Chief inspector Van In and his right hand Inspector Versavel thought it absurd to follow up on the hospital's chief doctor's report about major headaches caused by drinking the dark regional beer Brugse Bruine, but take a serious interest the next morning, when the brewery's manager Thierry Verbeke is found floating dead in the city's Minnewater, as neither widow nor father or foreman Piet Plovy, whose daughter always works there, believe Thierry could be suicidal. Commissioner De Kee has read chiefs don't know enough about their staff's lives, so he wants to be kept up to date- a task Van In delegates to Mitch and Neels, yet is envious when he learns they enjoy it in a good restaurant. Now Verbeke's mistress says he asked her to inform the police if anything happened to him, the heartless widow Christine gets anonymous photographs of the adulterous couple and has no alibi. The beer mysteriously contained tenfold sulfite. The commissioner suggests his friend, brewer Decaluwé, has a motive because father Verbeke stole the recipe for Brugse Bruin from Decaluwé, helped by Piet, a classmate like Christine, and there are more links... Meanwhile Hannelore accepts to dine with former attorney Geert Danneels, now a headhunter, who gets her interested in a more then triple paying position: heading an international firm's legal service, but in its Brussels HQ.
—KGF Vissers