Four bars and 3,000 m² of open-air terrace at the heart of the festival. Beers brewed in Brussels, cocktails, old-style lemonades and mocktails: something to go with a plate, or simply a reason to sit down.
Eating is only half the festival. The other half happens at the counter, glass in hand, while your friends are still queueing next door.
Four bars are dotted around the site across the three days, with the big open-air terrace as the meeting point. Belgian craft beers, wines, sparkling and cocktails: something to go with just about any plate at the festival, Mexican to Japanese.
Anyone not drinking is not palmed off with a bottle of water. Mocktails and juices pressed on site get the same care as the rest of the list — that is a criterion, not a courtesy.
And nothing obliges you to order food. You can sit down, have a drink, listen to the din and head off.
Two of the four bars are run by Move & Drink, a Belgian team who have made mobile bars their trade: tiny house, VW T3 van, caravan, trailer. Each turns up fully equipped, bartenders included.
What won us over is how they build a list. Belgian products first: craft beers, gins from distilleries down the road, cocktails built on spirits made in Belgium. The same instinct as ours, applied to the glass.
A third bar is run by L'Annexe. Grégoire and Max have been brewing there since 2017, in the annexe of the Van der Kelen school — the building ended up naming the brewery. Their beers are no strangers here: they were already being poured at the festival last year.
You will find the Saison de Bruxelles, their first and their classic; the Black Saison, which marries the coffee notes of a stout to the dryness of a saison; the Weizen Saison with citrus zest and coriander; and the Pale Ale.
The other half of the trade is fermentation, and that is where it gets interesting for anyone off the alcohol: old-style lemonades with ginger, elderflower, raspberry and mint, and an organic tonic they describe as the first fully natural one brewed in Belgium.
