Belgium: A Beer-Lover’s Dream

In order to prevent jamming the city roads with beer trucks, a local brewery in the medieval city of Bruges is building a 4km long pipeline to transport beer! The pipeline will connect the De Halve Maan Brewery, a 160-year-old establishment in the centre of the town with its bottling plant outside the city at a proposed rate of 4,000 litres of beer per hour! The project is getting the full support of Bruges residents, some of whom have offered  to allow the pipeline to pass through their houses provided they get a free tap. The pipeline was only built to solve a logistical problem and not to provide people with personal taps in their homes.

The man behind the idea, Xavier Vanneste, whose family runs the brewery,  found other ways of involving residents. He began a crowdfunding campaign to finance the $4.5 million project. He offered rewards in kind ( read beer) to contributors and one man who shelled out $11,000 has been granted a life-long supply of beer.