Ask chemistry students Brandon van Rosendaal and Jorrick van Pol about craft beers and ‘their’ bar, and their faces light up. They can regale you with stories about their beloved departmental social room and its thirty-year history - or at any rate about the last five years, which they've personally experienced.

Having started on the other side of the bar, both became bar staff some time ago and are currently members of the lustrum committee; Van Rosendaal as chairperson, Van Pol as treasurer and person in charge of the Golden Carpet Festival, which is today's main topic of conversation. “We ourselves often visit large craft beer festivals and they are always relaxed, sociable affairs. We thought it would be nice to have something like that on the TU/e campus for a change,” tells Van Rosendaal. Van Pol adds: “We have our own Green Strip here - on the day of the festival we want to turn it golden”.

By the way, this will be no crude student booze fest, not with these gentlemen running the show. Van Rosendaal: “A cantus, for example, is mainly about drinking as much beer as quickly as possible. This festival is more leisurely; it's about tasting and enjoying. It's not about getting as much down your neck as you can in 15 minutes.”