Conferences

Hot topics in the beer world, from brewing technologies, brewing skills, consumers’ expectations, trade, trends etc...

Coming soon Program 2025

26/02/24 - Monday

12:00

"Do-it-yourself" Marketing

Frederik Picard

Managing Partner, Reputations

Selling your authenticity story with limited resources, time and skills. Every brewery does marketing. Every. But they all do it in a different way. Whilst traditional marketing via TV, newspaper and radio advertising remains the domain of the bigger companies (for budget reasons, mostly), the digital world has offered brewers of smaller sizes a lot of opportunities to increase visibility, presence and outreach to potential consumers.

13:00

Yeasts for wheat beers!

Gino Baart

Sales Manager – Northern Europe for Fermentis by Lesaffre

Introducing SafAle W-68 & SafAle BW-20
Consumers are ready for Back to Basic ‘yeast-driven' beers including lager and wheat beers. In this presentation two brand new Fermentis yeasts (SafAle W-68 & SafAle BW-20) for the production of wheat beers will be introduced and compared with SafAle WB-06 and SafAle T-58 in terms of fermentation kinetics and flavour profiles.

14:00

How to boost beer tourism ?

Nicole Groot Zevert

Coordinator Culinary Flanders at Toerisme Vlaanderen, Visit Flanders

Sven Dekleermaeker

Brewing Manager, Duvel Moortgat

With more than 300 breweries in Belgium, and being ‘the number one’ beer country, initiatives are booming to push for beer tourism. Some breweries have developed tours, other have joined forces locally to create visit programme and advertise for it, others team-up with the local tourism office to get listed and have the tours promoted. This session will offer inspiration for brewers to then team-up with local or regional tourism office to promote beer.

15:00

Malt : Product Innovation

Cristal Peck

Product Innovation Manager, Belgomalt

As a biochemist and brewer, Cristal has always had a clear focus on innovation and science in beer and flavors. Cristal leads the Boortmalt Innovation Center in Antwerp. There, she has been experimenting with innovations in malt for several years. The focus is clearly on creating new flavors and beer experiences. Cristal will explain some of her projects in the presentation. The creation of new flavors will be central.

16:00

How to monitor the quality of your beer?

Wouter Vandevyver

Industry Development Manager F&B / Life Sciences, Endress+Hauser

During the ancient-old craft of brewing a brewer makes use of his experience and knowledge. During the brew process he can be aided by measuring certain parameters that give information on the properties and the changes in the beer. These measurements help to determine the optimal temperature, pH, density and other factors that affect the quality and the taste of the beer. During this session we will dive deeper into how and why these parameters need to be monitored and how they can improve the quality of your beer.

17:00 - Debate

Substainability in hop growing

How can we address climate change and the increasing demand for sustainability in hop growing across various regions in Europe? A group discussion led by Benny Van Heule (HVB) with various persons actively involved in the European hop sector, namely Bart Boeraeve (Belhop), Carel Krol (Hollands Hophuis), and Francis Heitz (Compoir Agricole).

Carel Krol

Owner Hollands Hophuis

Bart Boeraeve

President Belhop and hop farmer

Francis Heitz

Export & Key Account at Comptoir Agricole / Hop France
Moderator

Benny Van Heule

Managing Director HVB-IMTC