The idyllic Belgian city of Bruges will soon be richer for an unusual attraction - a three-kilometer beer pipeline! The picturesque medieval town, which with its cobbled streets, canals and clock towers resembles a fairy-tale city, fulfills the bold prediction of pipeline mastermind Xavier Vannest (De Halve Maan Brewery), who was called a dreamer by those who do not believe in fairy tales, but now that dream is becoming a reality. The beer will flow underground in September 2016.
Belgian Bruges he will have beer pipeline. This one will be a four barrel. "Everyone thought it was a dream, a joke, something unrealizable," he describes the imminent acquisition of the city Xavier Vanneste, director of the city's only continuously operating De Halve Maan Brewery. The pipeline will be three kilometers long, and so much beer will flow from the bottling plant outside the city to the center that it will be able to fill up to 12 thousand bottles of beer per hour.
Vanneste spent some time "poking" the city authorities to lay private pipes around the city, but in the end they gave in and for the first time allowed a private company to lay anything under the cobbled streets of the town, which is under UNESCO protection. At first, they were quite suspicious, but when the municipality led by Mayor Renat Landuyt realized that the beer pipeline would drastically reduced truck traffic, who deliver beer, "started" the project. Most of the pipes have been laid with computer-controlled drilling, in order to liven up the city a bit. The public also supports the beer pipeline, which is not least shown by the numbers. 300 thousand euros are in 4 million budget contributed by people through crowdfunding. "Donors" will be entitled to 18 glasses specially made for them and lifetime delivery of one light beer Bruges Zot per day.
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In the brewery De Halve Maan started brewing beer for the first time a long time ago in 1564. Before the Second World War, Bruges was flooded with breweries, there were as many as 30 of them, but only this one has survived to this day (recently, after more than half a century, the brewery also returned Bourgogne des Flandres), run by Xavier Vanneste, whose ancestors took over the brewery in 1856. Every year he visits her around 100 thousand visitors. With this pipeline, the brewery will avoid an otherwise financially expedient move to an industrial zone where bottling takes place, which would mean that the beer would lose its "bruška" title. “For me UNESCO heritage it's not just bricks and material goods, but also the fact that we have a working brewery in the city. It is part of the intangible heritage," Vanneste explains, continuing by noting that Bruges is full of tourist traps, because here, among other things, they sell chocolate that was not even made in Belgium, let alone in Bruges. "Just as the Trappists mature in a monastery, and champagne is produced in Champagne, we want to brew every liter of beer exactly where it has been brewed for centuries."
