It was a strange encounter.

On a pleasant Monday evening last spring, I was sitting in the Hotel des Brasseurs in the Belgian seaside resort De Haan, studying the beer menu and quickly realising that, while it offered a few interesting choices, it fell a long way short of the brilliant selection on sale in De Torre next door. Then the waitress arrived.

She spotted my notebook and the way I was poring over the menu but said nothing as she took my order. Bringing me my bottle of Ichtegems Grand Cru, from the Strubbe brewery just south of Ostend, she made her move.

‘Do you like tasting beers?,’ she questioned in that pleasant, sing-song, gutteral accent typical of Flemish speakers. I had to confess that, I was, indeed, partial to the odd glass. ‘Then you will be interested in this,’ she quickly added, thrusting a business card under my nose.

Next Town Along

The card was for a beer shop in Wenduin, the next town along the coast, a shop she ran with her husband (waitressing, it was revealed, was just for pocket money). To her surprise, I already knew about the shop.

The local tourist board had been keen for me to see it, one of a number of beery attractions it had marked in my diary for that week. I was due to call in the next morning.

When I mentioned this, the waitress was clearly perplexed, as Tuesday was normally their closing day. She appeared to know nothing about my plans.

I finished my drink, paid my dues and headed off in search of some frites, leaving one seriously bemused waitress to tidy up behind me.

The next day I hopped about the coastal tram and took the five-minute ride east to Wenduin. Turning down one of the main shopping streets, I checked the address and scanned each shop front for the words Bieren den Haene. I was not particularly hopeful.

For all the waitress’s eagerness to tell me about her shop, it was not at all clear that it would be open after all and it seemed likely that there would be no one to greet me.

Friendly Welcome

Well, it turned out the shop was not open – not to the public, anyway – but I was, I’m pleased to say, expected. While stock was being ferried in and out of the shop van, and a spot of internal cleaning was taking place, I was made very welcome by Sylvia Hallermans – I can no longer keep calling her ‘the waitress’ – and her cigar-chomping husband David Meesters.

I was glad I made the effort, crossed-wires between the tourist board and the shop notwithstanding.

Bieren den Haene is an interesting little find. Wenduin is not the most likely place for beer hunters to leave the coastal tram. It has a few decent seafront bars, but there’s nowhere where you can expect a serious Belgian beerophile to hang out.

So the shop handily fills a hole. Some 80–100 beers are in stock, with all the likely contenders but also a few more interesting options, including beers brewed especially for it by Strubbe.

Beer Brands

David created the recipes. By his own admission, he’s a wine connoisseur (there’s evidence of this in the shop’s stock, too) and, in a former life, he worked in the medical profession. That helped, he claims, when he took a crash course in brewing.

Trammelantje, as the main beer is called, is a 6.5% amber brew with a high carbonation that produces a huge, rocky head if not poured with care. It’s an easy-drinking ale, with a bittersweet taste balancing herbal hop notes with a lightly malty finish.

Ten per cent of profits from the beer are diverted to a local children’s hospital. The range also includes a kriek and a wit.

Sylvia once worked for Honda – ‘once’ meaning for 15 years. It was her redundancy that partly led to the setting up of the shop in July 2007, at first in De Haan itself and now in the commercially more viable shopping heart of Wenduin.

It’s a functional sort of place, with a few tables inside and out, if you want to have drink while you’re stocking up, or if you want to join in one of the events they occasionally hold. They had hosted a kriek evening not long before my visit.

If you’re in this part of Belgium, I’d recommend a pause here.

The good news is that, in summer, they open seven days a week, so there needn’t be any confusion over whether or not you’re expected.

Bieren den Haene, Kerkstraat 57, Wenduine
Tel: +32 (0) 473 73 33 54
www.denhaene.be