Hengelosche Bierbrouwerij (Beer brewery Hengelo)

Right next to the shunting yard in Hengelo is the old brewery of Hengelo (Hengelosche Bierbrouwerij). It looks pretty ruinous, with large holes in the buildings, I guess from 1988 when the equipment was sold to another brewery.

Some history translated from Jan's Beer Pages (2006: see also: hengelosche bieren)

This brewery originates from a family business of the Meyling family in Borne. They had a house-brewery, dating back to the 18th century. In 1879 all activities were moved to Hengelo. Till 1919 the brewery was named Stoom Beiersch Bierbrouwerij Meyling & Bartelink. In that year Bartelink quit and thus the NV Hengelosche Bierbrouwerij came to existence with the Meyling brothers in control.
Especially after WW2 allot of work was done to make Hengelo's Beer a nationally well known and available beer. In the 50ties the brewery was drastically modernised and a large scale bottle filling line was added. Till 1975 the brewery was a family business, but in that year it was taken over by the Belgian Artois concern. Next to Hengelo Beer more and more cheap supermarket beer was produced, having little charisma. When the largest customer (Albrecht) decided to change to a different brewery for its supermarkets (which could deliver even cheaper), the brewery had no more right of existence for the Artois concern and it was closed and dismantled. (The equipment was sold to the Martens brewery) The brand Hengelo Bier disappeared from the market not much later, after a short period during which the beer was produced in Brussels in the (nowadays also dismantled) Wielemans brewery. Already before 1980 the production of this brewery was reduced to pilsner, the various other beers with the name Hengelo were produced in Dommelen (bokbier, speciaal, oud bruin).

The pictures below I shot some time ago from the road.

This is all that remains of the brewery, a few ruinous buildings. You can see them from the train in Hengelo.

The large holes in the buildings are probably the result of the dismantling of the equipment. There's a double wall, a fence and a stack of crates and pallets, surrounding the premises to keep people out.

31-04-02 (Easter Sunday)

Entering the terrain involves some fence climbing. The fence looks old but has been frequently mended to keep entry as difficult as possible. The place is now used as a dump shop ("humpie dumpie"), which is the reason for all the crates with army junk on the terrain. I have wanted to explore the place for a long time, having cycled around often, but the amount of fences always had kept me back. This day I found a spot in the fence where I thought I could climb it. The barbed wire on top was missing and because it had been repaired with coarse wire mesh which made it easy to climb. I parked my bike a bit further down the road, in front of the former office, and walked back.

This once housed the office. Part of it is used by Humpie Dumpie, most of it seems unused. I'm the only visitor today, counting bikes.

Looking around and climbed the fence pretty easily indeed. After that I had to climb a stack of empty crates, also easy, and jumped down the other side. The landing was a bit hard because the stack of crates was higher than I thought. Promising myself not to do that again (to often, in a place like this), I explored.

A flight of stairs leading to a wide open door in the only piece of wall left. This building is also very noticeable from the train.