Belgian beer will be celebrated on two separate occasions this summer, but Belgian Beer Weekend and Belgium Beer Week are not the same event. While both celebrate Belgium‘s beer culture and its recognition by UNESCO, they have different organisers, formats and geographical reach.

Belgium Beer Week takes place first, from 24 to 30 August, and is a decentralised, international celebration involving bars, breweries, museums and beer guides. Belgian Beer Weekend, meanwhile, runs from 4 to 13 September and centres on a major festival in Brussels, with more than 500 beers from 49 breweries on the Grand Place.

Belgium Beer Week goes global

The seventh edition of Belgium Beer Week will take place from 24 to 30 August. Organised by Beer Idiots vzw, it is designed as a worldwide celebration of Belgian beer culture rather than a single festival at one location.

In 2025, more than 145 venues and guides in 16 countries participated, from Belgium and neighbouring European countries to Brazil, China, Japan and the United States. Organisers expect the 2026 edition to be bigger, with more than 150 events planned.

The programme is deliberately broad. Participating venues can organise their own events, ranging from tap takeovers featuring rare beers and brewery collaborations to guided tastings, food pairings, brewery tours and visits to beer museums. Events can also explore the history and science of brewing, while organisers are encouraged to come up with their own formats. Last year’s programme even included beer yoga.

There is no central ticket or entrance fee for Belgium Beer Week. Instead, visitors can consult the event calendar or check participating bars and breweries for individual activities. Some events, such as guided tours or beer-and-food pairings, may charge a fee.

“It’s always a wonderful surprise to see the types of innovative events that participants deliver for Belgium Beer Week,” said organiser Dieter Proost.

The week is intended to make Belgian beer culture tangible beyond Belgium’s borders. “This year we look forward to providing an amazing series of events showcasing this incredibly rich culture and making it more tangible for visitors,” Proost said.

Belgian Beer Weekend expands to ten days

A few days after Belgium Beer Week ends, Belgian Beer Weekend begins in Brussels. The established festival is celebrating its 26th edition and will this year be extended into ten days of activities under the name Belgian Beer Culture Days, running from 4 to 13 September.

The extension marks the tenth anniversary of UNESCO’s decision in 2016 to recognise beer culture in Belgium as intangible cultural heritage of humanity.

That designation was not simply an endorsement of Belgian beer itself. UNESCO recognised the role beer plays in Belgian daily and social life, as well as the country’s enormous diversity of brewing traditions. The Belgian Beer Culture Days are intended to highlight that broader heritage.

The opening weekend will follow the traditional Belgian Beer Weekend format. It begins with a celebration at the Saint Michael and Saint Gudula Cathedral and an academic session at Brussels City Hall. From Friday evening through Sunday, Brussels’ Grand Place will become a large-scale beer tasting, with more than 500 beers from 49 breweries.

A Belgian Beer Culture Bar will also operate at the Beursplein in central Brussels throughout the ten-day programme. Around 40 breweries will be represented there, with activities focusing on brewing, tasting and Belgian beer culture.

The celebrations will not be confined to Brussels. Participating cafés and supermarkets around Belgium will put Belgian beer in the spotlight during the week, while the closing weekend, on 12 and 13 September, will take beer enthusiasts to Bruges for the Bruges Beer Festival.

Same heritage, very different formats

The distinction is therefore fairly straightforward. Belgium Beer Week is a distributed, international, participant-driven week of events, where individual bars, breweries, museums and guides create their own programmes. It has no single festival site and no central admission ticket.

Belgian Beer Weekend is a large, centrally organised public festival, traditionally centred on Brussels’ Grand Place and featuring hundreds of beers from dozens of Belgian breweries. This year it forms the opening part of the larger ten-day Belgian Beer Culture Days.

What links the two is their focus on Belgian beer as culture and living heritage, rather than simply as a collection of beers to drink. And while their dates overlap neither in 2026, beer enthusiasts will have several opportunities to explore that culture: first internationally during Belgium Beer Week from 24 to 30 August, and then in Belgium during the Belgian Beer Culture Days from 4 to 13 September.