Object #42 - Vini Birre Ribelli Glass

2014

City Life

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Vini Birre Ribelli arrived like a bolt from the blue in Brussels, and disappeared almost as suddenly. Running from 2014 to 2017, this beer-and-wine festival was short-lived, but its influence on Brussels’ beer scene was long-lasting.  

As its name suggests, Vini Birre Ribelli had Italophile leanings and focused on unconventional or unusual producers. In 2014, this was not an idea completely out of left-field; Brussels’ beer community has long had close relations with its Italian counterparts - evidenced by Moeder Lambic’s regular Italian tap takeovers, Brasserie Cantillon’s close relationship with Italian winemakers, and restaurants like the Roman La Tana. Vini Birre Ribelli’s first edition in December 2014 featured wines from Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna, and Tuscany, and beers from Fidenza’s Toccalmatto and LoverBeer and Montegioco of Piedmont. There was also local representation in the form of Brasserie Cantillon, Tilquin, and others. 

Housed in the Maison De la Poste building at the Tour & Taxis former industrial site, Vini Birre Ribelli was founded by Moeder Lambic’s Jean Hummler, Italian sommelier Enrico D'Ambrogio, wine writer Patrick Böttcher, and cultural administrator Caroline Vermeulen. It was not Brussels’ first beer festival, the Belgian Beer Weekend having occupied the Grand Place on the last weekend of August annually since the early 2000s. And nine years before Vini Birre Ribelli’s appearance, Brasserie de la Senne organised the first edition (of four) of their Bruxellensis “characterful beer” festival featuring beers the likes of De Ranke, Thiriez from Northern France, and England’s Ramsgate brewery.

But like Bruxellensis, Vini Birre Ribelli’s lifespan was truncated. In 2015 it decamped to the Koning Boudewijn stadium before returning to the canal neighbourhood in 2016 and 2017, first to an abandoned Citroën garage on Ijzerplein, then back to Tour & Taxis in November 2017 for a fourth edition. There was to be no fifth edition. But beer drinkers need not have worried, because 2017 turned out to be a bit of a landmark year for Brussels beer festivals. 

Hummler had already by then a new project, launching the BXLBeerfest that August with restaurateur Olivier Desmet, Kevin Desmet of Belgian Beer Geek, and journalist Vincent Callut - in the exact same location as Vini Birre Ribelli’s final edition. In June 2017 the brains behind Malt Attacks, Barboteur in Schaarbeek, and St Gilles’ Dynamo held their own festival, SWAFFF, in Schaarbeek. Later, they would cross the canal to a renovated farmhouse in Molenbeek. Like BXLBeerfest and Vini Birre Ribelli, SWAFFF featured established and up-and-coming Belgian breweries alongside a mix of continental and UK breweries like Norwegian Lervig, Estonian Pohjala, and London’s Anspach & Hobday. In October they were joined by Brussels Beer Project’s Wanderlust.

These new festivals, while possessing their own aesthetic, shared some similarities. A focus on small, independent, and interesting producers. Taking food seriously - sometimes even roping some of Brussels’ biggest culinary stars. And their location, on or near Brussels’ canal, confirming the inexorable shift westward of Brussels beer’s centre of gravity. All of which Vini Birre Ribelli did first.

Vini Birre Ribelli is dead. Long live Vini Birre Ribelli.