My name is Eoghan Walsh, and this is the Brussels Beer City Podcast.

Each week, a fascinating Brussels resident invites me, your host, to their favourite Brussels bar. Where, over a drink or two, we talk about the importance of the bar to them, and their relationship to Brussels - what they love, what they hate, and why they couldn’t live anywhere else.

My guest on today’s episode is Reine Nkiambote, press spokesperson for Brussels Secretary of State for Urbanism and Heritage, Pascal Smet, and co-host of the Yaya Talks podcast.

On a cold, wet spring day, over a drink and shrimp sandwich, we talked about how a sandwich shop transforms into an afro-beat enclave, why she skipped town from Antwerp and landed in Brussels, and why she started her own podcast to give voices to under-represented women in the Belgian media.

Quick note for context, this episode was recorded before the Covid-19 lockdown in Brussels and the global anti-racist movement that has emerged in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.