Podge’s Belgian Beer Tours

Beer & Battlefields - The Great Thirst World War Tour

Sunday 14 May 2023 – Thursday 18 May 2023

This is a special five day, four night beer and battlefield Tour staying at the luxury Novotel Ypres, right in the heart of the First World War Flanders Fields. Your Tour designer and guide Siobhan McGinn (Mrs Podge) is an expert in both the First World War and Belgian Beer. This Tour is based in West Flanders, an area she knows well, and her favourite province in Belgium, with 25 years of Belgian Beer Tour experience.

December Tour 2008 (97)

Siobhan is a military historian (MA First World War Studies, Birmingham University) and this Tour is built around her specialist subject of Alcohol, Moral & Discipline in the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in the First World War in West Flanders. Siobhan’s Masters thesis was on this subject in 2014 and she is particularly interested in what British soldiers were drinking in Flanders which caused so many courts martials for drunkenness, making it one of the top ‘crimes’ in the British Army. Each of our Tours is different, and our Beer & Battlefield Tours are no different. This one will include battlefield site visits, brewery tours, beer tastings, visits to Belgium's finest speciality beer bars and beer cuisine restaurants and of course full guiding in the field by Siobhan.

Australian Sergeants Mess Christmas Dinner, Siobhan's research reveals strains on Sergeants as the war progressed (Image AWM).

No battlefield tours are quite like these. We are based in Chelmsford in Essex and we use Eurotunnel from Folkestone to get to and from Belgium in our UK hired coach. Most of our Travellers join the Tour at our main pick up point outside The Woolpack Pub, 23 Mildmay Road, Chelmsford CM2 0DN and most come from other parts of the UK, and some from further afield, especially USA. Lots of our Travellers stay the night before a Tour (and often the night of our return) at Chelmsford Travelodge only a few minutes walk from The Woolpack or at the Premier Inn near the Railway Station, about a 10 minute walk to the pick up point at The Woolpack. We all usually pop in to The Woolpack the night before departure for a meet, greet and a few beers with Siobhan who is your Tour Manager, Tour Guide and drinking pal for the duration.

Our Galloways luxury coach (49 seater coach with toilet) starts from Suffolk and on the way to Folkestone (or occasionally Dover) picks up at several points, as agreed with Siobhan. The crossing times we usually go for are the 10.20hr Eurotunnel from Folkestone and the 19.50hrs from Calais, so we arrive back in Folkestone at 19.30hrs UK time.

Arabier from De Dolle Brouwers, Esen.

This proposed detailed, timed itinerary is set out below and we are arranging the visits now. If you would like to join us please send Siobhan an email or call her on +44 (0) 7722 724 558 for details on how to secure a place and pay the £150pp deposit for this Tour, or if you have any questions about this Tour. Should your plans change, we are happy to return your deposit to you in full provided the date of the return request is more than six weeks before the departure date of the Tour.

Day 1 - Sunday 14 May 2023

04.15hr Coach departs from Galloways coach depot at Denters Hill, Mendlesham, Suffolk, IP14 5RR.

06.15hr Coach pick up The Woolpack, Mildmay Road, Chelmsford CM2 0DN.

08.00hr Coach pick up at the pull in outside Dobbies Garden Centre, Opp. Premier Inn Ashford Eureka Leisure Park, Rutherford Road, Ashford, Kent, TN25 4BN.

08.20hr Arrive Folkestone Eurotunnel.

10.20hr Eurotunnel Train crossing from Folkestone.

12.00hr Arrive Calais.

13.00hr Our first stop Café Den Hertog just outside behind-the-lines town, Poperinge. This place a drinking establishment known to British troops in the First World War. It was then called by its full name “De Hertog van Brabant” (The Duke of Brabant) and is mentioned in army records. The café was within range of the heaviest German artillery and was "the first stop after Hell" being also situated on the wartime railway built behind the lines in this area. From October 1916 to June 1917 it was Divisional HQ of the 47th (London) Division (Territorials). The authority of the military (British) Town Major of Poperinge extended as far as this café and his records reveal that it was closed and put out of bounds to soldiers under his order several times because it failed to observe strict regulations for opening hours and beverage sales. It was worth it, business in the British sector of the Ypres Salient was brisk, as Siobhan’s research has revealed.

15.15hr Leave Den Hertog, Poperinge.

15.25hr We visit second largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery (CWGC) in Belgium (10,000 burials) at Lijssenthoek, also near Poperinge, where there is an excellent visitors centre telling the story of this unusual cemetery constructed around a wartime Casualty Clearing Station. This is why, unlike the battlefield war cemeteries there are very few ‘unknown’ gravestones. Siobhan has a particular interest in the Chinese Labours Corps graves and there are several of these here which she will show Travellers, plus the spot where a grieving mother contrived, secretly, to be buried.

16.45hr Leave Lijssenthoek CWGC.

16.50hr Arrive at the ‘Busseboom Thirteen Memorial’, a special memorial recently erected to thirteen Chinese men who died on this spot from the explosion of one shell and who were in the Chinese Labour Corps, which numbered a staggering 140,000 men, labouring for British and French forces, but which few people know about.

17.30hr Leave Chinese Labour Corps Memorial in Busseboom.

17.45hr Arrive at Halleblast, famously marked on British trench maps as ‘Hellblast’ to see a rare material survivor of the First World War just behind the British Front line – a tank bridge built by the Royal Engineers from concrete blocks made by Second Army’s concrete factory in Arques, and signed and dated at one end. Siobhan has a peculiar fascination with Concrete on the Western Front and who, on Tour, will help you sort out your blockhouses from your pillboxes.

18.00hr Leave the wartime concrete bridge over the Kemmelbeek.

18.15hr Arrive at Novotel Ypres with the evening free to explore this immortal city armed with a copy of Podge’s Ypres Bar Guide and map*. Travellers can also take in the moving last post ceremony at the Menin Gate. This is an imposing memorial gateway inscribed with the names of more than 54,896 men whose have no known grave and who died in the Ypres salient up to 16 August 1917. There was not enough room on this gate to record all of the names of the missing so the names of those who were known to have died after that date appear on the panels at Tyne Cot CWGC, a further 35,000. Opened in 1927 this site was chosen because of the thousands of men who passed through this spot on their way to the battlefields. It is most famous for the last post ceremony that takes place every evening at 20.00hr which is performed by the Belgian Fire Service on bugles. From early 2023 the Menin Gate is undergoing major renovations for its 100 year celebrations, and parts may be under wraps during our Tour, but the 20.00hrs ceremony will take place as usual every night. Sint Sixtus Westvleteren

Day 2 - Monday 15 May 2023

10.00hr After a leisurely buffet breakfast* we leave the hotel by coach for a day exploring the South Salient.

10.25hr Call in at Vanuxeem Beer Warehouse. This is a big place with loads of bottled beer at good prices, so we’ll pay a visit for an opportunity to take some of your favourite beers home. 11.25hr Leave Vanuxeem Beer Warehouse.

11.30hr Arrive for a walking tour round the beautiful monument known as the Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing on what was and is still known as ‘Hyde Park Corner’. This large rotunda memorial stands within the Berkshire Cemetery Extension CWGC. Siobhan will take us on a mini-tour of this area and we’ll have a look at why this memorial, which was originally to stand in Lille, ended up here. We’ll look at a number of interesting names on the memorial to the missing, including some winners of the Victoria Cross and the graves of some British soldiers who were ‘shot at dawn’, a particular focus of Siobhan’s research being studying British Military Courts Martials. Another of Siobhan’s interests is Egyptology and she will tell us about the two huge lion statues guarding this imposing memorial and how they might be linked to Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III and the British Museum.

12.45hr Leave the Plugstreet Memorial to the missing.

13.00hr We then proceed to have a look at Irish soldiers who fought in the Ypres Salient. We will drive past the Irish Peace Tower and hear about why it was built here and about the actions on this commanding ridge, where both the 16th Irish (predominantly catholic) and the 36th (Ulster) (predominantly protestant) Divisions fought side by side. We drive to the front line at the village of Wijtschaete. Tommy couldn’t pronounce this so it was known as ‘Whitesheet’. We’ll have a look at some new Irish memorials here including a statue to Major Willie Redmond & Private Meek. These memorials are an interesting study in the iconography of nationalism and other group identities across war memorialisation.

13.30hr Leave Wijtschate.

13.40hr We will follow the war experience of the 16th Irish Division and its most famous soldier Willie Redmond MP. We pay a visit to the lonely Loker Hospice CWGC and seek out the grave of this famous Irishman, and we’ll find the memorial to him here and hear why he is buried far apart from the other soldiers here.

14.10hr Leave Loker Hospice CWGC.

14.15hr Arrive at Café den Heksestoel in Loker. This is another First World War survivor and was during the war called the Café Frontier, appropriate as we are right on the French border here.

16.30hr Leave Café den Heksestoel, Loker.

17.00hr Arrive at the Kazematten Brewery built into the stone caverns, or casemates around the old pre-war walls of Ypres town. This is the site where a group of Sherwood Foresters who were stationed here set up the printing press on which they published the famous Trench Journal The Wipers Times. Siobhan has some facsimiles for us to look over. We will have a brewery tour* and beer tasting*.

18.30hr-ish Leave Kazematten Brewery. Siobhan will walk those who would like to join her the short distance to see a remarkable living survivor of two world wars known as the Four-Trunked-Survivor. The rest of the evening is free in Ypres. Post WW1 Beer poster Ypres

Post WW1 Beer Poster Ypres Vermeulen Brewery

Day 3 - Tuesday 16 May 2023

10.00hr After a leisurely buffet breakfast* we leave the hotel by coach for a day looking at sites associated with the Third Battle of Ypres (1917) more commonly known as The Battle of Passchendaele.

10.15hr Arrive at Langemark German Military Cemetery where Siobhan will give a brief tour, explain why it looks so different to British Commonwealth War Graves cemeteries and show some points of interest including the memorial to German Flying Ace and friend of the Red Baron, Verner Voss, shot down in 1917. We’ll also have a look at the concrete blockhouses in the cemetery including one now incorporated into the Memorial to the Royal Engineers and Royal Artillery of the 34th Division at the rear of the cemetery. This blockhouse was captured in September 1918 by the BEF and used as a dressing station under command of Robert Lawrence, brother of T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia). This cemetery was the scene of the disastrous attacks by inexperienced German soldiers in the First Battle of Ypres in 1914. Incredibly, 44,000 German soldiers are buried or commemorated here.

11.30hr Leave Langemark German Military Cemetery.

11.40hr Visit the poignant Brooding Soldier Canadian Monument at Vancouver Corner at St. Julien, erected to commemorate the 2000 Canadian soldiers who died in the first gas attacks on the Western Front in April 1915 at this spot in the Second Battle of Ypres. This is the most beautiful monument in the salient, of a Canadian soldier emerging from the stone in brutalist-style, with arms-reversed. Siobhan will point out the odd anachronism in his headgear.

12.00hr Leave the Brooding Soldier Canadian Memorial at St Julien.

12.10hr Arrive Tyne Cot CWGC the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in the world with 11,900 servicemen of the British Empire from the First World War buried here. This is a battlefield cemetery on the hill at Passchenedaele where fighting took place intensively in October-November 1917. It was standing at the bottom of the slope, looking upwards at the thousands of white headstones which made Siobhan want to study the conflict.

13.30hr Leave Tyne Cot CWGC.

13.45hr Arrive at 't Groenhuis, Meenseweg, Ypres for a meal. This is an unusual, greenhouse-style café restaurant with a nice little interesting beer list to go with our meal here.

16.00hr Leave 't Groenhuis, Meenseweg, Ypres.

16.10hr We hope to arrange a visit to the private WW1 Museum* at a present-day farm in the Ypres Salient. This farm, near St. Julien, was known as Pond Farm on British Army trench maps and Kazerne Häseler on German military maps. After the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915 the farm was occupied by the Germans. By 1917 Pond Farm was one of many concrete reinforced strongpoints in the German Army's defensive line. Three large block-houses, tunnels and cellars formed the fortifications here. The owners son is called Stijn, and finding ordnance and everyday items from the First World War on the family farmland is his passion. We should be able to see Stijn’s new finds including some pieces of a First War tank - a rare find. Much of the battle of Third Ypres (Passchenedaele 31 July – 10 November 1917) raged around this farm and the surrounding area.

17.00hr Leave Pond Farm.

17.15hr We move south along the front line to the infamous Polygon Wood. This wood was much fought over by ANZAC forces in the First World War. We are visiting a famous café nestled in the woods called Den Dreve owned by Johan Vandewalle who is a mining engineer and keen WW1 expert. Polygon Wood was completely destroyed during the war. It was occupied by Commonwealth troops at the end of October 1914, given up in May 1915, taken again in September 1917 by Australian troops, evacuated in the Battles of the Lys, and finally retaken by the 9th (Scottish) Division on 28 September 1918. The café has plenty of interesting finds belonging to Johan and we can see his new Brothers Memorial nearby.

18.45hr Leave De Dreve, Polygon Wood

19.00hr Drop outside Novotel Ypres.

Day 4 - Wednesday 17 May 2023

10.00hr After a leisurely buffet breakfast* we leave the hotel by coach for a day exploring.

10.20hr Our first stop is Poperinge New Military CWGC where Siobhan will tell us about BEF military discipline, Courts Martials and punishment in the Poperinge area in WW1, her Masters dissertation subject. This cemetery has the largest concentration of soldiers who were ‘shot at dawn’ and we will find out why. She will tell us about the death penalty in the First World War and why it is still such a feature of Great War writing and of enduring interest.

11.20hr Leave Poperinge New Military CWGC.

11.30hr Arrive at the famous Talbot House (Toc H) in Poperinge. This house was a club and accommodation open to all troops during the Great War and is unchanged from those times. It is very atmospheric with a chapel in the attic, bedrooms on the first floor and reading rooms on the ground floor. This was a ‘dry’ house in the war (no alcohol) where men arrived from the front at nearby Ypres, for rest, a bath, to write letters home and have a cup of tea. We too will have tea* in this very special house.

13.15hr Leave Talbot House in Poperinge.

13.30hr Arrive at the famous In de Vrede café at Sint Sixtus Trappist Monastery in Westvleteren. The Abbey was used to billet soldiers in WW1, as we are a little way behind the front line. The monks continued brewing here during the First World War and thousands of British soldiers bought bottles of beer from the canteen on the premises. Sales accounts records still exist and sales to Tommy made a lot of money for the Monastery. The brewery here had never been busier than during the four years of war. Today the monks deliberately restrict brewing to 5000 hectolitres per year, despite being voted the world’s best beer in 2014. Their wartime beer was stronger than local beer at the time being 4-6%abv. The monks were scandalised at Scottish regiments kilt-wearing and their wartime diaries record annoyance at the destruction of their pasture by British soldiers persistently playing football on monastery land. Herbert Chase of the Lancashire Fusiliers was shot at dawn here for desertion in 1915. The bullet holes are still in the brick walls within the private parts of the Abbey and Herbert Chase is buried at nearby White House CWGC. We will have an opportunity here for a beer and a snack.

15.45hr Leave In de Vrede Café, Sint Sixtus, Westvleteren.

16.10hr Arrive at the tiny Harry Patch Memorial. Surely the smallest memorial in the Ypres Salient, but a poignant one. It is found on the banks of the little Steenbeek stream, which is how Harry remembered where he had fought so many years after the event. Harry Patch died in 2009 aged 111 and became known as ‘the last British Tommy’. He unveiled this tiny stone memorial in 2008 in a private ceremony at the place where he remembered jumping over the Steenbeek in 1917 with his mates in his Lewis Gun team. A single shell killed three of the team and Harry was badly wounded. He did not speak about the war until he reached the age of 100. Harry’s story and the public reaction to it tells us a great deal about the memorialisation of the first world war experience in Britain and its historiography – Siobhan will tell us more at this site, at the heart of the Passchendaele Offensive.

16.25hr Leave the Harry Patch Memorial

16.30hr Arrive in the nearby village of Langemark for an afternoon/evening visit to one or two excellent beer cafes for a bit of refreshment.

18.30hr Leave Langemark.

18.45hr Drop outside Novotel Ypres.

Day 5 - Thursday 18 May 2023

10.00hr After breakfast* check out of hotel. Coach leaves for our last day.

10.20hr Arrive at the Lone Tree Crater (The Pool of Peace), also known as Spanbroekmolen. This is a huge water-filled crater created by one of the famous mines blown by the BEF at 3.10am on 7 June 1917 which instantly killed 10,000 German soldiers and which blew the top off the Messines Ridge. This crater was caused by the largest of the 17 Messines mines dug for months underground and set with 91,000lbs of ammonal explosive, placed 88 feet underground. This series of explosions in June 1917 was the planned opening of the Passchendaele Offensive.

11.00hr Leave Lone Tree Crater (The Pool of Peace).

11.30hr Visit to Sanctuary Wood, Hill 62 Museum* and café, a private museum with rare preserved wartime trenches and some unique exhibits.

12.45hr Leave Sanctuary Wood Museum & Café.

13.15hr Arrive at our last stop of the Tour, Bij den Witten in Fintele for a meal and a beer or two. This is a beautiful café situated in a lovely spot at the joining of the River Yser and the Lovart canal. They have a huge quality beer list full of great beers, including a good selection of lambics.

15.45hr Leave Bij den Witten in Fintele.

17.00hr Arrive Calais.

18.20hr Leave Calais on Eurotunnel train crossing.

18.00hr Arrive Folkestone.

18.35hr Coach drop at the pull in outside Dobbies Garden Centre, Opp. Premier Inn Ashford Eureka Leisure Park, Rutherford Road, Ashford, Kent, TN25 4BN.

20.00hr Coach drop Junction of Lady Lane & Mildmay Road, Chelmsford CM2 0EA.

20.15hr Coach drop Travelodge Hotel, 128-136 Parkway, Chelmsford CM2 7GY.

20.30hr Coach drop Premier Inn Victoria Road, Chelmsford CM1 1NY.

21.50hr Coach drop at Galloways coach depot at Denters Hill, Mendlesham, Suffolk, IP14 5RR.

Soldiers at Talbot House Poperinge.

Tour Price is £935 per person sharing a twin or double room

Single Supplement: £275

We regret that we need to charge a single supplement for travellers who would like their own hotel room. This is because increasingly hotel room prices are quoted with very little difference between single person or two person occupancy.

Included in the cost of this Tour are:

Hotel accommodation and breakfasts;

Hotel city taxes;

Luxury coach travel on a 49 seater coach with toilet;

All brewery visits, tours and brewery beer tastings;

Entrance fees to attractions, museums and historical sites;

All items marked with an asterisk above and on the individual detailed tour itinerary when issued;

Copies of Podge’s City Bar Guides and Maps for the town where we stay or spend some time;

Still and sparkling water on the coach;

Pick up from one of our agreed joining points on the way to Folkestone or even on the other side of the channel.

Courier Services from Siobhan McGinn, your Tour Guide.

Travellers are responsible for the costs of all food and drink apart from items marked with an asterisk on the detailed itinerary plus all passport and insurance costs.

All itinerary times are local and approximate.

Personal insurance is not included in the Tour price but is required to be taken out by Travellers on Podge's Belgian Beer Tours, as is carrying the free UK Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC) which is the 2021 replacement for the old EHIC. You can still use your EHIC card so long as it is in date, then you need to apply for the GHIC replacement online.

If you have any questions or would like to join us please send Siobhan an email or call on +44 (0)7722 724 558.

All Tours are subject to our Terms and Conditions.

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