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| X-MAN FROM BRUGES, XAVIER VANESSTE'S BEER PIPE DREAM COMES TRUE |
BELGIAN BREWER’S PIPE DREAM COMES
TRUE.
In 1915 San Diego, a tunnel under
Washington Street (just West of I-5) in Middletown, was built by Mission
Brewery (no relation to the 2016 suds maker of the same name) to carry full
barrels of beer from the brewery operation (northside of Washington St.) to the
distribution building on the southside of the street.
That small
San Diego distribution tunnel pales in comparison to a two-mile pipeline that
will be unveiled in Bruges, Belgium this August.
The new Euro
pipeline constructed of sanitary high density polyethylene plastic will be used
to river high quality Belgian made beer from an ancient brewhouse in the middle
of the oldest part of Bruges to a bottling plant two-miles away.
The idea for
the beer pipeline came from brewery scion Xavier Vanneste, whose family founded
De Halve Maan Brewery in 1856. Part
crazy and part practical the tunnel was approved by Bruges City Hall because it
eliminated the need for beer trucks to clog the heart of the oldest, narrowest
cobblestoned part of the city. Fewer
trucks also means less smog and fewer traffic jams.
Vanneste’s
maternal grand ancestors, The Maes Family, have been brewing beer on the
Walplein in Bruges for parts of three centuries.
A few years
ago, Vanneste appealed to Kickstarter for his pipeline idea and garnered more
than $300,000. The brewery operation,
which he heads, added the rest of the $4.5 million pipeline cost. The line is geared to pump more than 1,000
gallons of beer per hour if needed.
The brewery
in Bruges goes back even farther in time.
Records in the town registry show in 1564, there was downtown brewery
called “Die Maene” on the same site as
the one purchased by the Maes family in 1856.
Today, De
Halve Maan has a modern tavern in a part of town that is as old as the
hills. There lunch crowds and beer
lovers from all corners of the round planet gather to enjoy a meal (inside or
on the terrace) with views of nearby canals, cozy fireplaces or the
establishment’s state of the art brewing house.
Lunch is
served every day from 12 pm until 3 pm.
Menu:
www.halvemaan.be/nl/groepsformule/seizoensmenus
Great Articles:
--On May 30, 2016 Wired
Magazine published an article on the beer pipeline by Aarian Marshal that goes
into detail regarding the beer pipeline from idea completion and mentions all
the bureaucratic wrangling in between.
--May 4, 2016 Wall
Street Journal covers the beer pipeline:
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| MAINSTAY OF DE HALVE MAAN BREWING |
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| DE HALVE MAAN BREWERY IN THE ANCIENT PART OF BRUGES, BELGIUM |
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| IF CABLE COULD UNDERGROUND WHY NOT A BREWERY PIPELINE TO TAKE BIG TRUCKS OUT OF THE OLD PART OF TOWN? |
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