PINTJES VOL.4 is in the house - launching on Sunday 24 may at Dekkera in Vorst!
Pintjes: best-selling Brussels zine celebrates the Quartier Wiels and its Union Saint-Gilloise supporters bars
The award-winning Brussels café zine Pintjes is back for its fourth edition, with a pre-match launch event and panel chat on Sunday 24 May at Dekkera in Forest, ahead of the Brussels derby.
With the Belgian season reaching its climax this weekend with the Brussels derby, and Royal Union Saint-Gilloise having recently confirmed their position as the city’s premier club with their win in the 2026 Croky Cup, Brussels café zine PINTJES is going all-in on football for its latest edition. Or, more specifically, PINTJES is celebrating the supporters cafés and restaurants in Forest’s Wiels quarter, the places in the streets around Parc Duden and Union’s hallowed Stade Marien that are more often than not decked in blue and yellow and come alive on match days.
PINTJES is a zine developed and published by two long-term Brussels residents: Eoghan Walsh, writer of the Brussels Notes newsletter and founder of Brussels Beer City; and Selkies, an illustrator from Dublin now living in Brussels, who has worked with football clubs, music festivals, and musicians. For the zine’s fourth edition, we’re talking characterful stadium boozers, traditional supporters drinking holes to gee you up pre-match, dive bars to drown your post-match sorrows, and more recent arrivals who have plugged into the unique atmosphere of this football-mad corner of Brussels - even if their preferred colours are mauve and white.
LAUNCH EVENT
To launch the zine - the fourth in a series celebrating Brussels’ unique café culture - PINTJES is organising a pre-match warm-up ahead of the Union-Anderlecht match at the famed Dekkera bar, with a lively chat with die-hard Unionistes and experienced café cruisers.
Together with a couple of special guests, we will be talking about what makes the neighbourhood so special, their first experiences of match days at the Marien, and their preferred warm-up routines.
Joining us for the launch are:
Elisabeth Debourse, Editor-in-Chief of Le Fooding Magazine
Gunnar Cheyns, radio presenter at Bruzz
Sylvain Lecomte, owner of Dekkera
Quotes
I’m not a big football fan, and I hadn’t spent much time in this neighbourhood before we started research, but this is what PINTJES is all about: landing in an area of the city you don’t know, wanting to go for a beer but not knowing where to start; Pintjes has you covered! You want a quiet one? Go here. Heading to the match after? This spot. You don’t know the first thing about football, but want to blag your way through a chat on the terrace? Sorted,” says Selkies. “It’s a fun part of Brussels to explore as a bit of an outsider – or at least uninitiated into the ways of Union Saint-Gilloise – and I think with volume four of PINTJES we’ve really axed the atmosphere of the neighbourhood as it’s just about to pop on match days.”
“The only thing I look forward to more than spending a sunny Sunday afternoon at the Stade Marien grinding Union’s opponents into dust, is spending a couple of hours trawling through the neighbourhood bars in the streets around the stadium, soaking up the atmosphere, joining up with friends, and really getting into the ‘spirit’ of things,“ says Eoghan. “If we’ve captured even a little bit of that energy in this edition of PINTJES, then it’s mission accomplished.”
Pintjes Vol.4 will be released at a launch party at Dekkera (Rue Pierre Decoster 109, 1190 Forest) on Sunday 24 May at 15h, alongside the sale of a very limited number of exclusive prints from this and previous editions.
The zine will be produced in extremely limited quantities - it’s not for sale online, it’s not reproduced online, and when it’s gone, it’s gone.
You can read an excerpt from the latest edition here.
Notes for the Editor
PINTJES is a collaborative zine produced by renowned Brussels-based illustrator Selkies, who has worked with Irish musicians Kneecap, and writer Eoghan Walsh, author of the award-winning book “A History of Brussels Beer in 50 Objects”. Since its first sold-out edition in 2024, the zine has received critical acclaim and has won a bronze medal at the North American Guild of Beer Writers awards.
Selkies is an illustrator from Dublin now living in Brussels. Her work is often about nostalgia, sometimes for her roots back in Ireland and sometimes for the remnants of old Brussels on her doorstep. She has worked with football clubs, music festivals, and musicians. Pintjes is her first self-published zine, and her work is for sale here: www.selkiesstudio.com
Eoghan Walsh is the award-winning Brussels-based writer of the “Brussels Notes” newsletter. He has written for The Irish Times, Pellicle, Le Fooding, Guzzle, and others. Founder of the Brussels Beer City blog, Eoghan’s most recent book - “A History of Brussels Beer in 50 Objects” - was published in July 2022.