to be a Lamp of Truth, used to guide the unknowing.

When Nacim was growing up in Stambruges, a tiny village in the Province of Hainaut, his mother, Nacira, would play with a deck of colorful cards. They weren’t the deck of 52 playing cards seen in most family homes, but tarot cards: an unusual configuration of in-depth drawings which represent different meanings about life. 

Nacim went on to study filmmaking in Brussels. He wanted to be a script writer. During his film studies, he discovered Alejandro Jodorowsky, a Chilean-French multimedium artist venerated in cult cinema for his violently surreal images and mysticism. ”He’s like the pope of tarot,” says Nacim. “I started to dig into it and I fell in love with the symbolism and the mystery around it; not as a fortune telling object, but more as a way of seeing the world around us and learning about ourselves.”

Nacim soon landed a job in Montreal, Canada, where he worked for a film distributor. There were local specialty beers everywhere. “When I got the job in Canada, I thought to myself, ‘oh no, I am going to really miss the Belgium beers,” he says. “But it was the exact opposite; I actually preferred the beer in Canada and wanted to bring this knowledge and spread it onto my home country.”

When he got back to Belgium, Nacim began attending tarot readings on a regular basis. “I was more interested in the history of the cards, the symbolism around it, and all the interpretations you can find,” he says. “I really like how they are all connected to each other.” Nacim has tattoos of the Tarot on his body. And he still collects special tarot card decks from all around the world. “Now all our core range takes inspiration from tarot cards,” says Nacim.  

When Nacim started Brasserie L’ermitage with François Simon and Henri Bensaria in 2017, the three co-founders asked some street artists from Brussels to interpret the tarot cards on the walls of the brewery in their street art style. Nacim and his business partners hosted tarot readings in the brewery taproom with tarot specialists, with tarot symbolism surrounding them on all sides: The Mat; the Moon; The Hangman; The Tower; and the Strength. 

The biggest and most impressive wall artwork in the taproom is a depiction of The Star. On the tarot card of The Star, a naked woman kneels down with one foot in the water and the other foot on land. Above her head, a star shines. In each hand, she holds a jug, pouring from one jug into the water and from the other onto the land. The woman is said to be experiencing her core essence and The Star is said to represent inspiration and hope; a sense that you are truly blessed by the universe at this time. Nacim and his colleagues see this symbol, in a large colourful display, every single day.

The Pianist
Karel Boon

There were two things in Karel Boon’s childhood that shaped who he is today; music and beer. Growing up, Karel watched his father—Lambic brewing legend Frank Boon—fine-tune Lambics in the brewery attached to their house. “I could wake up and come out of the bed in my pajamas and go into the brewery without going outside,” says Karel. “It was always a part of the house. So this place has always felt like home.”

But in those early years, it was music that had his heart. Young Karel would spend five hours a day practicing the same songs and trying to balance the same notes, over 100 times each. He was particularly drawn to the expansive symphonies and virtuosic piano music of the Romantic Era; to the contemplative, meditative, almost otherworldly compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven’s late period; and to the way in which Sergei Rachmaninoff, as an accomplished pianist himself, fully explored the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument in his music.

After music, he became fascinated with computers, a world of systems which required their own fine-tuning and balance. He even started his own YouTube channel, reviewing computer hardware such as cases, headsets, battery packs, keyboards, and mouses. It was as if beer was nowhere in his future.

Karel’s brother, Jos, began working at the brewery and Karel started attending beer festivals for fun with his family. He saw that the beer his family brewery was creating was special and realised quickly how unique Lambic was.

“Working in the brewery was always in the back of my mind,” says Karel. “Even when I was pursuing different interests.”

Karel went to a University for Economic Sciences and specialised in marketing and production planning and logistics. After a 6 month internship with the Trappist brewery Chimay, Karel began officially working as the head of Marketing and IT for Boon Brewery with his father and brother.

“Music and beer are both about fine tuning and balance,” says Karel. “When we talk about brewing beer, we always speak about having the complex beer taste balanced. And with piano playing, you are watching the movements of your fingers and focusing on the weight you put on the key. You must find a balance to make the note sound correct. And when you get it right, it’s fantastic.”

The Mixer
Eric Lampertz

As a child, Eric Lampertz was a mixer. He mixed soda and flour in the kitchen; he mixed chemicals on the farm passed down from his grandparents to his parents; and later, he mixed liquids in chemistry class at school. The mixer eventually completed his master’s in industrial engineering in 2014, specialising in chemistry and biochemistry. 

“In restaurants and at home I always felt the need to mix different liquids or mix them with other products to see how it changes,” says Eric. Not only would he mix different drinks together, but he’d mix drinks with spices and herbs.

During a biotechnology course he took during his studies, he was introduced to the science of beer. Soon, he had built a nano brewery for recipe development, tucked away in the farmhouse barn his grandparents had used for milk production 50 years ago. The project was part of laboratory work during his studies, but soon became his own commercial beer brand: Nova Villa.

“Chemistry gives you the opportunity to create new things,” says Eric. “If you understand the chemical and biochemical processes, you can influence science to create new flavours.”

By 2017, Nova Villa had evolved from a recipe to a brewery servicing a local market in Ostbelgien. Eric produces Belgian ales, including a copper-coloured Strong Pale Ale of 8% ABV with a complex malt character and hoppy aromatics, and a Tripel with citrus, flowery, and fruity notes. 

“The fact that my beer is produced where my grandparents used to also make their living is very special to me,” says Eric, now mixing his career with his passion and with his family heritage.

The Bookworm
Catherine Minne

Catherine Minne’s childhood bedroom was filled with books. She loved the “Bibliothèque rose” series from Hachette: Enyd Blyton’s: Oui-Oui (Noddy); Le Club des Cinq (The Famous Five); and George Chaulet’s Fantômette series about a superhero. 

She worked in a bookshop in her home city of Brussels, Librairie Candide on Place Georges Brugmann in Ixelles, describing it as paradise for book lovers: it was open 7 days a week and you could pick a book and then devour it in the bakery next store, while devouring a pastry at the same time. There was a park nearby in case you wanted a different reading environment, or a place to digest the stories on a stroll. 

When she was a teenager, her dream was to own her own bookshop. But Catherine’s dream was put on hold when a different passion emerged in her thirties.

Catherine met Philippe Minne and the pair bonded over beer and wine and experiences in cosy cafés and quirky pubs. The couple married and moved to the Ardennes, homebrewing obsessively and attending beer festivals to talk beer with like minded people. “We really felt like we belonged with this movement and with the people,” says Catherine. “It was a nice feeling to be there and involved in the up and coming craft beer world.”

Catherine says that moving to the Ardennes from Brussels in the 1990s was one of the best things she could have done. She loved being completely surrounded by nature and she had a larger space to grow her book collection. She threw herself into her garden, and the couple started a family. Then, came a business.

In 2008, Catherine and Philippe launched Brasserie de Bastogne, changing the name in 2018 to Brasserie Minne when they moved location to Baillonville and upscaled the brewing facility. Philippe manages production and Catherine focuses her efforts on marketing. She talks to consumers and leads work on creating their beer labels. Each label has a story relating to the animals that share the Ardennes with them, and they’re often stacked together in a particular order beside each other, as if catalogued in a library. 

“If you told me when I was younger that I would work for a beer company, I would have laughed,” says Catherine. “Books were my life and I had no interest. Now, I couldn’t wish for anything more.” 

Books never left Catherine’s life. At the minute, they’re scattered in rooms all over her house, but she’s creating what she describes as an “English-style library” in her home, with two oversized club chairs and an open fire. And the dream of her own bookshop is closer than ever before. Work has begun to transform the top floor of the brewery into her own bookstore, a project that will keep her busy for the coming years. First, she’ll add all their beer books. After that, there’ll be a children’s section for Noddy, The Famous Five, and the superhero Fantômette.

The Runner
Casey Wellman

Casey Wellman comes from a small, countryside town in Minnesota, USA where it was normal for children to participate in several different sports to find out which activity fit best. Casey tried it all—tennis, basketball, soccer, and track and field—but nothing seemed to click. As a teenager, he could think of few things worse than running. Casey quit track and field after just 2 weeks because of shin splints and his “two left feet”. 

In 2012, Casey studied abroad, in Brussels, while working towards his degree in Communications, and as many do, became infatuated with Belgian beer. He visited breweries a few times a week and constantly asked questions about flavours and ingredients. The Belgian beer industry felt like a place in which he could thrive.

In 2014, when Casey was 23 years old, he moved with no job and little money to another great beer nation—the Czech Republic—to try to turn his growing passion for beer into a career. He began working as a guide leading evening tours to different pubs around the city and giving tasting classes on the side. But the hospitality scene began to get the best of him. Late nights turned into even later nights, and mornings became non-existent. His goal of making it back to Belgium to work in beer seemed to be moving further away. He decided he needed a morning activity to establish a more healthy lifestyle, so Casey gave running another try.

Casey began running everyday. He started signing up for races. A 10 kilometre run turned into a 21 kilometre run, and eventually he was registering for 42.195 kilometre marathon races. He began hosting “field trips” with his beer tasting classes in Prague where they would travel to Belgium, rent a bus, and go around to different breweries tasting beers, asking questions, and soaking in as much knowledge as they could. Casey ended up applying for a job at Brouwerij De Ranke, and was hired after his (now) boss remembered him from the Prague Field Trip. 

Casey now runs the De Ranke taproom 2 days a week alongside his colleague Emiel Decuypere and helps the production team to prepare hops, fulfill orders, work the bottling line, and wash and fill kegs.

Both the beer industry and running continue to be a constant in Casey’s life. He’s now got three marathons under his belt, as well as finishing a 55 kilometre ultra-marathon in Iceland. In 2021, he completed the Beer Lovers Marathon in Liège where he ran 42.2 kilometres, drinking 16 beers along the way. It was a fun way to combine his love for beer and running and was the first of many beer marathons.

“Running is something I have to do now,” says Casey. “If I don’t do it, I don’t feel good. It is a way for me to check on my health without quitting my career because I really love beer and working in this industry.”

The Philosopher
Marta Resmini

Marta Resmini spent 12 years working to obtain her PhD at the University of Leuven. 12 years of dedication and hard work. 12 years that would culminate in her trying to finalise her Philosophy thesis. 12 years in which she was fascinated by human connection and understanding. 

But during those 12 years, she had also come to immerse herself in the Belgian beer world. So much so that she was offered a job in beer and faced a serious choice: finish the final section of her Philosophy thesis and make a life from her PhD; or take a job with a young upstart brewery in Brussels called Brasserie De La Senne as their Marketing & Sales Representative.

Italian Marta Resmini moved from Milan to Leuven in 2008 knowing no one and having to learn a new language. She first came to Belgium to finish her Masters degree in Philosophy and fell in love with the country and its culture. Soon, she had moved to Brussels and was embarking on her PhD.

Belgium was different to Italy. Marta would walk aimlessly through the streets of Brussels, looking at art and visiting specialist beer shops. She became a regular at Brasserie de la Senne, stopping in every Friday to pick up her crate—of Zinnebir, Taras Boulba, or Stouterik—for the weekend, socialising with the brewery staff while she was there.

As Marta’s fascination with beer grew, her draft thesis began collecting dust. One of the owners of Brasserie de la Senne, Yvan De Baets, noticed Marta’s interest, and lent her parts of a brewing kit to experiment with making her own beer at home. When Marta found more joy in brewing beer out of her bathroom than attending school, the completion of her thesis seemed to move further away.  

On one occasion, Marta made a Tiramisu and used De La Senne’s Brusseleir Black IPA of 8% ABV as the dip for the biscuits instead of coffee. The beer’s coco and roasted coffee profile added a richness to the Italian dessert. She biked over to the brewery with the Tiramisu in her hand and when the owners saw and tasted it, they immediately offered her a part-time job.

That original part-time job prefaced an offer not long after for a full-time position at the brewery and Marta faced that important choice. But in the end, it wasn’t really much of a choice. She full-heartedly quit her PhD and hasn’t looked back since. 

That was six years ago and counting. Marta is now the Commercial Representative for Sales at Brasserie De La Senne, taking care of customers in Brussels and the Wallonia Region. Although she never received the “paper” that says she completed her Philosophy PhD, she still uses everything she learned during that time in her everyday life. The reason Marta loves beer is the same reason she loves philosophy—human connection and understanding. 

“No academic knowledge is worth the human experience and knowledge you can get when you simply sit down and talk to people,” says Marta. “The most important aspect in life is character. It is not about what I do, but how I do it, and the people whom I share it with.”

The Illustrator
Amaury “Ammo” Dastarac

Amaury “Ammo” Dastarac is a French illustrator who came to Brussels in 2009 in need of a change from his life as a “starving artist” in Bordeaux. Originally producing gig posters for Rock bands, Ammo now illustrates beer labels for breweries such as No Science, De Ranke, and Cantillon. His art appears on the bottles and cans of some of Belgium’s most iconic brands. His most recent project—with new Brussels brewery Brasserie De La Mule—is setting the beer scene alight. 

As a 7 year old, Ammo would sit quietly in his room in the rural family home in Villeneuve-sur-lot, France, with his pen glued to his hand. He would flip through the white blank pages in a new drawing book, thinking of the comics he would create next. Countryside life was quiet and Ammo filled most of his time letting his imagination run wild. Ammo’s older brother, Joe, saw his passion for drawing and has become one of the biggest supporters of Ammo’s creativity. Joe told Ammo to believe in himself; to keep pushing and practicing; and that one day his art would turn into something truly special. Ammo kept believing in himself, and he kept pushing and practicing.

Ammo’s passion for drawing grew stronger as time went on. He attended Art School as a teenager and began to focus mainly on illustrating music gig posters, flyers, and graphic designs on clothing bands for musicians in Bordeaux. He secured work from the American Record Label, Sargent House, plunging him deeper into the music world. His style of line drawing and his obvious love for hardcore rock and heavy metal helped make his work a hot commodity in the music industry. After 10 years of similar work in the same place, Ammo began to feel stagnant in his art and his move to another country was a search for new inspiration. 

After moving to Belgium in 2009, Ammo would sit in a tiny apartment in Brussels with his wife and a drawing book full of ideas. He was an Art teacher in a local school and he was growing his portfolio of music clients. Ammo began meeting people who straddled both the music and beer world, and introductions preceded commissions from Maxime Dumay of No Science, Nino Bacelle of De Ranke, and Jean Van Roy of Cantillon.  

“Drawing has always been a form of meditation for me,” says Ammo. “Feeling the energy and contact of the pen touching the paper is my ultimate happiness. I can’t live without drawing. If I don’t create, my brain would explode.”

Ammo’s favourite projects are ones that challenge him; ones outside his comfort zone. When Joël Galy, a fellow heavy metal lover and former brewer at the Brasserie De La Senne opened the first brewery in Schaerbeek in 60 years (Brasserie De La Mule), he contacted Ammo for something different. Together, Ammo and Galy created illustrations for De La Mule’s can artwork with an American Goldrush vibe, dense pencil lines and decorated midwestern typography with a sense of an exciting new frontier. It’s the way Ammo always works. He wants to become close to the owners and their company so he can better understand their needs and design a graphic that tells their story.  

“Art is like cooking,” says Ammo. “For example, everyone knows how to make Spaghetti Bolognese, but they all have their own unique recipe for it. This is the inspiration I have behind my illustrations. This is why art makes the world go round.”

The Surfboard Shaper
Job Verpoorte

In the mid 2010’s, Job Verpoorte would come home from long and stressful days of work, set his briefcase down on the kitchen counter, change out of his suit and tie, and sit down to begin his evening meditation routine of woodworking. 

At first, the engineering position he held had been a dream job: designing spaces such as breweries, theatres, schools, and museums. He had been given the opportunity to work abroad on two brewery expansion projects in Kaluga, Russia, as well as on a project for a start-up brewery in Plzen, Czech Republic. 

Job was Dutch, and originally based in the Netherlands, but he had always had a connection with Belgium. When he was a child, Job’s family used to take holiday trips to Antwerp and his sister eventually moved to Bruges to pursue her studies. “Even though I was born in the Netherlands, the beer in Belgium was always what I grew up with,” says Job. “The Belgian beer culture has been installed in me from a young age which is partly why I enjoyed designing breweries so much.”

But as he became more successful, climbing the corporate ladder, he seemed to be managing reports and attending political meetings rather than doing what he loved: creating.

All of this living abroad to design breweries gave Job the travel bug. He bought a van, built a bed in the back and began taking road trips to Spain and the South of France every summer. During one of his trips, Job took surfing lessons and fell in love with dancing on the ocean and how it made him feel. As years went by, he continued to fall more in love with the sport simultaneously with woodworking. One night, he was browsing surfboard videos on Youtube and the idea struck: why not combine the two things he loved? Job Verpoorte began making and shaping his own surfboards.

“If you were to ask me 20 years ago if I would be shaping surfboards out of wood, I would have laughed,” says Job. “But in hindsight, it makes sense because I am going back to why I love engineering by creating something with my hands instead of managing a team and attending meetings.”

When Job felt confident enough in his boards, he brought them back to the surf camp in Spain where he originally learned to surf. His boards were a hit with the surfers there, so much so that he made a decision to begin shaping full time. He moved to Bruges to be closer to his sister and with only a 30 minute drive from several potential surf spots, he built boards out of the workshop on the first floor of his apartment. The name of his business was Jabali Surfboards.

Moving to the city of Bruges opened Job’s eyes to new opportunities for his business. Not only was he able to use 2,000 year old oak wood found in the canals of his new home, but he also took advantage of Belgium’s strong business networks, entering a competition to make a surfboard out of only recycled materials.

To create the surfboard out of recycled materials, he first found a wind board foam for the base. He used old curtains from his childhood and laminated them with epoxy to strengthen the board. For the fin, Job used old beer kegs made from Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), a popular resin used in one-way keg packaging. He cut the PET pieces into small pallets and melted them together in a pizza oven. Once the mould cooled off, he grinded and sanded the piece into a proper “fin” shape. 

The Psychotherapist
Cedric Jamar

While attending Psychology classes at University in Brussels, Cedric Jamar landed a job as a waiter in a pub on Brussels’ Grand Place to help pay for his schooling. Before he started, his opinion of beer was negative. He thought it made people unhealthy, loud, and lazy. But being a bartender forced him to learn about the 200 or so different beers on the menu he was serving and he found it fascinating that people could be so creative using only the four same ingredients. 

After University, Cedric began working as a psychotherapist with refugees and homeless people in a health house near South Station in the city. Psychotherapy is the use of psychological methods in regular personal interaction to help a person change behaviour, increase happiness, and overcome problems. Cedric used talk therapy to treat people in the health house for emotional problems and mental illnesses. In the meantime, he continued to learn more about the Belgian beer scene. He read countless books, attended lectures, and travelled to visit breweries in Italy, the US, Switzerland, Spain, and Germany to learn about their processes. Soon, Cedric was looking for ways to take the information he had learned about beer and communicate it to others.

“As a psychotherapist, I give people the tools and information to get them to where they need to be,” says Cedric. “I began to think to myself, can I also use this approach with beer?”

Cedric spent a long weekend talking through ideas with his girlfriend, Delphine, and came up with a beer business called “Agalmalt”. Agalmalt offers tours and tastings to individuals, beer team-building and entertainment events to companies, and consultancy, training, and education services to the hospitality trade. The name stems from a mysterious precious gem of Ancient Greek philosophy and it was also Cedric’s often-used handle on social media. Cedric describes himself as the translator between beer producers, resellers, and customers. 

Cedric creates a space in both sectors where people can be completely open. Whether he is speaking with refugees or business owners in the beer world, the common thread in his activities is working with people to find tools which make it possible for them to change their behaviour. “My main goal in life is to help people,” says Cedric.