Brewery the Halve maan in Bruges

If you follow me on instagram and you watch my instastories, you know I occasionally like to drink a beer. You might even have seen the Brugse Zot make an appearance in my instastories.

We have been to Bruges quite often, since we live closeby. We try to do something different everytime we go to the city. So this time we decided to visit the brewery for the very first time.

The brewery is situated in the city centre of Bruges at the Walplein, where the Maes family has been brewing beer for centuries. If you can smell the brewing process you know you are close. That is how I stumbled across it the last time I was in Bruges and didn’t realize I was closeby.

We decided to do a tour of the brewery, since we were curious about the brewing process. There are two different tours they offer at the brewery.

There is a basic tour which last 45 minutes and the tour starts every hour. At the end of the tour you can get a degustation of a Brugse Zot at their inhouse bar. The basic tour is 10 euros per person, but when you get your tickets online you will get a discount.

Besides the basic tour you can also do an XL tour which cost 19 euros per person and comes with a professional beer tasting at the end of the tour. This tour is 90 minutes and organized in smaller groups. They offer this tour only once a day at 2.15 pm.

We did the basic tour of 45 minutes and we had a terrific tour guide which told us all about the brewing process and the history of the brewery. Did you know that they transport the beer under the streets of Bruges to their second location, where it is now days bottled?

They took the pipeline in service in 2016 and they payed for the project with crowdfunding. I wish I had known about this crowdfunding before, who doesn’t want to get a liter bottle of beer every year for his birthday? Or if you donated enough you would get a free beer every day for the rest of your life, who wouldn’t want that?

Unfortunately we visited the brewery on a Saturday, so they weren’t actually brewing. They only brew beer on weekdays, so I guess we have to go back to take another tour when they are brewing during the week.

During the tour you will get to go to the roof of the brewery as part of the tour. The roof will give you an incredible view of the city of Bruges.

At the end of the tour we got a free Brugse Zot at the bar in the brewery. The beer that is served here isn’t filtered and comes straight ouf the brewery. So it is the only place in the world you can try an unfiltered Brugse Zot from the tap. If you ever happen to be in Bruges it is one of the things you absolutely can’t miss.

You can also have lunch at the brewery, but I would say make a reservation beforehand. When we were there the place was crowded and you couldn’t even find an indoor table to sit to drink your beer.  The lunch did look delicious though, so I will have to go back to have lunch at the brewery another time.

Have you ever visited a brewery? If you did which brewery did you visit?