The National Hop Museum in Poperinge has been greatly expanded since my last visit ten or so years ago.
Poperinge's Hop Museum is located in the old "Stadsschaal" or Municipal Scales. An informative audio tour guides you through four floors of history and culture, all the way from the impressive loft to the concluding ground floor. On your way down, local characters like "The Bagger" and "The Nose" will guide you along the four seasons of the hop, historic documents, photographs, scale models and audiovisuals illustrate both the story of this unique building and that of local hop growing, its past and present.
It is a tradition for hop festival Sunday to have the museum open for tours, including an English-language session at 11:15 a.m. On the occasion of the fest, a pop-up cafe was being run in the courtyard, adding to the enjoyment.
One of the photos is more important to me than the others.
You see our guide in the act of explaining a two-wheeled spouted barrel, and might be forgiven for thinking it's some sort of beer wagon.
Actually, it's a liquid manure dispenser for fertilizing the hop vines. Not only that, but the operation of the manure wagon was left to the capable hands and tongue of a manure taster, who ensured that the fertilizer was not too acidic for use.
(insert joke about local politics here)
No comments:
Post a Comment