Belgian beer seeks UN culture listing
Print Edition
FROM brown ales to golden pilsners to the strong trappist brews produced in monasteries, Belgian beer is enjoyed around the world.
Now, Belgium is asking the United Nations’ heritage body to add its beer-making and drinking culture to a list of traditions worth protecting, saying that brewing fosters a unified identity in a country with three official languages.
The country is home to nearly 200 breweries making 1,500 different beers, according to the trade association Belgian Brewers, which prepared Belgium’s application.
National dishes also include beer and the country has some 30 brewing museums.
Submitted by Belgium’s German-speaking region to UNESCO, the application says beer brewing improves the well-being of Belgian people by stimulating the economy, promoting local products and strengthening social ties.
The history and broad variety of brews available make Belgium’s beer industry stand out from other brewing traditions around the world, the submission says.
UNESCO’s “intangible heritage” committee meets next week in Addis Ababa and will determine whether Belgian beer culture and 36 other practices such as Indian yoga and Czech and Slovak puppetry should enter its list.
It would join the likes of Spain’s Flamenco, China’s dragon boat festival and last year’s entrants from Arabic coffee to bagpipe culture in Slovakia.
Belgian beer has a good chance after an advisory body recommended its inclusion. Belgium already has 12 items on the list, including horse-drawn shrimp fishing.
In some cases, states can apply for financial help to do so.
Manu Pauwels, spokesperson for the International Trappist Association, said the UN designation would make Belgian beer culture more distinct than its global counterparts, giving it a special touch.
“There are more and more countries developing a beer industry with more variation, but they always refer to the Belgian beer style,” he said.
“It is good that we can say that we are the reference and the origin of a lot of beer activities in the rest of world.”
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