Marc Vandepitte is the chairman of Brugse Autonome Bierproevers, the consumer group that organizes the Bruges Beer Festival every year. BAB is named after a former brewery in the city which was owned by the artist André De Meulemeester.
“He was a painter and a composer of piano music,” Vandepitte says. “His daughter is now 90 years old, and she has all of his art work. There were 2,000 paintings, but no one had ever seen them. His complete work hadn’t been shown to the public until two years ago at our beer festival.”