Words and photos by Ashley Joanna
Edited by Breandán Kearney
Humans of Belgian Beer is a series of photographic portraits which celebrate a people and their culture.
On the morning of 26 September 2011, Benedikte Coutigny welcomed Queen Mathilde of Belgium to her ’t Hoppecruyt hop farm in Proven, a small townland of Poperinge.
After guiding the Queen through the hop vines, she led her into a small bar on the farm where she gave her a private rendition of songs on the accordion. She played old tales of the region’s hop growing territory. It was a very special moment for Benedikte who, now a hop farmer, had given up her dream of studying music years before.
As a child, Benedikte begged her parents to let her attend music school. But concerned about the stability of such a career, they encouraged her to take a different direction. Benedikte went on to become a teacher and worked at an institute for people with disabilities. But she never gave up music; playing her guitar and singing.
Benedikte was 20 years old when she met her now husband, Wout Desmyter, a 4th generation hop farmer. Benedikte decided to make the switch from teaching to working with him in the family business. She enjoyed the work a lot more than she anticipated, packing the hops, taking care of paperwork, and sometimes helping her husband amongst the hop vines. “When I was younger, I never thought I would be a hop farmer,” says Benedikte. “I am from Poperinge, so I have seen it my whole life. When you are born here, hops are normal. But I didn’t know how many varieties there were and how they actually grew.”
But Benedikte missed the personal connections she had made when she was a teacher. Tours around the hop farm became the remedy to that, showing people how a hop farm works. Twenty years later, Benedikte’s stories and accordion performances have become a core part of ‘t Hoppecruyt’s identity.
“I started learning to play the accordion when I was 30 years old,” says Benedikte. “It’s very useful here on the farm because the sound of the instrument is a nice combination to the old songs I sing from the region about picking hops.”
The different songs she sings at the end of farm tours, accompanying herself on the accordion, date back generations and were sourced from local families, often featuring lyrics in the region’s dialect about picking hops and drinking too much beer.
“Everyone has a hobby, or a passion, and I am so happy music is mine,” says Benedikte. “When I see the people join in singing the beautiful songs, they always leave my farm happy.”
Benedikte writes the words of the songs on a board in the farm’s bar so that visitors can sing along with her at the end of their tour. On her visit in 2011, Queen Mathilde of Belgium listened politely as Benedikte played and sang, but she did not join in. She did, according to Benedikte however, leave the farm happy.
Everyone has a hobby, or a passion, and I am so happy music is mine.
Benedikte Coutigny
