STELLA ARTOIS BREWERY TOUR

BREWERY STELLA ARTOIS

ADRESS: Aarschotsesteenweg 20, 3000 Leuven, Belgium

OPENING HOURS(for tours): Weekends from 13:00(in Dutch)/ from 15:00(in English)/ closed on 23rd, 24th, 31st of December and 1st of January

TRANSPORTATION: about 25 minutes by train from Brussels(Midi, Central, or Nord) to Leuven and walk 10 minutes

PRICE: 8.5 euro per person

BOOKING: book from the website Visit Leuven and purchase the ticket beforehand

Did you know that Leuven, a small university city in Belgium, holds the biggest brewery company in the world?  In November 2016, UNESCO has listed Belgium's beer culture among the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, recognized the Belgian beer as playing a key role in daily life of Belgians. It's not about the volume of beer production or comsumption, but it's about the diversity of beers from lambic beers, trappist beers, brown beers, not only the worldwide trending pilsner beers. Here in the brewery Stella Artois, you can participate in a guided tour to know more about Belgian beers!

Stella Artois brewery roots back to 14th century. The beer used to be brewed in Den Hoorn Brewery and later Stella Artois purchased it. Still now, the symbol of the Den Hoorn Brewery is proudly displayed in Stella Artois' cartouche to this day. After listening to the history of the brewery Stella Artois, the guide will take you to the huge brewing room. Brewing beer is about regulating the interactions between water, starch, yeast, hops, and some often spices in Belgium.  In this brewing room, the water is precisely conditioned to produce stable beers.

You can also find many lovely interiors of Stella Artois.

Since there are not that a lot of ingredients in beers, the ingredients with little difference makes a great difference. You'll learn how the crops are turned into the ingredients for beers and how the beers are produced here.

After that, the most fun part of the factory, you can see the packaging process with your eyes. Stella Artois is one of the most demanded beers in the world now. You'll be surprised how fast they are packaged!

Reducing the amount of non-resuable package is also an important achievement. Anheuser-Busch InBev, the company which holds the brewery Stella Artois got the 2018 Excellence in Reusable Packaging Award from Reusable Packaging Association.

As you may have expected, the best appreciatable part is the tasting of beers. you can get glasses of beers in this bar, delivered directly from the brewery. For winter, we also tried the winter edition of Leffe.

Getting a glass of beer freshly served from the bar and taking the first sip, this is the most enjoyable moment. You can sit down on the sofa or chair and feel perfectly relaxed.

O'BON PARIS' NOTE

You'll get some nice souvenirs at the end of the tour so you can still enjoy the beers at home!

Written and photographed by Leona Fujii