Meet St. Arnold. A statue of this 6th century saint is found in breweries all over the world (ever heard of St. Arnold's Brewery in Houston??) to bless their brewery and their beer. The Halve Maan Brewery in Belgium has several, perhaps one of the reasons they are the only remaining brewery in Bruges, Belgium, a city which was once home to 28 large breweries at the turn of the 20th century. I'm not sure exactly why Halve Maan flourished over the other breweries in the precious northern Belgium town of Bruges, but I do know that they do a good job of staying strong today partly due to their fantastic brewery tours.
Living in Germany, we have been on more than our fair share of brewery tours. Though the Bruges guide books rated a trip to the Halve Maan Brewery highly, we filed it in the lower half of our to-do list when we spent the day in Bruges. After hitting many of the major sights (more to come on those later), we developed a thirst that could only be quenched by a sweet yet potent Belgian Tripel, and honestly, at €7.50 per ticket, it seemed almost like the tour was included with the beer, not the other way around!
Our 45-minute, English tour was led by a hi-larious Bruges native who really knew her stuff and had the whole group (even a hung-over bachelor party) rolling. She was hands-down the best tour guide of any tour I have ever experienced. One of the more interesting tidbits we learned from her is why the Belgian beer is so strong (the Tripel - my favorite - is 9% ABV, but the Quadrupel is a stiff 11% ABV; Budlight is 4.2%, Prosecco is 11%). Apparently when the government imposed the same tax on beer as wine, the brewers were upset: the alcohol content in wine is higher than beer, so people consume less by volume. The tax was disproportionately hurting beer prices. So what is a brewery to do? They simply responded by brewing beers with alcohol content similar to wine. Another fun piece of Belgian beer history was our guide's account of working in the brewery in the 1950s. Employees were entitled to seven free beers a day. Clearly, it was the place to work in town.
Another bonus of this tour is the view from the top of the brewery. Patrick and I had just waited an hour to pay €8 each for the privilege of climbing the Belfort's 366 steps for the "best view of Bruges." No one mentioned how the view was obstructed by cages covering the windows at the top. At the Halve Maan Brewery, we were treated to the below view as part of the tour - much better view at a much better price.
Fair warning: we were in Bruges at the beginning of the high season (late May), but we still bought our tickets an hour in advance. It seemed as though they filled up the tours about 15 minutes before hand. If you want to take this tour, the brewery is very close to other sights- I recommend getting your ticket ahead of time just in case! Check their English website for more information. This tour is not to be missed while in Bruges!
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