Greetings from a small cafe in Belgium. The server didn’t speak much English (or is choosing not to, I think?) and speaks FAST French! Somehow I read the menu in Dutch to choose my tea and ordered in French. That was a language whirlwind!
Anyway, back to my Workaway in Alveringem. Rather than a day-by-day account, I’ll write this entry as a cumulative experience.
March 18-23 & 27-April 1
Workaway Backstory
When I plan trips, I aim to give back to communities I’m traveling through. Sometimes all I manage to do is wash dishes for hosts, but other times I find full-on volunteer projects. For this trip, I decided to use a volunteering platform my friends Karin and Sid frequent, called Workaway. Workaway describes itself as “The leading community for cultural exchange, working holidays and volunteering in 170 countries.” Karin and Sid have been traveling almost nonstop for a few years now, spending most of their time at Workaway positions. We met during a different volunteer experience, All Hands and Hearts. You can read about our experience with a hurricane response project in the Bahamas in my post series starting here.
I decided that for this trip, I’d give Workaway a shot. You can make an account without paying for a subscription, so I did that and began searching for projects (you can search for free, just can’t contact hosts until you pay). I didn’t find much of interest in the Netherlands, but there are quite a few cool projects in Belgium, including a food forest initiative, transforming an old building into a community center, and two that sounded most appealing: Designing an educational escape room about beer-making for an old brewery while living in a small castle, and volunteering at a folk music/dance festival. I reached out to both project hosts and was accepted, so that part of my trip was set. Boom!
PS: If you want to give Workaway a shot, feel free to use my referral code here, so we both benefit 🙂
Brouwerij Feys
Feys Brewery is an old brewery built in the 1800s. There is a big sign on the side of the brewery with the date 1898, but I think it was built earlier. So how did this old, non-functioning brewery become a Workaway project, you ask? I’ll tell you!
Over a decade ago, the current owner, Hendrik, took a sabbatical to travel and re-find himself after his father’s death. For three years he traveled the world, visiting over forty countries, before returning to his home country of Belgium and stumbling across this old, run-down brewery in 2013. Suddenly he knew where he wanted to be and what he wanted to do; one of his three dreams in life was to run a brewery, and now here was his chance to save a piece of history and achieve the goal!
For the first eight years, he worked on the project mostly by himself, envisioning big plans for the property including community gatherings, festivals, parties, educational opportunities, kayak rentals, tours, and more. Two years ago he met his partner Cindy, who arrived with her camper van to rent space on the property, fell in love, and never left! In November 2021 Hendrik started accepting Workaway volunteers, and now he hosts as many as a dozen at once. When I arrived, there were ten Workawayers living in the castle, from many different countries. There was even one Italian guy who is almost a clone of my cousin Tyler!
Fun fact: The room I was given has some history; the French WWI general Ferdinand Foch stayed there for a time during the war! I only took a video of the space, so unfortunately I can’t share that here on the blog…
The brewery is enormous; Nele and I received a tour when we arrived, and the building went on and on! There is SO MUCH to be done at the brewery, and Hendrik has his sights set on using the entire space, and renovating it all simultaneously. As you can see in the photos, there is a ton of potential for this project, but it requires a lot more work. I truly hope it is successful.
The Routine
Each weekday at the brewery starts the same: Free-for-all breakfast at 8:30 AM, work at 9 AM. Hendrik puts a list of tasks on the fridge and everyone chooses something that appeals to them; weeding in the garden, cutting firewood, doing restoration tasks inside the brewery, preparing lunch (it’s a big task when there are a dozen mouths to feed!), etc. When more instructions are needed, Hendrik walks around showing volunteers what to do. Saturdays and Sundays are free days, which most volunteers spend traveling to nearby regions.
Everyone works until 2 PM, with a break around 12 PM. Hendrik is lenient about hours; I spent a long weekend away (hence the gap in dates at the top of this post), so I squished hours into other days. Typically everyone spends the second half of each day doing their own thing; some hang out inside, some borrow bikes to explore, those with cars drive somewhere, some walk the 1 km to the French border, etc. We gather in the evening for dinner, wash dishes, and are free to do whatever we want the rest of the night. Mostly everyone hangs out by the fire, but sometimes ping pong and pool games are organized in the brewery, and a sauna is available. There is one shower and one laundry machine, so everyone works around each other to wash their clothes and themselves.
Escape Room
I chose this position specifically to contribute to the educational escape room about beer-making that Hendrik included in the list of possible tasks on the Workaway website. I have experience designing escape rooms, so I contacted Hendrik and asked if I could come specifically to work on this. He was delighted that someone with experience was interested, so it was a match!
When I arrived, I discovered that the brewery was not physically ready to house an escape room. The idea is to have the escape room in the half-basement/cellar, but currently that space easily floods, and there are lots of items in the area that make it unsafe for a game. I spoke to Hendrik and we agreed that my job would be to design a plan for the room, so the blueprints would be in place for implementing the game in the future. Works for me.
I spent my ten work days at the brewery mostly on my computer, researching beer-making and planning how to teach it to a multi-lingual crowd through games. A few times I turned my attention to other tasks, like preparing lunch and helping with outdoor labor, but mostly I worked on the game. I learned quite a bit about beer-making in my short time on the project.
Hops Museum
As part of the research for the escape room, myself and ClĂ©mence, a volunteer from France, borrowed bikes and rode 10 km to the town of Poperinge to visit Hopmuseum, a museum dedicated to “the green gold” of Poperinge and nearby towns in this Westhoek (“west corner”) region of Belgium. I was surprised to learn that 75% of Belgium’s hop production is from the Westhoek region. We took a lot of notes during our visit. A few things we learned:
- There are six “beer saints” in Catholicism who are associated with miracles related to beer and/or have written about beer.
- Historically, people came to Poperinge from all over Europe to harvest hops. It was common for 10,000 people to come to Poperinge from nearby areas to spend a month harvesting the plants. In addition to harvesters from Belgium, roaming caravan families nicknamed “Easterners” came.
- The hop harvesting season ended with a “hops feast,” which included singing songs, burning a large straw man, eating raisin bread, drinking cocoa, and awarding a crown to the farmer’s wife and one other woman who had contributed the most to the success of the hops harvest.
- There was a monastery near Poperinge which was important for brewing beer in that region. From what I understood, it moved to France, but not clear on this..
- There are two main varieties of hops, categorized as “bitter” and “rich aroma.” Rich aroma hops are common in Eastern Europe, while Belgium is known for bitter hops.
- Lots more facts on how high hop plants grow, how they were harvested, their importance in Poperinge, etc. Maybe not interesting enough to include here though…
Overall the museum was worth visiting, especially since it cost just 2.50€ for students ;-D
Cycling
I spent as much free time as I could on a bicycle. The weather was not on my side, so I only rode two days. The bikes were not in great condition, but good enough for small adventures. The best was a 30-km adventure riding with ClĂ©mence to a windmill in Vleteren, with a gorgeous route back to the brewery despite strong wind. I enjoyed speaking French with ClĂ©mence, and we were able to help each other practice our respective languages. We also took a trip with another Workawayer, Daniel, drank local beer in Poperinge, and visited a Frituur for Belgian fries. I’ll let the photos do the talking for the cycling. I wish I could return in warmer weather and discover where these bike paths could take me…
I Wish…
While I was glad to get to visit this brewery, I wish the weather had been warmer. Most days were cold and rainy, so I didn’t get to explore much of the beautiful landscape surrounding the brewery, and the weather was not agreeable for borrowing a kayak to sail down the river. There was also one volunteer who I. Could. Not. Stand. Whenever he cooked meals he made comments about how he is making a meat meal and will make something small on the side for us vegetarians, or comments when I cooked about how my meal choice should include X or I should prepare something differently, and he will make some meat on the side, etc. He had strong feelings about how awful a sport professional cycling is, how lazy and unappreciative refugees are, and more opinions that made me walk far away. He loved to insert himself into conversations and talk over everyone, so I started giving him a New York cold shoulder, cutting him off, and walking away or ignoring what he said. I think this is one reason I didn’t spend as much time at the brewery as I’d initially intended; not only was it cold and rainy, but I could barely stand this guy. The other volunteers were cool, but this one soured the experience a bit.
The Last Night
My last night at the brewery was my favorite. Hendrik cooked a traditional Belgian mussel dish, then four of us went over to the brewery to play ping pong and pool. It was my first and only night truly interacting with other volunteers, since people usually did their own thing each evening. Afterward we all ate packaged Belgian waffles, which were better than I expected. I put ice cream and sprinkles on mine, and the two 18-year-old German girls got so excited about the idea and immediately made their own. I’m glad I ended the stay on a good note.
Future
Perhaps I will return to Feys Brewery someday. It would be cool to come back with a friend and see how the projects have advanced, and to borrow the bikes and kayaks for outdoor adventures in warmer weather. Feys Brewery semi-regularly hosts community events, so it would be cool to be there for an event too (there was a cycling BBQ the weekend I was away, but I was having amazing adventures elsewhere, no regrets). Perhaps this is not the end; I still have an escape room to build!
Hendrik and Cindy kindly drove me all the way to Brugge, back to Nele’s house on their way to the Netherlands. Dank je wel Hendrik and Cindy for everything, and I hope we meet again!
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