November 8, 2011
This remarkable place is an independent museum dedicated to Belgian beer. Easy to reach thanks to its proximity to the train station between Dinant and Namur. Its breweriana is concentrated on empty bottles and glasses (for instance, there must be 3 dozens different westy bottles and glasses). That collection (more than 20,000 bottles!) would benefit from a larger place and now it’s a bit all over the place and not the cleanest display, but a very impressive sight nonetheless. What will attract the ratebeerian though is the beer store component. The museum owners are passionate about encouraging smaller breweries, particularly in Wallonia and they try to stock as many of their beers as possible. Consequently, the store area is packed with something like 700-800 different Belgian beers in FULL bottles, including plenty of rarities. I found a couple of beers that were not rated yet on Ratebeer. The couple who runs the museum are a bit marginal, but friendly enough and certainly very talkative. They don’t seem to speak English though, which may be an obstacle to some as a big part of the attraction is the less visible section that contains aged beers and you kinda have to talk your way through to gain access to that special stash. Here, they have a couple of beers from extinct breweries, very old classics like Westmalle. Quite a few bottles are from the 80’s and among others, I found Belle-Vue from the Van Den Stocke era before Inbev bought in, a dusty De Dolle Snoek, a Double Enghien Saison with a cork so used it looked like earth. All gambles, but if they’ve been stored in the museum from the beginning, the conditions are great: cold and dark. Moreover, they have a unique pricing system where the volume and the alcohol content are the only factors taken into consideration. Lambics are therefore particularly cheap. Do not come in expecting to find a hidden stash of Drie Fonteinen Millenium or such other hyped rare lambic on Ratebeer, but then again, I would not be surprised if they have a few such treasures, but are just waiting for the right customer to sell them to.