On Wednesday, at a United Nations conference held in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), UNESCO listed the beer culture in Belgium on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The application for Belgian beer was submitted 18 months ago by the German-speaking Community, in order to avoid the long waiting list it would have had to follow if it had been submitted directly by Belgium. The Belgian request was supported by the entire beer brewing industry: Belgian brewers, beer associations, training institutes, etc. The application was subject to broad consultation and was produced taking account of the specific criteria set out by UNESCO.
According to the application's authors, it is the unparalleled diversity of the art of Belgian brewing and the intensity of this culture "as an integral part of our daily lives and at festivals in our country", which allowed this recognition compared with other beer-producing countries. The Evaluation Committee of the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the safeguarding of intangible heritage highlighted the measures taken in Belgium to protect the beer culture, the sector's professional training offer and also the measures to combat the excessive consumption of alcohol.
UNESCO also emphasises the efforts made by the Belgian brewing sector in terms of environmental protection and even the existence of small experimental breweries for amateur brewers.
