Modeste Beer Festival

 Time for the second beer festival of the year, and this time organised by the ABC or Antwerps Bier College.

Taking place on the premises of brewery De Koninck, it featured about 40 breweries and traders, and their app is super handy as you could tap directly into Untapd to update the tasters.

So Noshi and me went in, and I had already a list of beers I wanted to try out.  So let's see how much the beer counter will be bumped on this saturday!

 

 

Noshi with her Sakura Lambic Cherry B(l)ossom, this wasn`t the greatest of beers, but the best of views for sure...

It took place as such at the terrain of De Koninck, where we are greeted by a huge mural of the Wild Jo, one of the beers brewed here.

The entrance was 5 euro, which gave you a taster glass.  These initially where the 2019 series, but you could exchange it at the end for a 2023 version.  Like usual, they are exchanged at the brewer stands for a clean one with your beer (very democratic at 1.5 euro for most beers, half of the Antwerp Beer Festival in price), and I have a story about that at the end.

The setup was a big hangar with a lot of the brewers present, and outside a large open square, where some more stands where set up.  As more people arrived, they set up extra benches, making sure people could have a cosy sitting place for some chatting.

The dixieband was present as well once again.

Many of the beers had great names, like this Schoon Gerief (meaning in english Nice Stuff, usually referencing to a lady in our dialect), and in the end I got to taste 16 different beers, some good, some not at all, but that is of course personal taste.  You can check all my experiences on my Untappd profile.

 

My personal favorites where, top to bottom:

 

 

1. Schapenkop by 't Paenhuys, a triple of 8% ABV and 0 IBU

2. Bruismelk by Vleesmeester, a 6.5% ABV IPA with also 0 IBU

3. Al Blondy by Speciale Belge Brewers, 7% ABV with 25 IBU

Except for some very bitter prune beer, I didn`t complain to much about my selections of the day (or those of my companions, as we taste each others drinks and we all have very different styles, Noshi for example prefering fruit beers).

And of course, there is LOOT

I bought one of the raffle tickets, which yielded this Duvel gift set including a glass, and the Cytra which I like a lot.  The other one I`ll probably serve to Ribbi when they visit next time.

From Green Gold Brewing, a company from Slovenia, I bought a six pack of their beers with very lovely beercan art on it!

But finally, that story about the glass.  Somewhere down the line, I guess two or three beers in, I suddenly noticed my galss was exchanged for a 2012 version.  This is really vintage, as this is one of the very first edition of the festival.  

So I went to get drinks, clearly stating to clean but not exchange it please, and two breweries (Leroy and Cabardouche) actually where genuinly jealous about this, as it seems to be hard to find.  Noshi told me that when she went to exchange their 2019 for 2023 versions, the guy behind the counter also told her this must have been a lucky fluke, as those glasses have been long gone from the available one.  So this goes on my shelf of cool bottles and cans for sure as a great souvenir!

But in general, this event was a definite winner, and one we will certainly be joining again next year.  Great selection, really cheap compared to others we attended over the past 18 months when we started doing this, and a very amical mood location.

Highly recommended!