The Belgian Beer World Experience is an informational stop where your whole family can learn a little more about the local culture and history of beer.

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Traveling to the Belgian Beer World Experience

The Belgian Beer World Experience is conveniently located right in the middle of Brussels, making it easy to get to from practically anywhere. The closest metro stop is immediately outside the experience (Bourse) and there’s another option (De Brouckere) a few blocks away.

You might be surprised to see the Belgian Beer World Experience in such an ornate building. This building is actually the old Stock Exchange building before the exchange ultimately moved elsewhere. It was built in the mid-1800’s and while it houses more than just the beer experience, you might find that many coming here have the intention of drinking.

Once inside, it’s quite straightforward to find signage that will lead you to the entrance of the experience.

Ticket prices

We purchased our tickets directly from the Belgian Beer World Experience website. There are some online resellers of tickets, but prices seemed cheapest when purchased directly, though you might get lucky if there’s an outdated exchange rate to another currency.

• €21.50 for adults (26-59)
• €19.50 for seniors (age 60+)
• €15.50 for students (16-25)
• €12 for children aged 12-15
• €8 for children aged 4-11
• Free for children aged 0-3

Tickets include a drink at the very end of the tour though you’ll need to be of age to get your hands on alcohol. You can be as young as 16 years old to legally drink beer in Belgium (18 is the drinking age for spirits).

Their site also contains some combination tickets if you have a desire to visit multiple attractions during your visit to Brussels. Remember that these will save you money only if you intend to visit these attractions independent of the combo ticket. If you’re only doing it because it’s discounted, we’d argue you’re not saving money.

Once you make it into the entrance, you’ll find the front desk where employees will scan your tickets. They have a coat check, but we found it easier to just keep our coats with us. You don’t end the experience at the same place you start so don’t forget your coats if you do check them.

Not sure if this was a permanent thing, but there are some free posters you can color here at the entrance. They were selling them up in the gift shop so you might as well get them for free if you want them.

A brief summary of the experience

We aren’t going to go into every detail of the experience. No matter what we say about it, you won’t get the full experience just reading about it. I think it’s best to think of this as partly informational, partly interactive, and partly intoxicating (natch). This is a self-guided experience, so feel free to go at your own pace.

You’ll learn a little about the history of beer, and in particular how it pertains to Europe and Belgium.

You’ll have the opportunity to smell and touch ingredients. Of course, it’s all on your preferences if you actually like the smells.

There’s even a short, immersive movie where you’ll find out what it’s like to be yeast in the fermenting process.

The entire experience takes place across multiple floors of the old Stock Exchange Building.

Personalized beer recommendations

Two floors up from the entrance, you’ll get a chance to find out what beers you might want to try. First up is a display featuring all the beers they have on tap at the upstairs bar. You’ll be able to scan your ticket and identify some basic features of beers you like.

At the next station, you’ll further narrow down the list based on flavors and textures.

And then at the third station, you hand over your ticket and the friendly employee will print you a coaster with 10 different beers that might fit your preferences.

It’s neat that they hand the list as a coaster. That makes it easy to scratch beers off the list and to bring it around with you. If you have kids, they’ll gladly give you a blank coaster.

Is there anything for children to do here?

So, since we’re talking about kids, what’s the deal with them and the Belgian Beer World Experience?

Well, you’ll see some children here. It’s not like you’ll see a ton of them running around, but we did find others here. And no one is going to look at you funny if you bring them. After all, with the legal drinking age for beer being only 16 years old, there might be some kids here you’d swear would be underaged in other countries.

There are animated stories that will entertain the kids. Pretty much all of them are written in English, Dutch, and French.

There are also interactive exhibits that seem geared towards kids, like this one where you need to remove graffiti from the wall. The graffiti keeps regenerating so adults might give up but kids can be more persistent.

Our kids both liked the part where you can create your own beer bottle, label, and name. There’s a strong emphasis in Belgium for each beer to have its own unique features on bottles, glasses, and labels.

Char made a drink she called “Baby Drink”. Yeah, something tells me that particular beer won’t sell well in the real world.

And there are parts where you can take a picture of yourself as a souvenir. The kids also loved doing that.

All in all, there’s enough to do here with the kids to keep them from getting bored. Back when the Heineken Experience in Amsterdam allowed kids, they didn’t have nearly enough to keep kids entertained. Thus, it’s great that the Belgian Beer World Experience can hold their attention. I wouldn’t go so far as to call this a family-friendly experience, but we wouldn’t mind bringing the kids again. And they wouldn’t mind tagging along.

What do you get to drink at the Belgian Beer World Experience?

The tasting halfway through the tour

Just before you head upstairs to the area with the movie, stop by the small cart to try out two different beers. For at least this tasting, there’s no non-alcoholic version for the kids.

I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to catch the names of the two samples, but one is a blonde and the other is an amber. It’s not clear to us if the selections are on rotation.

Beerlab

After your self-guided tour ends and you pass through the gift shop, you can make your way up to the Beerlab. This bar is open to the public, so you don’t need to come on the tour to head on up here.

For our visit, the place was especially crowded because many workers that would be at the Brussels Christmas Market were here to celebrate the start of the season. To say that slowed down lines would be an understatement.

All those of proper drinking age can show their Belgian Beer World Experience ticket to get a free 33cl draft beer of their choosing. Just make your selection and hand over the QR code. It’s our understanding that children can get a free non-alcoholic beverage but given the crowds, we weren’t able to try it out. Poor timing on my part because crowds weren’t bad when we showed up but then lines quickly quadrupled in size.

This bar boasts a selection of 150 beers but we didn’t run the math to validate their numbers. If you kept your coaster from the tour, the list might not seem quite so overwhelming.

Since this is on the top floor, if you come out here during earlier hours, you might get a great view of the city. Unfortunately, it was fairly dark when we were here, so we didn’t see much. We would have loved to stick around here a bit longer, but sadly the kids were getting hungry for dinner at this point. Beerlab doesn’t have food, so that meant we needed to move on from here.

Recommendation: Yes, if you want some history with your beers

If all you care about is just drinking, do yourself a favor and just immediately head up to the Beerlab rooftop bar or go elsewhere. You don’t need to waste your money on an extra experience unless you’re trying to avoid others in your party from thinking you’re an alcoholic. But if you’re here and want to learn more about beer culture as it pertains to Europe and Belgium, you’re at a good spot. If you normalize out the price of a beer at Beerlab (most are between €5 and €7), you can think of the experience itself with two tastings to be about €15. That’s not a bad price for what you get.

Add onto this the interactive exhibits that can keep the kids happy, and we all had fun. It’s great that children aren’t just allowed to come but there are things for them to do too.

Will you check out Belgian Beer World?

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