But small museums are in a lot of trouble. Take De Snoek in Alveringem, a tiny town about 10 kilometres from the coastal city of Koksijde in West Flanders. This hidden gem, shouldering the grass-bordered Lovaart canal and its well-worn bike path, houses the only completely original 19th-century malt-house and brewery to survive Flanders’ war-torn history.

By a fluke, this tiny speck of Flanders, known as the Northern Westhoek, behind the flooded river Yser, remained unoccupied territory during the First World War. This meant that De Snoek got to keep its copper kettles and pipes, while other Flemish breweries saw their equipment carted off by the German army to transform into ammunition.

De Snoek (which means “the pike”) and the other intact family breweries in the area were considered no less than vital to the war effort. Thousands of Belgian soldiers were stationed behind the Yser, while international troops gravitated around Ypres. For four long years, they battled in the trenches by day and drank in the breweries by night. Army officers feared the day their soldiers would run out of beer.

There was indeed a danger: steam escaping from breweries was often detected by German soldiers, and many were forced to stop brewing even if they still had their equipment. King George V granted the Sint-Sixtus abbey in Westvleteren special permission to brew at night. Fortunes were made, but the beer was brewed in a rush and was of inferior quality.

As it was at De Snoek. The brewer himself once notoriously declined one of his own pints, saying: “That canal water might do for the soldiers; I’ll have a coffee.” These are the kinds of anecdotes you find out in one of De Snoek’s permanent exhibitions, Het verhaal van de dorst in de Grote Oorlog (The Story of Thirst in the Great War). It tells more about this lesser-known region, which hopes to be included in Flanders’ big 2014-2018 Second World War anniversary centring on Ypres.

De Snoek’s successive owners have continuously managed to save this unique place by resisting the lure of industrial expansion and high copper prices – during the Korean War, for instance. They really want their brewery to live on as it was. And it’s all here. The whole malting and brewing process, the way small steam or electric machines were added as they went along, yet preserving the original features and atmosphere.

Still, for the longest time, nobody knew about this place nor realised its potential. As a boy, historian Frank Becuwe (pictured on page 1) lived next door. When racking his brain in the 1980s about how to give this rural village – barely 15 minutes but a world away from Veurne and the coast – a boost, he knew what to do.

Convinced that a single well-chosen project would trigger tourism and improve the economy, he wrote a pamphlet – called “De happy Westhooker” – and convinced his neighbours to offer their brewery up to visitors. Joined by a group of enthusiastic volunteers, he set up De Snoek.

In short, it was a fierce battle – restoring the roof, finding the funds, instigating a bike route, building a jetty, laying out a pretty square in front and adding a nice little terrace outside the old tavern, now serving as a museum café.

And it resulted in blatant success. The popular museum has become the motor for a flourishing countryside economy: bikers flock to the museum and the café, eat in nearby restaurants, sleep in local farms and buy local produce. The management, multilanguage promotion and website all work well. De Snoek is now a listed monument.

In short, this museum has done everything right. There’s just one hitch. It had to close. Before, if you wanted to visit the museum, you needed to collect the key from the café keeper and show yourself around. Not an ideal situation to start with, but now the young owner has changed jobs, and no one wants to take over the cafe.

Moreover, the volunteers, who all have day jobs, are fed up with having to come up with solutions. They would like the town council to step in and take over the long lease or the non-profit organisation, but negotiations have become stranded.

Becuwe, 50, who was once on the cabinet of the Flemish minister of internal affairs and urban policy, knows his way around subsidies and laws. Yet, for the last 15 years, he has been writing more pointless reports on De Snoek than he cares to remember. “Ministers and governors line up to visit the museum, declare their admiration, and receive their basket of locally-brewed beers, but, as soon as they drive off, they seem to forget about our problems and their promises,” he says. “I don’t know how their minds work. The urgency of our problems doesn’t seem to register. Frankly, I’m done with writing for the umpteenth file, only to be chided for giving them too much work.”

Furthermore, Becuwe, who now works for the Flemish Institute for Architectural Heritage, sees problems looming beyond De Snoek. In his vicinity alone, the George Grard museum has already packed up and, by the end of this year, both the Bachten De Kupe open-air museum and the Bakery Museum will lose their subsidised staff, as will many other institutions across Flanders. “They’ll soon face the same problems as we do now,” says Becuwe.

Local traders are starting to feel the backlash and worry. Without the museums as stopovers, bikers will go biking elsewhere. Becuwe fears this will turn the clock back 30 years for countryside tourism and the local economy.

“A whole area benefits in the end,” explains Becuwe. “Even if they don’t want to support us financially, they shouldn’t bleed us dry with taxes.” De Snoek, for example, pays €1,680 annually in property taxes, while receiving €1,000 in support.

“Why not exempt small museums from certain federal taxes, like they do for nature reserves? Or let us buy our electricity and gas in bulk? Cities get electricity at cheaper rates. We don’t.”

All the red tape involved in running a small museum is “immobilising”, says Becuwe. “And I know money is available. They just need to re-budget. I know one thing. If De Snoek is forced to close, it’s the end of my personal commitment as a historian, too. No more research, no more writing books, no more saving heritage, no more lectures on breweries. If De Snoek isn’t worth saving, nothing is.”

Mout- & Brouwhuis De Snoek
Fortem 40, Alveringem
www.desnoek.be