Valentine Brewing, Belgian Edition

A friend recommended the Stella Artois brewery to us a while ago and we finally got around to going this weekend. We often seem to be at a brewery around Valentine’s Day, so it seemed perfect! The 12 euro English tour is Saturdays at 3pm and it sells out. Kids are free. Onsite parking is well-marked and free. You show your ticket and your covid safe pass to check in, then don an orange safety vest before heading into the brewery.

The tour began in a small, casual theater with a man speaking softly in English while the multimedia screens behind him restarted at random times and played music over his spiel about the history of Stella Artois and Leuven. The company dates back to the 1300s! The horn on the label dates to the earliest iteration of the brew. The brewery building rebuilt after the First World War is charmingly old-fashioned and available to rent for events. Then we went upstairs to see the vats of beer and learn more about the beer-making process with the same issues of speaking softly while the music chimed loudly at inappropriate times. We didn’t get a lot out of this part, but I did note that Stella only uses the female hops in brewing because they provide beer its pleasant bitterness. Ha ha!

Also, they keep the lights on when they brew: “Everyone in Leuven knowns this–if there is light in the brewery, tomorrow we will have another Stella.”

It was quite a hike over to the bottling plant. We passed a pigeon that seemed to have died recently and dramatically.

“What happened to that pigeon!?” the kids stopped and stared.
“I bet it tried the beer, liked it, drank too much and got drunk and fell off the building,” Isaac said. That’s one explanation I suppose.

“Eloise, where’s your safety vest?” I asked. She looked down at her orange-vest-free jacket, looked at me and shrugged.
“Eloise, where’s your vest?” Chris asked.
“It’s not important!” Eloise marched on to the plant.

The bottling plant was active and fun to watch. Conveyor belts channeling lots of bottles into single-file lines, everything moving quickly and efficiently, occasionally one of the bottles tumbling off the chute—this was much better than the malfunctioning music. We could have spent more time here. I told the kids that in Texas, you can watch a similar process but it’s ice cream. This blew their minds and it looks like we will need to plan a trip to Brenham next time we’re in Texas.

The tour ended in a light-filled space dedicated to quality control: the tasting room! Taste whatever you want! Stella Artois owns Leffe and Duvel, so they’re available too. Chris and I shared samples of regular Stella, a dark beer, and Victoria. I liked the Victoria best. The kids enjoyed their orange soda and army men. Eloise didn’t want to be part of a battle so her soldiers started a cupcake club. We took pictures of everyone’s eyes to compare colors. Chris’ eyes seem more green than they used to be.

Without warning, the tour guide abruptly ended the tour and told everyone to leave immediately. The kids scurried to sweep up their toys, we zipped up our jackets, gathered up the orange vests (the ones we could find anyway), and generally moved as fast as we could while the tour guide actually hollered at two girls gathering their things: “You need to get moving!”

The tour guide passed out gift bags containing three different beers to try at home. Over all, I’m glad we did that, but parts of the tour were very odd. On the way out we passed the squashed pigeon but not the vest, so that part remains a mystery.

The evening was young so we drove over to Leuven’s city center. Leuven was recently voted one of Europe’s top five “must visit” destinations. I discussed this surprising result with friends while our kids played basketball Saturday morning.

“I guess if the list comes out every year they can’t just keep putting the same places on it over and over.”
“Yeah…I like Leuven, but I’d be pretty mad if I flew there. You’d finish seeing everything and say, ‘ok, that was a lovely morning, what should I do now?'”
“It does have a nice atmosphere…but there’s really not much to do…?”

This is always how I feel about Leuven, although I will say my birthday lunch with Chris in the central marketplace in 2021 is probably the most charming birthday I’ve ever had.

Anyway, Chris and I took the kids in search of somewhere charming for dinner. It was still Apero time for Belgians, so most places weren’t yet serving dinner. Heavenly Pizza, Glorious Beer is a Belgian chain that we’ve been wanting to try, so we piled in and ordered. This is Belgian-style pizza, not Italian-style pizza, the server told us. There’s even beer in the crust recipe. We used Google translate on the Dutch menu and Chris picked out the obvious Mari choice: butternut squash pizza with red onions and goat cheese. Yum! Chris got the Nacho Pizza. The kids got regular pizzas. My pizza sounds interesting, but here is the surprise: It was the most boring pizza I’ve ever had. It tasted like nothing. Not nothing like covid symptom nothing, just suuuuuuper bland. Boring! Chris agreed! Boring! I’ve never eaten anything boring in Belgium! I don’t recommend it!