Belgium Opens First Beer Pipeline In The World; Financial Backers Get Free Brew For Life

The Belgian city of Bruges, known for its picturesque landscapes and medieval cobblestone streets, has just added another feat that will keep it on tourists' radars: a beer pipeline.

You have not misread; Belgium now has a pipeline that transports beer. The first of its kind, this pipe runs for two miles and connects one of the country’s oldest operating breweries, De Halve Maan (The Half Moon) and a bottling plant on the city’s outskirts.

“We wanted to avoid running big expensive tanker trucks back and forth transporting our beer [...] So we constructed a direct pipeline from the brewery to the bottle room,” the brewery’s director, Xavier Vanneste, told the New York Times.

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“We got the idea from looking at other life provisions that run through pipes. Water pipes, electricity pipes, cable distribution, etc. So why wouldn’t that be possible for beer?” he added.

Although cool, the project was not cheap. The price tag stood around $4.5 million and was largely funded by beer fans; in return, they will get free beer for life. Going forward, 500 lucky visionaries will get “beer for life in proportion to their contribution,” Vanneste explicated. “For example, someone that only made a small investment will get maybe a pack of beer every year on his birthday. But someone who paid the maximum amount may receive up to one bottle of beer a day for the rest of his or her life.”

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Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no interest in any of the securities or entities mentioned above.