The Belgian city of Bruges was founded in 1128 and with its port and network of canals was called 'The Venice of the North' back when it was one of the most important business centres on the planet.
It's not quite so vital to global trade nowadays, but centuries of history and those canals, lovely old buildings and cobbled streets have made it a major tourist destination and UNESCO World Heritage Site.
All of which is really bad news if you have a small brewery in the city centre and need to transport 4 million litres of beer every year to a bottling plant 3 kilometres away on the outskirts of the city. Because narrow medieval cobbled streets and modern trucks and tankers are not a great mix.
So Xavier Vanneste of De Halve Maan brewery in Bruges had to get creative. He saw utility companies digging up the roads to lay wiring and drains and cables so he decided to build an underground beer pipeline...a bit like broadband, but for beer!
