Podge’s Belgian Beer Tours

Toer de Geuze & LambicLand 2026

Thursday 07 May – Monday 11 May 2026

This is our classic tour exploring the world's most complex beers, the lambic beers of the Zenne Valley, west of Brussels. It is a five day, four night Tour guided by Siobhan McGinn, co-writer with her husband Podge and Tim Webb of the definitive book LambicLand (2004, 2010). Siobhan's expertise in Belgium's quirky spontaneous fermented beers goes back over 30 years and she will take you to the best lambic cafes in LambicLand to sample this unique beer style. All from the comfort of our luxury 49 seater coach. Join us.

Thirsty work at Cafe In de Welkom, Dworp

The tour co-incides with the famous bi-annual lambic brewer/blender open days, the Toer de Geuze held over two days on the weekend of Saturday 09 May & Sunday 10 May 2026. We aim to visit 10 lambic brewers or blenders, or their brewery tap!

We are based in Chelmsford in Essex and we use a UK hired coach to travel. We try to use Le Shuttle (Eurotunnel) from Folkestone to get to and from Belgium, but if not available we go by ferry from Dover to Calais. 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. Podge's Central Chelmsford Map shows suggested accommodation and pubs! 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 Dover, if we go by ferry) and picks up at several points, as agreed with Siobhan, as below:

Ipswich, Bus Stop, Tesco Extra Store, Copdock Interchange, Pinewood, Ipswich IP8 3TS.

Colchester, McDonald's, Tollgate West, Stanway, Colchester C03 8RG.

Chelmsford, The Woolpack, 23 Mildmay Road, CM2 0DN.

Dartford, BP Garage (formerly Esso) 474 Princes Road, DA1 1YT. On the return leg we drop off at Dartford Railway Station DA1 1DR.

Swanley, Unit 4, Moreton Industrial Estate, London Road, BR8 8DE.

Ashford, pull in Outside Dobbies Garden Centre, Opposite Premier Inn, Ashford Eureka Leisure Park, Rutherford Road, Ashford, Kent, TN25 4BN.

Folkestone, Shell Garage, Stop 24 Services, J11, M20, Kent, CT21 4BL.

For this Tour we are booked on Le Shuttle Train with our coach on the outbound train from Folkestone at 09.50hrs and we are on the 19.20hrs inbound from Calais.

The detailed, timed itinerary for this Tour is set out below. If you would like to join us please send Siobhan an email or call on +44 (0) 7722 724 558 for details on how to secure a place. The deposit for this Tour is £210 per person. The Tour price is at the foot of this page.

Day 1 - Thursday 07 May 2026

Very Early! 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.

07.00hr Coach pick up BP Garage (formerly Esso), 474 Princes Road, Dartford, Kent, DA1 1YT (the one with the big McDonalds at the rear).

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.

08.15hr Coach pick up at Shell Garage, Stop 24 Services, J11, M20, Kent, CT21 4BL.

08.30hr Arrive Le Shuttle (Eurotunnel) Train Crossing from Folkestone.

09.50hr Departure of Le Shuttle (Eurotunnel) Train crossing from Folkestone.

11.30hr Arrive/Disembark Calais.

13.15hr Arrive at the Café Au Nouveau St.-Eloi in Watou. This lovely rural café is situated on the road that forms the border with France – the café is on the Belgian side! It is a huge place and full of old agricultural implements, a coffee grinder collection and general picturesque stuff. They have loads of local Flemish games to play which often involve throwing things and best of all a beer menu of 180 well picked bottled beers, with a further 10 on draft. Great place. We’ll stop here for a meal and slake our great channel-crossing thirst.

15.15hr Leave Au Nouveau St.-Eloi, Watou.

16.30hr Arrive at Herberg de Avonden in Zulte. This is a nice brown bar housed in an old red-brick station building which has a serious 240-strong beer list including offerings from local Sint Canarus, Trois Fourquet, Brouwers Verzet, BOM, Malheur, Dupont, Struise, Alvinne, Glazen Toren and De Ranke. Over a dozen 75cl sharing bottles, a selection of aged lambics and some rare one-offs and serious beers of the month. Brilliant cafe, great beers. We’ll stop here for a bit, then.

18.00hr Leave Herberg de Avonden in Zulte.

19.00hr Arrive in Aalst and make our way to the centrally located luxury four star Hotel Keizershof. Travellers have the evening free to explore the cafes, bars and restaurants of Aalst armed with Podge’s Aalst Bar Guide and Map*.

Lambic Barrels, stoppered in the old style.

Day 2 - Friday 08 May 2026

10.00hr After a leisurely breakfast* we leave the hotel by coach for a look into the mysteries of lambic beer:

10.45hr First call of the day is Den Herberg, lambic brewery and brewery tap cafe in Buizingen. They were admitted as members of HORAL (Hoge Raad voor Ambachtelijke Lambikbieren or High Council for Traditional Lambic Beers) in 2022. Herberg translates as 'The Inn' and is run by the Devillé family. The family bought this vacant property in Buizingen in 2000 and new owner Bart went to brewing school. Initially he produced small batch top-fermented home brewed beers. This hobby soon grew and took over the space they had originally bought as a storage unit for their construction business. As the property was an old disused café with a banqueting hall at the rear, they created a brewery and reopened the café in 2007. They also had seven children. In February 2008 Podge’s Belgian Beer Tours did a brewery visit here when they were brewing a blonde, amber and wheat beer. Because the café was located only 150m from the Senne river in the Payottenland they decided to expand Den Herberg’s beer range with own-brewed lambic. They started brewing lambic in 2017 and released their first geuze in 2020. They have a farm with an orchard of 400 Schaarbeekse cherry trees for use in future Kriek lambic. Den Herberg’s current beer range consists of top-fermented, bottom-fermented, mixed-fermentation beers, lambic, and geuze. So you can try their ordinary bottled beers or the following:

• Cuvée Devillé (6.2%abv) is a mixed fermentation beer fermented with top-fermenting yeast and wild yeast. It makes the perfect bridge towards the true lambic beers. Or, they brew a Blond, Wheat, Tripel and Bruin non-lambic beers.

• Herberg Lambiek is an 18-24 month old unblended lambic, with no carbonation, from a bag-in-box.

• Oude Geuze Devillé available in 37.5cl bottles. Only 10% goes for export, so try some here.

12.00hr Leave Den Herberg in Buizingen.

12.15hr Arrive at the 3Fonteinen Brewery “Lambic O Droom” in Lot. This place opened in 2016 by legendary brewer and blender Armand Debelder, who sadly passed away in 2022. He was the heart of lambic beer, and Podge’s Belgian Beer Tours visited him at his old premises in Beersel many times. He and his business partners, who have run the place for a couple of years, converted a former ice cream warehouse into a new complex designed to centralise brewing operations and allow visitors to see the end-to-end processes of Lambic beer making. It houses a coolship, blending facilities, barrel-ageing rooms, a bottling plant, a bar, tasting rooms and a shop.

When they started working here in 2016, they began using two colours of bottles: green for blends containing wort brewed at other breweries, and brown for blends containing wort brewed solely by 3 Fonteinen. Not sure if this is still in operation. In 2019, 3 Fonteinen left membership of HORAL and no longer bought wort from Boon. Instead, they acquired wort from De Troch and Lambiek Fabriek. They, like many other lambic beer producers have planted a Schaerbeek cherry orchard for adding to the beer to make a more authentic kriek of the terroir. Though 3Fonteinen Schaerbeekse Kriek is a premium price, it is counted by many as one of the world's great beers. They are interested in sourcing old strains of grain from local farmers and have developed a programme for the local sourcing of more Schaerbeek cherries. They are working with 75 families to grow, pick and source these awkward little buggers from their gardens. They also gave away 100 of their first root cuttings to anyone with a garden so long as they could keep track of the trees. These are not standard grafted cherry trees, mind, they are a wild variant, a low-stemmed bushy tree which must be harvested manually. We’ll have a settle down in their tasting room and Siobhan will buy everyone a lambic beer*. You’ll get a chance to have a wander around and taste these spectacular beers inspired by a great man.

13.45hr Leave 3Fonteinen Lambic-O-Droom in Lot.

14.00hr We arrive at Eetcafe D’Akte in Lennik. This is a fairly new beer café and restaurant in the leafy area of the Payottenland. It has a BIG beer list. And, being in this area, there are tons of lambic beers too. Eight beers on draft including my favourite, Chimay Tripel. 80+ beers all told – about half of these are lambic beers, and they offer old and young lambic beers on draft, including the best lambic, in my opinion, Girardin. My mouth is watering already! We’ll stop here for a meal and a nice sit down.

16.00hr Leave Eetcafe D’Akte in Lennik.

16.15hr We now visit a recent addition to the lambic family, Brouwerij Kestemont in Dilbeek This is another place which has sprung up on historical lambic roots. In 2019 Brouwerij Kestemont opened on the site of the old Brouwerij Goossens, which building still exists and has a protected monument status. The Kestemont family bought the site in 2016 and Francis (an organic farmer) and his son Lias began planning. Lias was a self-taught home brewer. They began by having wort brewed at Den Herberg and transferred here the next day when it had cooled. It was then aged for up to three years and blended. They installed their own brewery here in 2021. Like Het Boerenerf, most of the fruit in their beers are grown on site, such as strawberries and raspberries and the much sought after Schaerbeek cherries. All beers are certified organic. They have produced over a dozen lambic beers and will have an Oude Geuze too. They have a new taproom/bar and terrace. Kestemont were admitted as a member of HORAL in 2024.

• They brew a Sterke Oude Geuze at 8%abv, uncharacteristically strong for a lambic beer.

• They offer Oude Geuze, Oude kriek and Oude Kriek Schaarbeekse Krieken – I’d go for that, if I were you.

• They have a huge range of macerated fruit lambics – Rhubarb, Apricot, Gooseberry, Blackcurrant, Raspberry…

17.30hr Leave Brouwerij Kestemont in Schepdaal/Dilbeek.

17.45hr We pay a visit to the fantastic Bierhuis Oud Beersel, reopened in 2022, the brewery tap of the Oud Beersel Brewery a few doors down. They offer a wide range of beers of both traditional and innovative lambic beers, as well as their top and mixed fermentation Bersalis range. They have 12 taps! This is a historical lambic café which we used to visit on Podge’s Belgian Beer Tours before it closed 20 years ago. Gert Christiaens of Oud Beersel had long dreamed of acquiring this superb red & white tiled-front café and bought the place and it seems spent much of lockdown returning it to a working café. It looks very much like it did, and even still has the original wooden bar which survived it being a florist shop! I well remember an impressive huge round wood and ironwork table in the middle of the room, made from old foeders (barrels) where one of our travellers once proposed marriage – and amazingly it had been stored in pieces and is now back in place! For those of you who remember the stupendous Mortier (made in Antwerp) 1927 Dance Organ, it got sold to an enthusiast in Kansas City years ago, but due to popular demand they have a big picture of it in the café and music from it is played there! What to try here?

• Walnut lambic

• Schaarbeekse Oude Kriek Oud Beersel

• Oude Geuze Barrel Selection FOEDER 21 (what is special about barrel 21?)

19.00hr Leave Bierhuis Oud Beersel in Beersel.

19.30hr Arrive back in the friendly city of Aalst for a crack at its great beer cafes and restaurants.

Oud Beersel Oude Geuze

Day 3 - Saturday 09 May 2026

10.00hr After a leisurely breakfast* we leave the hotel by coach for the first of the official biennial HORAL Toer de Geuze days. Over the years the Toer de Geuze has attracted more and more people and each venue gets quite crowded with people enjoying these open days and beers. We hope to have about an hour and a half at each venue and will announce exact times to be back on the bus on the day. At most of the venues you can buy a snack to eat on the hoof. For each Toer de Geuze all of the members of HORAL contribute towards a special Oude Geuze beer brewed for the occasion and you should see bottles for sale at each of the venues of HORAL Mega Blend.

10.45hr Arrive at the most southerly member of the traditional geuze and kriek makers, Tilquin Blenders in Bierghes (Rebecq). Run by relative newcomer Pierre Tilquin who used to work at Cantillon in Brussels. You can have a tour of his blendery and barrel rooms. His beers will be for sale at the bar and you can buy bottles to take away at the shop. They have food stalls and a bouncy castle. Look out for:

• Oude Gueuze à l'ancienne. The proper stuff. Currently the only commercial geuze on the market to contain lambic from Cantillon.

• Gueuze Tilquin (Draught Version). This is a blend of low alcohol lambic beer called Meerts and 1 to 2 year old lambic beer.5.3%abv.

• Quetsche à l'ancienne a lambic with purple plums, refermented in the bottle

• Mûre à l'ancienne - blackberry lambic refermented in the bottle.

• Oddly, Tilquin don’t make a kriek beer but use various experimental fruits from time to time.

• Look out for Petite Geuze, the first geuze in a tin can at 4%abv.

12.00hr Leave Tilquin in Bierghes.

12.15hr Arrive at probably the biggest lambic, Geuze and Kriek producer, Boon Brewery in Lembeek. The great Frank Boon retired a couple of years ago, and has passed the brewery to his two sons Karel & Jos, who grew up there. Frank took over the brewery/blending business of the great René De Vits at the age of 21 in 1975. Rene made only 25,000 litres of geuze each year – Boon makes twice that every day now. Try their Black Label Geuze which they have been making since 2016 and for which they win awards regularly. For the Black Label series they select lambic with a high degree of final fermentation which ensures a dry aftertaste. They also do Vat numbered beers which are geuzes made from a single barrel. Look out for the 50th anniversary beer, a Mariage Parfait Geuze, but at 10%abv rather than the already higher than most 8%abv. Personally, I love the Frambozen and will be partaking thereof. Lush. (Note from Siobhan - this is a good place to have a snack).

13.45hr Leave Boon Brewery in Lembeek.

14.00hr We are mixing it up this year and instead of visiting all breweries and blenders on the TdG Saturday, we are visiting a brilliant lambic café which Siobhan has been wanting to visit for some time, being the Café Bascule (or Weighbridge, for it is next to the railway line) in Pepingen. This great place is a proper old-style bar with a huge selection running to 116 beers and specialising in lambic beers, natch, with a draft lambic on draft. Small snacks available.

15.30hr Leave Café Bascule in Pepingen.

15.45hr We are paying a visit to a new lambic producer, who are not (yet) a member of HORAL - Het Boerenerf in Huizingen. It is a working organic farm with Highland Cattle run by the Eylenbosch family (distant relations of the Brouwerij Eylenbosch in Schepdaal). The family here are fifth generation and there used to be a lambic brewery here. Young Senne Eylenbosch has brought the tradition back by blending. The old Eylenbosch (Huizingen) brewery was located down the street but ceased brewing in 1965. By 2008 the remaining brewery buildings were converted into flats, and the Eylenbosch family continued to operate the farm and dairy. Senne Eylenbosch worked at Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen until 2019, then began blending lambic wort from some of the main producers at his grandparents’ farm. The first release of beer was in 2021 and their beers are distinctly fruity. They like to use their own beetroot, quince and fruits produced on their farm, or nearby, so the beer range does depend on what is around. In 2022 Het Boerenerf released an oude geuze called Gueuze Erfgoed (which means ‘heritage’). We’ll pop in to support these little businesses in their efforts to keep the local beer heritage going. And for a taste, too.

17.15hr Leave Het Boerenerf in Huizingen.

18.00hr Arrive back in the friendly city of Aalst for a little lie down or a night out.

Day 4 Sunday 10 May 2026

10.00hr After breakfast* we leave the hotel by coach for the second and last of the official HORAL Toer de Geuze days:

10.30hr Call in at Brewery Eylenbosch in Asse – the new iteration of it, that is. They have recently become a member of HORAL. The original Eylenbosch brewery was founded 1886 in Schepdaal (very near the Insurance Against the Great Thirst Café), by Emile Eylenbosch (1861-1949) and quickly grew into one of the most important lambic and geuze producers in the area. It reached its peak around the 1958 World Exhibition, then lambic beers lost popularity due to increases in consumption of industrial lagers. Eylenbosch stopped producing beers in the late 1980s. The name was acquired by De Keersmaeker which in turn was taken over by Mort Subite (Alken-Maes). The old Eylenbosch brewery was used as a storage site by Mort Subite until 1991, which allowed them to expand production. In 2002 Mort Subite permanently closed the doors of Eylenbosch, but the building remained in the hands of the De Keersmaeker family and was eventually converted into 55 apartments in 2018. In 2019 it was announced that Eylenbosch would be revived, by Erik De Keersmaeker, the fifth generation of the De Keersmaeker lambic brewing family. They began brewing non-lambic top-fermented beers called 'Patience for Eylenbosch', whilst the lambic was made (brewed at De Troch) and aged for 3 years to make Geuze blended with younger lambic. Klaas makes all the lambic himself at De Troch, then it goes for maturation to the old farm where one of Erik’s relatives grows apples and pears. In the future, they intend to store lambic in the iconic Eylenbosch building in Schepdaal because the old cellars are still there and have been renovated. I’ve never been in the iconic “Spanuit” brewery, but I have old bottles from it. They now produce:

• Eylenbosch Oude Geuze.

• Eylenbosch Oude Kriek.

• Eylenbosch Oude Schaarbeekse Kriek, with the all-important word “Oude” on the labels.

• They also offer a bottled beer called Oude Lambiek, which is blended lambics which do not referment in the bottle, like a Geuze, so it pours flat.

11.45hr Leave Brewery Eylenbosch.

12.15hr Arrive at De Cam Geuzestekerij in Gooik. This is a tiny blender and is a good one to pick if you want a mini tour. Karel Goddeau, the master blender is passionate about lambic beer and I would say that his Raspberry Lambic was the best beer I have ever tasted, a few years ago in the yard at De Cam.

13.45hr Leave De Cam in Gooik.

14.15hr Arrive at Hanssens Geuzestekerij in Dworp. There will be a chance to try rare beers from this blender including Hanssens Oude Geuze and Oude Kriek, Cassis, Raspberry and Schaarbeekse Kriek (in limited quantities) for tastings and purchases. The Oudbeitje Wild Strawberry beer is and always has poured ‘flat as a witches ***’ as the Burnley saying goes - it’s just the way it is! I have always thought their beers were in the top two, ever since I first tasted them about 27 years ago when their bottles had no labels, just a white chalk paint stripe for the Geuze and a pink one for the Kriek, which would come off on your hands when you handled the bottle.

15.45hr Leave Hanssens in Dworp.

16.15hr Arrive at the famed In de Verzekering Tegen de Grote Dorst (The Insurance Against Thirst) in Eizeringen. Probably the best pub in the world. It is run by the Paneels family who re-opened this gorgeous café in 2000 and have an unrivalled selection of lambics, geuzes and krieks. They have plenty of vintage and rare new lambic beers. Look out for those from:

• Bierbrouwerij 4Pajot, Vlezenbeek.

• Stekerij Ambreus, Buizingen.

• Bofkont (Lucky Dog) Kontich, nr. Antwerp (so not LambicLand). A chap called Sam has been blending lambic in his cellar with fruit, aging it in oak barrels and bottling it. Named after his toy dog which he found in the attic when tidying up and looking for a name for his beers.

• Bokke, from Hasselt, Limburg. (also not LambicLand). Lambic blender Raf Souvereyns works under the name Bokke (formerly Methode Goat, then Bokkereyder) since 2013.

17.45hr Leave In de Verzekering Tegen de Grote Dorst in Eizeringen.

18.15hr Arrive back in Aalst for a free evening on the tiles town.

Lambic - 'a beer in love with the wind...'

Day 5 Monday 11 May 2026

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

10.30hr Arrive at Dranken Pede in Wetteren. This is our beer warehouse stop for you to buy some of your favourite Belgian beers to take home, at much better prices than in the U.K.

11.45hr Leave Dranken Pede in Wetteren.

13.00hr Arrive at our last stop of the Tour, and it’s a favourite with our travellers – the excellent Cafe De Snoek (The Pike) in Alveringem attached to the Museum of Thirst in The Great War which is housed in a pre-First World War brewery. This great little bar has been taken over in recent years by Philip Nock, who is doing a brilliant job with 147 beers on his beer list. Try the very nice house beer De Snoek, in a brown and a blond, brewed by De Dolle Brouwers in Esen. This is also a rare outlet for Seizoensbrouwerij Vandewalle beers from nearby Lo-Reninge.

16.30hr Leave Café De Snoek in Alveringem.

17.30hr Arrive Calais Le Shuttle (Eurostar) Terminal.

19.20hr Leave Calais on Le Shuttle (Eurostar) train.

19.00hr Arrive Folkestone Le Shuttle (Eurostar) Terminal.

19.15hr Coach drop Shell Garage, Stop 24 Services, J11, M20, Kent, CT21 4BL.

19.30hr Coach drop pull in outside Dobbies Garden Centre, Opp. Premier Inn. Ashford Eureka Leisure Park, Rutherford Road, Ashford, Kent, TN25 4BN.

20.30hr Coach drop at Dartford Rail Station, Kent, DA1 1DR.

21.15hr Coach drop Junction of Lady Lane & Mildmay Road, Chelmsford CM2 0EA.

21.30hr Coach drop Travelodge Hotel, 128-136 Parkway, Chelmsford CM2 7GY.

22.45hr Coach drop Premier Inn Victoria Road, Chelmsford CM1 1NY.

23.55hr Coach drop Galloways coach depot at Denters Hill, Mendlesham, Suffolk, IP14 5RR.

Our last stop, the excellent De Snoek, Alveringem.

Tour Price is £1075 per person price sharing a double or twin room.

Single Supplement: £335 if you would like a room of your own.

The deposit payable to secure a place on this Tour is £210 per person.

Send Siobhan an email to find out how to pay the deposit.

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.

All Tours are subject to our Terms and Conditions.

Fill out my online form.