Poperinge Beer and Hop Festival – Bier- en Hoppefeesten – is Poperinge’s biggest festival of its kind.
This year it took place on the weekend of 19 to 21 September – a three day extravaganza of beer tasting, music festivities and fancy dress parades.
It is a celebration of everything great about this city: its extensive brewing tradition, its gastronomic culture, its proud hop growing history and its people’s friendliness. The people of Poperinge call their home the ‘Capital of the Good Life’ and they consider this festival an opportunity for them to show it off.
POPERINGE BEER AND HOP FESTIVAL
It’s not to be confused with the city’s other beer festival – the annual Poperinge Beer Festival – which was held in 2014 on the weekend of 25-26 October in Hotel Belfort.
So is the Poperinge Beer and Hop Festival any good? Should you check it out? Why should you go along?
Here are 7 reasons not to miss the Poperinge Beer and Hop Festival:
1. IT’S TRIANNUAL
The Poperinge Beer and Hop Festival takes place only once every three years.
So if you’re in Belgium when it’s on, you really should go.
It is always scheduled for the third weekend in September so the next Poperinge Beer and Hop Festival will be from Friday 15 to Sunday 17 September 2017.
“It’s an important festival,” says Ivan Vanderkerkhove, Head of the Poperinge Tourist Office. “Poperinge is the only hops region in Belgium. It’s a bit in decline but we want to save the existing hop fields in the region and so we are promoting the Belgian hop beers. The festival shows off a lot of the colour and folklore surrounding the locality.”
Why is it held only every three years? Well, partly because the whole event takes such organisation and financial investment that it would be impractical for the city to run it more often than that.
The fact that Poperinge builds up to this festival for three years makes it all the more special.
2. THE BEER
Poperinge has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to beer.
The region around the city is home to some of the most internationally well known breweries in the world as well as to some of the best in Belgium.
Within less than a 10 mile radius of Poperinge, you can find the famous Trappist Abbey of Sint Sixtus at Westvleteren, the small organic hop farm brewery of De Plukker, the brewing powerhouse of Sint Bernardus, the experimental genius of De Struise Brouwers, the collaborative nursery that is the Deca Brewing Facility and the tiny and quirky Seizoensbrouwerij Vandewalle.
There were bottles from all of these breweries on offer at Poperinge Beer and Hop Festival, a total of 36 beers from 24 different brewers.
In comparison to other Belgian beer festivals, that may not seem like a lot, but when you’ve got a choice in front of you which includes Westvleteren 12, Hommelbier, Sint Bernardus Tripel, De Poes, Keikoppenbier, Papegaei, Reninge Bitter Blond, the Imperialist and Bitter Sweet Symphony, you can have some fun trying to make your way to the bottom of that list.
One thing all of these beers have in common is the ‘Belgian Hop’ certification. In order to achieve this standard and to be permitted to use the logo, the beer must be made from at least 50% Belgian hops. The vast majority of the beers on the list used 100% hops from the Poperinge region in their beers.
For the 2014 edition of Poperinge Beer and Hop Festival, the Poperinge Hop Museum ran an exhibition on both the Friday and the Saturday from 10am to 6pm entitled ‘24 Belgen, 24 Bieren’. This was essentially a creative association through photography and stories of 24 famous Belgians with 24 Belgian beers.
3. THE HOP QUEEN ELECTION
One of the highlights of the Poperinge Beer and Hop Festival is the crowning of a Hop Queen.
The election takes place in the lead up to the festival and consists of three ‘tickets’, each of three girls, made up by one hopeful and two running mates.
The fervour with which the various youth groups campaign for the members of their own club goes way beyond what you would expect. This is a public campaign of huge local significance, in which traditional city establishments, outlying villages and commercial sponsors align themselves to one of the ‘tickets’ in the name of tradition and in the hope of glory.
“It’s a case of honour,” says Lieselot Goemaere, outgoing Hop Queen. “It’s your group against the other groups.” She is still diligently campaigning for one of the ‘tickets’ when I leave her.
The campaigning itself is as much a sight to behold as the announcement of the results of the election on the Saturday night. Axelle Van Bruwaene, running on the ‘Hoptima’ ticket (which also included Marie Descamps and Sarah Langbeen) was crowned Poperinge Hop Queen this year and will reign until 2017. ‘Hoptima’ beat off stiff competition from the ‘Hopsiepops’ and ‘Lupelientjes’ tickets.
So what does a Hop Queen actually have to do? “We had to do some tests including beer tastings and answering questions about Poperinge and its hops,” says Lieselot. Her running mate Anouk explains what this involves: “We just have to prove that we recognise five of the most common and well-known beers of the Poperinge region.”
Only in Belgium could you require beauty queens to be beer sommeliers and hop enthusiasts.
Aside from the Hop Queen Election, Poperinge’s Hop Museum celebrates the mighty hop by organising a guided visit on the Sunday of the festival which showcases historic documents, photographs, scale models and audiovisual displays in an attempt to illustrate the story of local hop growing in the region.
4. THE FOOD
There is much criticism of other parts of the beer world that not enough attention is paid to the versatility of beer as an accompaniment to food.
That criticism certainly can’t be levied at Poperinge.
Seven local chefs set themselves up in the ‘Lekker Westhoeks’ exhibition space in the city’s main square to showcase the rich food culture of Poperinge and the surrounding area.
The restaurants where these chefs were based included ‘t Blauwers Huys, Food & Drinks Passage, Pegasus, Manoir Ogygia, Flou’s, Traiteur Pure and De Luttertap.
“Of course, we have beer,” says Carmen Logie of Charmehotel & Avondrestaurant Manoir Ogygia, herself a former Hop Queen. “But we have very many other nice regional food products too.” eShe presents me a ‘Marc de Houblonesse’ appetiser prepared by her husband chef which has been made from hop oils and local potatoes to prove the point.
Other regional food products and businesses were promoted, including local bakeries, chocolateries and dairy farms, most of which had a special offering for the festival related in some way to hops.
5. THE MUSIC
No festival would be complete without its own soundtrack and Poperinge is served well in this regard by a number of local and international musical groups.
Throughout the weekend, the streets of the city are filled with triumphant fanfares, from the musical collective of Orchestre International du Vetex to the local brass bands marching from square to square.
This ‘Tattoo’ show culminated in the Paardenmarkt at 4pm on the Saturday of the festival in a musical highlight during which each of the several brass bands assembled to play together.
6. THE CITY AND PEOPLE OF POPERINGE
The small organic hop farm brewery of De Plukker which is located on the outskirts of Poperinge brews a beer by the name of ‘Keikoppenbier’.
This beer is available to taste during the Poperinge Beer and Hop Festival but it’s the story behind its name that is most telling.
In 1322, Poperinge was banned by the new Count of Flanders in Ieper from producing cloth, a source of considerable income at the time. Refusing to accept the restriction placed upon them, the people of Poperinge revolted and earned the nickname ‘keikoppen’ or ‘stoneheads’ for their stubbornness.
As a consequence, Poperinge received a licence to grow hops by way of compensation for the loss of their cloth trade. The nickname stuck and it has become a badge of honour for the city’s current inhabitants.
The Poperinge Beer and Hop Festival taps in to that spirit. They have immense local pride and passionately support their local brewers, chefs and farmers.
7. THE FAMILY ATMOSPHERE
This is a festival for all the family. That’s not often true of beer festivals in Belgium.
Often there are so many people in such a crowded space that it can be difficult for families to move around. There’s nothing for children to do at other festivals.
This is not the case at Poperinge Beer and Hop Festival, where the festival is spread out over three days across an entire city and where children’s activities and events for older generations are an integral part of the programme.
The organisers included on the bill an afternoon entertainment with the Brechtse Hummel Bummel on the Oudstrijdersplein.
The ‘Hop Pageant’, which takes place on Sunday at 3pm is a colourful parade involving 64 different groups, several dozen horsemen and twelve floats, all of which comes together in the shape of more than 1,300 people to tell the story of the humble hop. Children traditionally play the friends and enemies of the hop.
The family fun is rounded off when the festival closes with a great musical performance.
THE CAPITAL OF THE GOOD LIFE
That’s 7 reasons why you shouldn’t miss the next Poperinge Beer and Hop Festival.
Will we see you there on Friday 15 September 2017 amidst the ‘stoneheads’?
