About us

Welcome to Kunstemaecker café in Steenkerke, Belgium. A little piece of heaven for craft beer and whisky lovers. Let us tell you a little more about ourselves.

History

Believe it or not, Kunstemaecker started out as a blog back in 2004 where short stories were posted along with the occasional beer and whisky review. I bet you can still find snapshots of the blog on the internet archive.
Even back then the dream of opening a proper café was lingering in the back of our mind. A place where people would come and share stories and try a nice beer or whisky and listen to great music.
It eventually took us 7 more years to realize that dream.

On the 12th of february 2011, Kunstemaecker opened its doors for the first time in a small village called Steenkerke, Belgium. Why Steenkerke (dutch wiki) of all places? Because we’re surrounded by some of the best brewers in Belgium, if not the world (Dolle Brouwers, Struise Brouwers, Sint-Sixtus, Sint-Bernardus, …) and we wanted to share their fantastic brews with everyone.

What’s in a name?

Kunstemaecker is a Flemish name which has fallen into disuse. The name has various meanings, namely: quack, magician and windbag. Who’s never met one of the latter at some ungodly hour in a bar somewhere? Honestly, it sounds much better in Flemish.
It’s also a wordplay since it closely resembles the word “kunstenaar” which is artist in english.

The café

Kunstemaecker closes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

We organize performances every first Thursday of the month. The admittance is always free. We serve over 70 fantastic belgian beers and more than 50 superb whisky’s. We chose not to bombard our customers with an extremely large menu, rather we showcase the best Belgium has to offer and we change our menu very regularly.

We’re like a social network.  A very old school social network. We bring people together and get them talking. You can ‘like’ the conversations and make friends. In real life! Can you believe it?

Hope to see you soon at Kunstemaecker’s!

Ps: let’s skip the introduction when you visit. We’re Frederik and Marijke and we’re looking forward to meeting you!