Stella Artois Brewery Tour

Are you a beer lover? Are you visiting Belgium? Then you must visit one of our breweries. In the city of Leuven, you can visit Stella Artois Brewery that has a rich history!

Before you go: Stella Artois Brewery Tour

You can do a tour on Friday at 5PM (English tour), or you can do a tour on Saturday and Sunday: 1PM (Dutch) and 3PM (English).

Entrance fee: €8.5

You start your tour at the visitor center by getting an introduction, a safety briefing, and your high-visibility vest for the tour.

stella artois brewery visit in leuven, belgium

We walked into the brewery where we ended up in a small showing room where our guide told us a bit more about the beer’s history. It all started with Brewery Den Hoorn in 1366 in the city center of Leuven. Brewery Den Hoorn set the now-famous taste and quality of the Stella Artois beer on the map. In 1717, Sébastiaan Artois bought the brewery and changed its name to Artois Brewery followed by Stella Artois in 1928.

Fun Fact: The name Stella Artois came from a special Christmas beer they brewed for all the inhabitants of the city Leuven: Stella. Stella is Star in Latin and represents the Christmas star which you can also see in the logo. Stella became so popular that the brewery decided to produce the beer to be available all year-round. The brewery eventually changed its name to that beer.

After learning the beer’s history, we learned more about the brewing process of the beer itself. Just as most beers, you’ll need barley, yeast, hop, and water but Stella Artois also uses maize in its beer.

Would you like to make your own beer? First of all, you have to heat, dry, and crack the barley (also known as malting the barley), followed by soaking the malted barley in hot water. The residue is then being drained to get a liquid named Mort. We then boil the mort and add some hop into it. The last step in making beer is adding yeast to the mort. All of this is done in giant kettles that you can see during your tour.

After that, we went to the bottling station where we could see the beer being bottled.

You’ll end your tour at the Bar where you can do a free tasting (or two) of Stella Artois on tap. After enjoying your delicious beer, you’ll get your gift bag before going back to the visitor center.