Ypres Beer: Kazematten and Where to Drink Local Beers
Kazematten brought a city brewery back to Ypres after a 35-year gap. Here is what the city brewery makes and where to drink it before or after the Last Post.
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Ypres beer means one name first: Kazematten, the city brewery whose casemates location brought municipal brewing back to Ypres (Ieper) after a gap of more than 35 years. This guide covers how that brewery came about, the local beers to order, and the cafés where you can drink them before or after the 8pm Last Post at the Menin Gate (Menenpoort). For the wider picture, our guide to Things to Do in Ypres (Ieper) sets the brewery story alongside the Cloth Hall and the Salient.
The city is compact enough that a beer stop is a walk, not an excursion: the Grote Markt, the Menin Gate and Boomgaardstraat all sit within roughly a kilometre of each other, so you can move between them on foot through an evening. Build the route around the ceremony time rather than the other way round.
Kazematten: Ypres's city brewery in the casemates
Brouwerij Kazematten takes its name from the casemates, the vaulted brick spaces built into Ypres's defensive walls. The brewery is the project of Hans Depypere of St Bernardus and Rudi Ghequire of Rodenbach, who brought a municipal brewery back to the city after a hiatus of more than 35 years, giving Ypres a brewery of its own again.
Treat the name as one to recognise on a beer list rather than a fixed appointment you can book: the origin is the story worth knowing, and the practical beer-drinking happens in the city's cafés and at the Last Post. For the surrounding sights on the same walk, see our guide to things to do in Ypres (Ieper).
Why the city brewery came back after a 35-year gap
Ypres had gone more than 35 years without a municipal brewery before Kazematten was founded, and the revival came from a collaboration between two of Belgium's best-known brewing names. Hans Depypere had wanted to start a microbrewery for years, and the search for a location gained momentum when St Bernardus began looking for somewhere to brew its Grotten Santé; Rudi Ghequire pointed him to the casemates of Ypres.
That origin explains the character of the place: a city brewery with a big-family pedigree behind it, not a farmhouse experiment. It is a story about how the beer came back to Ypres more than a particular taproom to visit.
Kazematten and the beers of Ypres
The Kazematten name is the reason the brewery matters to Ypres, because it ties the city's beer to the vaulted casemates in its own walls. Beyond that, what is actually confirmed on the ground is where the cafés sit and what they pour, so plan the evening around those.
Beyond Kazematten, a local beer to know is Ypra, a hoppy Belgian blonde served on draught at the Ypra Inn by the Menin Gate and poured into a tall stemmed glass.
St Arnoldus: 25 beers on tap near the Menin Gate
One Ypres beer drinker's account of an evening in October 2025 counts 25 beers on tap at St Arnoldus, a range that makes it an easy place to work through several Belgian styles in one sitting. Its position near the Menin Gate means it works as a pre-ceremony stop: arrive with enough margin to finish a glass and walk to the gate before 8pm.
With that many taps, choose by strength rather than by name. Ask for a small pour of anything above 8% ABV so you can taste two or three beers without the evening running away from you, and keep a lower-strength blonde or wheat beer for the round closest to the ceremony.
Ypra Inn and Øl Beerbar near the Menin Gate
The Ypra Inn sits on the corner by the Menin Gate, which makes it an obvious place to wait before the Last Post or to sit down afterwards; the same 2025 account describes draught Ypra, the hoppy Belgian blonde in a tall stemmed glass. Next to the Ypra Inn, Øl Beerbar was described in October 2025 as featuring eight 500-litre tanks for draught beer.
The trade-off at this corner is convenience against calm: on a ceremony night the immediate area draws a crowd, so if you want a table rather than a standing spot, arrive well ahead and treat the beer as the reason to be early. Both places sit close enough to the gate that you can walk over when the ceremony starts.
Kaffee Bazaar on Boomgaardstraat
Kaffee Bazaar at Boomgaardstraat 9 sits about 500 metres back towards the station from the Menin Gate, in a long, high-ceilinged room. Its blackboard list reaches beyond Belgian brewing: on a Friday evening in October it poured Pater Lieven Blond from Brouwerij Van Den Bossche at 6.5% ABV and Hoppin' Frog Barrel Aged D.O.R.I.S., a 10.5% ABV American imperial stout.
Treat those as a 2025 example of the price gap between a session-strength Belgian blond and a barrel-aged import, not as today's tariff; the blackboard is the thing to read when you arrive. The walk back towards the station also makes Kaffee Bazaar a natural last stop if you are catching a late train from Ypres that evening.
Beer strengths in Belgium and how to pace a session before the Last Post
Belgian beer cafés are not pubs, and the glasses prove it: a 6.5% ABV blond is an ordinary order, and a barrel-aged stout can pass 10%, as the Kaffee Bazaar list shows. Plan in portions rather than pints, and treat a high-strength beer as the last one of the evening, not the first.
Water alongside each round is the practical move if the Last Post is still ahead of you, since the ceremony is a memorial and arrives at a fixed hour with little room to linger. Carry ID if you look young, as venues may check it, and keep the rounds modest so the 8pm ceremony is the evening's high point rather than an afterthought.
Pairing a beer with the 8pm Last Post at the Menin Gate
The Last Post is sounded at the Menin Gate every day, and according to a visitor account the ceremony is free to attend with no reservation needed. That daily ceremony is the spine of an evening in Ypres: aim to be at the gate ten to fifteen minutes early, and work backwards to decide whether you drink before or after.
The ceremony is a memorial, so the sensible pattern is one beer, the ceremony, then a second beer afterwards at the Ypra Inn or St Arnoldus while the crowd clears. Nothing replaces being there for the ceremony itself, so keep the Ypres Walking Tour for earlier in the day.
Should you build an evening around the beer?
Yes, if you want one distinctive local beer and a ceremony with a fixed time to plan around. Kazematten gives Ypres a brewery of its own again, and the cafés between the Grote Markt and the Menin Gate are close enough together that you can taste the beer without a taxi or a timetable.
The trade-off is range: this is a small city's beer scene, not a tour of breweries, so pair the drinking with the rest of the town. If you are still deciding whether Ypres justifies a stop, our honest answer on whether Ypres is worth visiting weighs the memorials against the rebuilt centre.
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