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Every year in this period a major beer event is planned in Belgium, the Vilvoorde BierproefFestival. In its fifteenth edition, the event will be held Saturday, April 24 at the Erasmus campus in Jette, a suburb northwest of Brussels. There will be 89 beers from around the world, with an obvious large selection from Belgium (73), and beers brewed in Denmark, Germany, France, Netherlands, Sweden, USA and Italy.

Sifting through the complete list you can find famous and lesser-known breweries and a huge variety of styles. Italian flagship will be the Genoese brewer Maltus Faber, proposing Brune, Triple and Extra Brune. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the only Italian brewery that will be present is one of the most Belgian influenced.

The tone of Vilvoorde is very distinctive and is summarized by the description of Joris Pattyn:

It’s a festival made by students for students. There is no better audience than people of that age to get the message that there is something better than the industrial lager beer on tap in the pub. The future of good traditional beer will be protected only by those who come after us. And I can testify that there is great interest in this regard.

If you want to know more, check out the official blog of Vilvoorde, unfortunately updated only in Flemish.

Another important international event is the Ølfestival, a.k.a. the Copenhagen Beer Festival, organized by Danske Ølentusiaster. It will be held in the Danish capital from May Thursday 6 to Saturday 8, in the former Carlsberg’s bottling room.

The list of exhibitors is impressive, with a lot of Danish as well as foreign breweries. Along with plenty of unfamiliar names, at least to Italians, there are some renowned breweries such as Mikkeller, Ølfabrikken, Hornbeer, GB or Brewdog. Sifting through the names, we also note the presence of Impexbeer, which is the company of Alex Liberati. Is therefore likely that there will be a bit of Italy also in Copenhagen, at least for the Roman Revelation Cat.

For more information, visit the Ølfestival website, in Danish only.