Omer Vander Ghinste Brewery

One of the most interesting breweries in the Leie region is Omer Vander Ghinste in Bellegem - formerly known as Bockor. You can visit the company, the tour ends with a tasting.
At the end of the nineteenth century, every village in the Lys region had one or two breweries. Beer consumption is therefore staggeringly high by our standards: 400 litres per year per person - about five pints a day, all year round, for every man and woman.
In 1892, twenty-three-year-old Omer Vander Ghinste started a small brewery in Bellegem. With the contribution of his wife, a daughter from a family of brewers, he succeeds in selling his beer in Kortrijk as well. The brewery flourished, and when pilsner beer began to take off in the 1920s, Vander Ghinste had enough money to build a cooling tower - which you needed for lager.
The lager quickly became the best-known beer, and in the 1930s it was given the brand name Bockor - from 1977 to 2014 the brewery also bore that name. Nevertheless, the Vander Ghinste family continues to brew spontaneous and top-fermented beers to this day. The best known are Omer and Vander Ghinste Roodbruin, a Flemish red-brown beer that is typical of the Leie region.

More information about this can be found via this link. There you can also book brewery visits.

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