For the twenty-first consecutive year, the normally sleepy Walloon village of Sohier bursts into life for its annual beer festival, ‘le weekend des bières spéciales’ (the Sohier Weekend of Special Beers) which took place on 21-23 February 2014. Our initial interest is perked by an obscure online article written in French. Curiosity killed the cat or something and we load up the car for the trip to the southernmost province of Belgium for investigation.
The beer on offer comes mostly from small ‘artisanal’ breweries in the region (but there are also a number of the Belgian big hitters there) and Sohier has the unique claim of being the only festival in Belgium where each of the 120 different types of beer being served are delivered in their own bespoke glassware.
Jean Leonet coordinates the festival along with a committee of ten friends. The committee has formed a close relationship with the breweries over the years so that they are able to collate all the glasses and bottles as well as the seriously kitsch beer paraphernalia they have on display.
Jean and his friends traveled from rural Wallonia to the university at Louvain-La-Neuve twenty-one years ago and were inspired by the students there who were running their very own ‘artisanal’ beer festival on campus. They brought the idea back to the tiny village of Sohier and it was enjoyed in its first few years by a handful of local brewers and friends. The Sohier Weekend of Special Beers has grown every year since then – largely by word of mouth – and its appearance on the internet has resulted in an increasingly international vibe.
Because the festival is free to attend, Jean has come up with a fairly unique way of estimating attendance. He divides the amount of empty bottles out the back by three, figuring that each visitor will drink three bottles each. After the 2014 edition, Jean had 6,537 empties, making the official attendance of the festival exactly 2,179 people. Around 65 people work at the festival. There can’t be too many more than that living in Sohier.
SOHIER WEEKEND OF SPECIAL BEERS
There’s snow in the region at this time of year. There are glassware collectors showcasing their varied collections. There are two beer tasters who had traveled from Paris and Marseille respectively from the Association des Buveurs de Bières Belge Amateurs Français (the French Amateur Association of Belgian Beer Drinkers) with an old-school brown leather briefcase containing note books and other tasting tools. They debate the colour of their beers, examine the heads, take photographs of the glasses and bottles and discuss at length what is going on in their mouths.
While you don’t see too many young people in the villages as you drive through to Sohier, they all came out of the woodwork in the evening as the dynamic changes from relaxed family vibe to the chaotic excitement of a rural barn party. The revelry is fueled by Off-Line, a local pop-rock band who pump out a mix of U2, Muse, Bon Jovi, Brian Adams, Oasis and Guns N’ Roses. Within minutes people are taking a break from their drinking to make their moves on the dance floor.
We feel it is important to drink some beer. Cuvée des Trolls (7% a.b.v.) from the Dubuisson brewery was initially designed to be a lighter version of their big Bush beers but it has taken on a life of its own (the beer’s tag-line is ‘the taste is gonna get you’). We try two ‘Forestinne’ beers from La Caracole – the Mysteria (7.5%), a sweet-sour number and the Primoria (7.5% a.b.v.), a spicy and floral amber blond. We also try a new beer, ‘La Clochette’ (7.0% a.b.v.) from the Brasserie de la Clochette and the Grand Cru (9.5% a.b.v.) from St. Feuillien Brewery with its mild-hop nose and baked fruity sweetness.
THE 2015 EDITION
So remote is Sohier that we aren’t able to find any taxi companies to drive us back to the nearby village in which we were staying. Instead, we walk out of the festival marquee and begin politely approaching locals that are leaving with car keys in hand. One lovely couple are patient enough with our pigeon French to understand our predicament and drop us back to our Bed & Breakfast even though it’s a village or two out of the way.
Plans are already afoot for the Sohier Weekend of Special Beers 2015 which will take place on the weekend of 20-22 February. Start planning your lift home now.
