Tour 54 | Beer & Battlefields 2011

Thursday 26 May to Monday 30 May 2011

Following the huge success of our Beer & Battlefields Tour in May 2010, and its excellent coverage in the Sunday Telegraph (12 July 2010), we are offering a brand new five day Beer on the Western Front experience based in Poperinge. There will be two options, firstly four nights based at the excellent Hotel Belfort on the main square in Poperinge, or two nights at the famous Talbot House followed by two nights at Hotel Palace.
Siobhan explaining about demarcation stones in Boezinge

Thursday 26 May - An introduction to beer and WW1 behind the Front Line

06.30 Coach leaves The Woolpack, Mildmay Road, Chelmsford.

07.00 Pick up at Thurrock Services. 

07.45 Pick up at Trinity Road, J9, M20, Kent.

08.00 Pick up at Stop 24, J11, M20 near Folkestone.

09.50 Eurotunnel Train from Folkestone.

11.30  Arrive Calais.

12.30 Arrive at Struise Brewery in Oostvleteren for a couple of samples* of their incredible beers, a light lunch* and a presentation from Siobhan McGinn on Belgium in WW1. Followed by a visit to the second largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) in Belgium at Lijssenthoek, just south of Poperinge, travelling via the now disused WW1 Zwijnland Brewery. Arrive in Poperinge in the early evening and check in to our hotels (Talbot House, Hotel Belfort, Hotel Palace). A few hours free armed with Podge’s Poperinge Bar Guide to find some dinner and a few beers, prior to a meeting at the Legen Doorn, 1 St.-Sixtusstraat, Poperinge* for a beer and a friendly match of the ultimate Flemish bar game, Boltra - a mad type of bowls game in which wooden cheeses are hurled down a curved concrete playing surface. Guaranteed fun - with or without a local Hommelbier or two.
Carlo at Struise Brewery, Oostvleteren

 

Friday 27 May - Moving up the Front Line

10.00 Leave Hotel Belfort by coach to visit the Essex Farm Advanced Dressing Station (ADS) concrete bunkers established in 1915 in the Second Battle of Ypres. This is the site where John McCrae worked and penned the famous poem In Flanders Fields. We will also see the associated CWGC Essex Farm Cemetery, and the memorials to John McCrae and 49th (West Riding) Division. We then drive to the nearby village of Merkem to see the beautiful statue and hear the moving story of brewer’s son and Belgian soldier, Armand Van Eecke.

11.45  Arrive at The Sas Brewery in Boezinge which was completely destroyed in WW1 as the canal in the town formed the front line with the Allies on the West bank and the Germans on the East. The brewery was rebuilt after the war and is owned and run by Armand Van Eecke’s great nephew Philip Leroy and his family, who also co-control the Van Eecke Brewery in Watou. After a look at the Demarcation Stone marking the point where the Germans were halted in the town, seeing a German bunker topped with a minnenwerfer (trench mortar) and hearing about the recent return to the town of a WW1 soldier’s souvenir, we proceed to:

13.15 Café De Zegge (Victory) in Boesinge for lunch* and a beer or two.

15.30 Arrive at St Bernardus Brewery in Watou where Siobhan will give a talk and presentation on Beer in the First World War.

17.00 Brewery tour* of St Bernardus Brewery followed by a beer tasting* and gift pack*. We then have the evening free to explore the lovely bars and restaurants of this classic West Flanders brewers village. Copies of Podge’s Watou Bar Guide* will be provided.

22.00 Return to Poperinge.
Philip Leroy at Sas Brewery, Boezinge

 

Saturday 28 May – Mines, Craters and the Underground War

10.00  Leave Hotel Belfort by coach for a tour of the South Salient. First stop at the hop farm of Eric Lagache in Reningelst, Eurohop to hear about his hop business and about his grandfather’s stories of Reningelst in the First World War. We proceed south to the hills of Flanders at Kemmelberg and get a view across to the Messines Ridge, held for most of WW1 by the Germans and the subject of the Battle of Messines Ridge on 7 June 1917 when the geography of this area changed forever. We will spend the day on the south salient, hearing about the underground war in this area and visiting the sites associated with the successful assault on the Messines Ridge by the Allies and the subsequent Battle of Third Ypres (Passchendaele).We will visit the German trenches and mineshaft at Croonaert Wood, Wijtschate (known by the Germans and today as the Bayernwald Trenches).  We then follow the line of the 22 mines laid and detonated by the allies under the German lines, and see the site of the remaining unexploded mine, still under a farm. We visit the crater formed by the largest of the Messines mines at Spanbroekmolen, known as "Lone Tree Crater" which arose from the explosion of 91,000lbs of ammonal explosive, placed 88 feet underground.

13.30 Break for lunch and a beer or two at A La Basse Ville Café in Wulvergem.

16.30  In the afternoon we head north on the ridge to visit the much fought over Hill 60 (named after its height above sea level) and look at the many still extant WW1 features here, including Caterpillar Crater. By special request we pay a visit to the small First DCLI (The Bluff) Cemetery (CWGC) which contains the graves of officers and men of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry all of whom died in April-July 1915, including a relative of one of our travellers.

18.00  Visit Café Klein Rijsel on the edge of Ypres which includes a visit to their small museum* of WW1 with its realistic dioramas, materiel and equipment of war*. We will also taste a Vredesbier (Peace Beer) here*. Evening free in Ypres, destroyed completely and rebuilt after WW1. Here we have time for something to eat and a beer using Podge’s Ieper Bar Guide. Also an opportunity to attend the last post at the Menin Gate. This moving ceremony is held every night by the Belgian Fire Service in memory of those who died in the First World War, held underneath the Gate which forms a huge memorial to 54,896 Commonwealth soldiers who have no known grave.

20.00  Last Post, Menin Gate, Ypres.

22.00   Coach leaves for return to Poperinge.
A guided tour of hop fields by Eric Lagache at Reningelst

 

Sunday 29 May – Following the Ijzerfront and the Belgians in WW1

10.00 Leave Hotel Belfort by coach for Langemark via the haunting Brooding Soldier monument at St. Julien, erected to commemorate the 2000 Canadian soldiers who died in the first gas attacks in April 1915 at this spot. We follow the path of the chlorine gas to the village of Langemark and visit the Langemark German war cemetery. This was the scene of the disastrous attacks by inexperienced German soldiers in the First Battle of Ypres (1914). 44,000 soldiers are buried or commemorated here, including the Ace Werner Voss. We will find out about the history of the site and how it is maintained. We pay a visit to the Ijzertoren* in Dixmuide which is a museum to the Great War and the struggle for Flemish emancipation, which as we shall see, is linked to the Great War experience in this part of Belgium. There are 22 floors and a panoramic view from the top floor. This is followed by a quick stop at the nearby:

12.45 Dodengang café for a sandwich* and a beer*.

14.00 A special brewery tour* and tasting* at the inimitable De Dolle Brouwers in Esen, who formed the spearhead of the renaissance of Belgian brewing in 1980. Parts of the brewery have survived from WW1 and we will hear how the buildings of the former Costnoble brewery became a key feature in the experiences of the people of Esen in WW1.This is followed by a journey along the Belgian front line, marked by the deliberate flooding of the river Ijzer by the Belgians, looking at the frontline villages of Pervijse (and the story and sites associated with two English nurses Mairi Chihsolm and Elsie Knocker “The Madonnas of Pervijse”). We will have a brief visit to the Old Church at Stuivenskerke which was a forward observation post of the Belgian Army on an island in the water. Finally we travel to Ramskapelle to see the preserved old railway station which was fortified and used by the Belgian artillery as an observation point.

18.00  We return to Dixmuide for an evening meal and a beer or two in the selection of cafes and restaurants on the Grote Markt in the centre of town. Late evening we return to Poperinge via a little beer café The Lido in Vlamertinge, on the old road back from the Ypres frontline.

 

Monday 30 May – Return to Blighty

10.00 Leave Hotel Belfort.

10.30  Arrive at Vanuxeem Beer Shop in Ploegsteert, at the southern edge of the Ypres Salient for an opportunity to buy beers to take home.

12.30  Call in at the Trappist De Vrede Café in the grounds of the Abbey at Westvleteren, used to billet soldiers in WW1 and which continued to brew beer throughout the war.

14.30 Arrive at Nieuwpoort, where the “Race for the Sea” ended in Autumn 1914 and where the trenches disappeared into the English Channel. We have a look at the memorial to King Albert of the Belgians (Commander of the Belgian Armies in WW1) and hopefully ascend the lift* to the top of his monument and get a panoramic view of the “Goosefoot”, the series of sluices, canals and drainage channels which were skilfully manipulated by the Belgians to halt the German advance. This is followed by a quick beer in a nearby café, hopefully that named after Hendrik Geernaert, the local hero who played his part in the opening of the lock gates.

16.30  We pay our final visit of the Tour to Veurne, home to the Belgian Army HQ in the early stages of the war, and the English Hospital where nurses Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm cared for the wounded, before moving to the more dangerous cellar at Pervijse.

19.50   Eurotunnel Train departs from Calais.

19.30   Arrive Folkestone. Drop off at Stop24 J11 M20 near Folkestone. Drop off at J9 on M20. Drop off Thurrock Services.

21.30   Arrive Mildmay Road, Chelmsford. 

All above times are local and approximate. Items marked with an asterisk are included in the cost of the Tour. Other food and drink items and passport and insurance costs are each travellers responsibility and are at the traveller's cost. The price of this five day tour is £420 per person based on sharing a twin or double room, with a single supplement of £120 if you want a room of your own. WW1 Brewery Lahaye, Poperinge