Brewery in Antwerp - and a hearty meat meal

In co-operation with Visit Flanders

Now we have rolled on from Ghent with the motorhome and had time to visit a brewery in Antwerp, in Belgium. At the brewery De Koninck we also had dinner, and it was a hearty meat meal to say the least.

Table of contents

From Ghent to Antwerp

One of the things we like about Flanders in Belgium is that the distances between locations are so short. It took about an hour to drive from pier to Ghentand then it took about the same time to drive from Ghent to Antwerp.

In Antwerp, we pulled into a manned car park called Camper park Vogelzang at Vogelzanglaan 7-9. This car park is on the outskirts of the city, and you can get into the city quite easily by bus.

With around 500,000 inhabitants, Antwerp is a much larger city than Bruges and Ghent. We have looked around a bit, and we will return with more tomorrow. Today we tell you about our visit to a brewery in Antwerp!

De Koninck Brewery

We have visited a brewery in Antwerp called De Koninck. We have visited several breweries before, but coming here was really an experience out of the ordinary! Firstly, the tour through the brewery was very special, and secondly, there is more than beer here. Cheese is also made on site, and there is a bakery, chocolate shop and beer shop ...

READ MORE: Belgian beer - and breweries in Belgium
READ MORE: Brewery in Bruges - Belgian beer at De halve Maan

Different tour of brewery in Antwerp

The tour started with a beer in the courtyard outside the brewery, and ended with a beer inside the brewery. In between these two beers, you could go on a tour through the history of the brewery without a guide, while instead being guided by various films and moving animations. Very, very nice and modern!

Bryggeri guidning — Do you see that the roof is made of wine glasses?

Bryggeri i Antwerpen — No, no beer is brewed here. The containers show films!

Bryggeri Antwerpen — Another beer at the end of the tour

READ MORE: We try Belgian waffles in Belgium
READ MORE: 12 things to see and do in Antwerp, Belgium

Dinner at Black Smoke restaurant

After the tour of the brewery, we had a beer on the brewery's roof terrace, before trying the brewery's Black Smoke restaurant.

Black Smoke is a restaurant for meat lovers, with lots of grilled food on the menu. The decor is also cool and a bit raw, with a mix of brick and metal.

We went for a "Black's BBQ Bonanza", which is a large slab of meat to share. I was hesitant at first because I was afraid it would be too much (and I hate throwing food away), but when the staff said we could take the leftovers home in a special bag, I was persuaded!

Middag Black Smoke — Peter is prepared to cut in ...

We were served half a grilled chicken, brisket, ribs, pulled pork and a sausage, along with jacket potatoes, sauce, hummus, coleslaw and various pickled vegetables. Super tasty! When we finished eating, the staff came in with a barbecue bag so we could take the leftovers home. Perfect for another dinner in the motorhome!

What about the beer? We tried a few different ones and so far our favourite is the beer called Wild Jo. But we have bought a bunch of beers home, so we will return when we have had a beer tasting!

Black Smoke Antwerpen — Did we eat it all? No, not really ...

Video from De Koninck brewery in Antwerp

Peter has also put together a film from our visit to the brewery. Feel free to check it out!

27 August 2018 6:00

Belgium

drinks, Motorhome holiday Belgium, campervan trip2018, food and drink, restaurants

Helena

Administrator

26 Comments

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Daniel | FlyingDryden says:

Very special brewery there, or at least the museum, was there last year. And beer in the courtyard is nice, it made my journey home, a few hours later that day, much more fun. 😉

27 August 2018 - 7:49

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- Comment by post author
  
  Helena says:
  
  Wasn't it special? Nice that you have also been here! 🙂
  
  27 August 2018 - 8:46
  
  Reply
Ruth in Virginia says:

There has been a lot of beer on this journey through
Germany and Belgium. Have little beer bellies appeared yet? 🙂
But you have hiked, paddled, cycled, climbed etc. etc.
so you should be fine.
It has been fun to be with you all the way. Afterwards, I would like to
say, that it's not fair that little Switzerland has so much of the
natural beauty within its borders, the tour thus was amazing.
-now let's see if the comment comes through-.

27 August 2018 - 8:16

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- Comment by post author
  
  Helena says:
  
  Oh, finally! Great to have you back Ruth!!! 🙂 Or, I understand that you have been involved, but wonderful that it finally works to comment! Switzerland was really fantastic, can only agree! And haha, it feels like there has been a lot of beer and wine, but also some junk food during this trip. It probably needs a little cleaning up when we get home 😉.
  
  27 August 2018 - 8:48
  
  Reply
Ama de casa says:

What a cool place! Perfect to bring food home too, I have become much better at bringing a doggy bag since we moved to Spain. Don't like to throw away food either... 🙂 .

27 August 2018 - 8:47

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- Comment by post author
  
  Helena says:
  
  Very nice place, a whole experience! 🙂 And good with the doggy bag! Would not have wanted to throw away all that fresh meat. Instead, there were two good dinners!
  
  27 August 2018 - 8:50
  
  Reply
Veiken says:

Soooo much fun when it's a bit different, but good!!!
PS. I have followed you through Europe with pleasure. Especially when you were in Switzerland. You "missed" Lausanne where I lived and spent 1 year at school. You also missed Gstaad! Another favourite at the time! 😉
Thanks for all the other parts of Switzerland that I followed! 🙂

27 August 2018 - 11:15

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- Comment by post author
  
  Helena says:
  
  Glad you have followed our journey Veiken!!! Yes, we actually missed those places ... but then we have something left for next time! 😉
  
  27 August 2018 - 12:08
  
  Reply
Mr Steve says:

The brewery tour is really impressive as well as Belgium in general. And, of course, your rich and interesting posts contribute to this.

27 August 2018 - 11:30

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- Comment by post author
  
  Helena says:
  
  Glad you like our posts Steve! The visit to the brewery was beyond my expectations!
  
  27 August 2018 - 12:09
  
  Reply
Husis blog says:

Breweries are always nice to see and find out how it works.
It's nice to have such a reasonable distance between cities. Then you have time to see and experience a lot even on the day of arrival and also avoid spending as many hours as possible in the car.
Now you start to head up towards Sweden and take the opportunity to bring out some warmer clothes again because it is not quite as warm and comfortable as when you left Sweden.

27 August 2018 - 12:49

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- Comment by post author
  
  Helena says:
  
  Yes really nice with short distances! Therefore, we have also done a lot here in Belgium! We have also started to get some cooler weather, but warm when the sun is out.
  
  27 August 2018 - 15:52
  
  Reply
Ditte says:

Antwerp has a lot. And I have visited a brewery there, (not this one) as well as diamond cutters and some other things. But you can never see everything so nice to take part of what you experienced. Luckily you were able to bring the food that was left over. I was almost full when I saw everything. And there was a great variety too. and really quite large.
Keep up the good work on your journey.

27 August 2018 - 13:15

Reply
- Comment by post author
  
  Helena says:
  
  Nice that you have also been here and seen some other things than us! As you say, it is never possible to see everything 😉.
  
  27 August 2018 - 19:10
  
  Reply
Susjos says:

Gosh, everything looks so delicious! I want to visit that brewery! Seeing ads for Duvel, one of the husband's favourites!
My favourite is Leffe blonde, so good!!!

27 August 2018 - 13:52

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- Comment by post author
  
  Helena says:
  
  Duvel is made at the DeKoninck brewery! They are good at beer here in Belgium 🙂
  
  27 August 2018 - 19:11
  
  Reply
World by Tina says:

Isn't Antwerp the place where diamonds are cut? Or have I made it up? We went by, but none of us had any great desire to visit the city, was in a hurry to the coast =) But sometime I will probably end up there too.

About sleeping in a car. We bought the motormans' little guidebook with all the tips for driving in Europe - according to it, sleeping in cars in car parks (and in residential areas) is always forbidden. In all European countries, sort of. But some countries probably don't care and some are stricter, like Portugal for example, although we slept a bit here and there and there were never any problems. Maybe we were just lucky. There were only a few times we actually paid for a pitch or camping. Free camping suited us perfectly, and our budget haha=)

27 August 2018 - 15:28

Reply
- Comment by post author
  
  Helena says:
  
  You haven't made it up Tina, diamonds are cut here! 🙂 We have also many times opted out of cities, so I can understand what you mean. But Antwerp is worth a visit, on occasion! Motormännens guidebook is good. I have an old version but check their website sometimes instead. Have not understood that it is quite so hard about sleeping in the car? Most people with motorhomes free camp a lot. We usually avoid hitchhiking in countries where we know the rules are extra strict, such as Croatia and Austria. You are also a traffic hazard if you drive when you are too tired, so if you are too tired you SHOULD stop and sleep instead of driving on 😉.
  
  27 August 2018 - 19:14
  
  Reply
Matt says:

At Camping Slapic in Croatia, we had a similar meat buffet. But yours was probably even worse. I like to eat leftovers the next day, if it tastes good.

27 August 2018 - 18:17

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- Comment by post author
  
  Helena says:
  
  Leftovers are good if they are good food. In this case, the leftovers tasted great together with rice and some garlic sauce 🙂.
  
  27 August 2018 - 19:15
  
  Reply
Linda says:

But wow what cool places you guys! Getting more and more eager to explore Belgium!
Answer: Oh did you, have never done it hardly go to the cinema, rather prefer the sofa at home 😉.

27 August 2018 - 18:57

Reply
- Comment by post author
  
  Helena says:
  
  Belgium has a lot to offer! 🙂
  
  27 August 2018 - 19:15
  
  Reply
Reiselinda says:

It really sounded like a different brewery visit! Think sometimes they can be a bit similar. Good that you could bring the food, also do not like to throw food and it is sometimes a bit hard with Germany's large portions!

27 August 2018 - 20:36

Reply
- Comment by post author
  
  Helena says:
  
  The experience in this brewery was unlike any other we've had. And yes, absolutely perfect to be able to bring the food when it is too much! 🙂
  
  31 August 2018 - 14:24
  
  Reply
BP says:

Have been to Antwerp, but must say that my memories are not very positive. I thought the city was incredibly dirty. But that was a few years ago, so maybe it has become better.

All this beer drinking not to mention the food - agree with Ruth there. You don't seem to be "affected" (yet), but Peter - hahaha;-)

The interior of the restaurant is really cool and reminds me a bit of Hotel Story on Riddargatan. The food however - well, I prefer Moules frites to be honest.

27 August 2018 - 23:49

Reply
- Comment by post author
  
  Helena says:
  
  We did not experience Antwerp as dirty. However, it is a much larger city than Bruges and Ghent, so a little less "cute" perhaps 😉 But we liked Antwerp too, more in the next post!
  
  31 August 2018 - 14:26
  
  Reply

Brewery in Antwerp - and a hearty meat meal

In co-operation with Visit Flanders

From Ghent to Antwerp

De Koninck Brewery

Different tour of brewery in Antwerp

Dinner at Black Smoke restaurant

Video from De Koninck brewery in Antwerp

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26 Comments

Daniel | FlyingDryden says:

Helena says:

Ruth in Virginia says:

Helena says:

Ama de casa says:

Helena says:

Veiken says:

Helena says:

Mr Steve says:

Helena says:

Husis blog says:

Helena says:

Ditte says:

Helena says:

Susjos says:

Helena says:

World by Tina says:

Helena says:

Matt says:

Helena says:

Linda says:

Helena says:

Reiselinda says:

Helena says:

BP says:

Helena says:

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