Belgium’s new beer pipeline opens

4,000 litres – how much is pumped an hour
Four million euros – how much it cost
Three kilometres – the total length

It is one pipe dream that has very much become reality. The last tanker at De Halve Maan brewery in Bruges was filled on Thursday. From Friday, thousands of litres beer will be pumped beneath the cobbled streets of the medieval Belgium city, which is a UNESCO-protected site.

Part crowdfunded and costing a total of four million euros, the new pipeline means hundreds of truck trips a year will no longer be necessary.

Renaat Landuyt, Mayor of Bruges, said: “It was so important to find that solution for our mobility problem, because if we want to work in a modern way, from time to time we need to let trucks enter the historical city, and that is what we don’t like, because it is always a risk for the historical buildings and streets.”

Stretching a total of three kilometres from the brewery in the centre of Bruges to a bottling plant on the outskirts of the city, the new pipeline can pump 4,000 litres of booze an hour, or the equivalent of 12,000 bottles. A statistic which is sure to send beer lovers into a froth.