Night of the Great Thirst

Nacht van de Grote Dorst or Night of the Great Thirst is a biannual beer festival held to promote and celebrate one of the most unique Belgian beer traditions: Lambic. The 2014 edition of this festival, held on Friday April 25th, marked its ten year anniversary and was the biggest to date.

Saint Ursula church in Eizeringen with some festival tents

Some background
The first Nacht van de Grote Dorst was held in 2004 as a protest against the Federal Food Agency (FAVV) in Belgium who wanted to close down a number of lambic breweries because they thought that fermenting beer in open coolships were unsanitary. The main problem was that the FAVV food inspectors were unfamiliar with the age old brewing process of spontaneous fermentation.

Fortunately, since then the FAVV has backed down and the relationship is now good between the lambic brewing community and the food inspectors. But the original festival turned out so successful that the organizers decided to hold it every second year from then on, in order to celebrate and promote the lambic way of life.

The festival is arranged by HORAL (the High Council of Artisanal Lambic Beers) together with the famous lambic café In de Verzekering tegen de Grote Dorst in the village of Eizeringen, just off Ninoofsesteenweeg (N8) - the long straight road that heads west out of Brussels to Ninove:

Eizeringen is located about 15 km west of central Brussels

Café In de Verzekering tegen de Grote Dorst, Flemish for "In insurance against the great thirst", is located opposite the Saint Ursula church and has the look and feel of a 1940s era Flemish café, there is no modern technology visible inside - even the bills are tabulated on a piece of paper. As mentioned in an earlier post, the café is only open on Sundays and church holidays when the owners - the brothers Kurt and Yves Panneels - have time off from their regular day jobs. For them, the café is a labor of love, a way to keep an old tradition alive.

The festival is usually held at the café, but this year the organizers had acquired the use of the entire church square as well as the church lawn, for erecting big party tents and movable toilets, as it was expected that some 3,000 visitors, from all around the globe, would show up. Apparently, the café had been turned into a gallery for famous Belgian cartoonist Erwin Vanmol, displaying his drawings of beer related topics.

Getting there
In the late afternoon on Friday April 25th, a friend of mine and I got on the bus (line 128) at De Brouckère, a few blocks from Grand Place in Brussels, and enjoyed a scenic 30 minutes bus ride west, passing along the way the red brick stone buildings of the old Eylenbosch lambic brewery in Schepdaal, before getting off the bus at Eizeringen Kruispunt. From there it was just a five minutes walk to the church square.

The festival
I arrived about an hour before the 7 pm opening, so I got the chance to look around the festival area to find a suitable table but also speak with some of the volunteer helpers before things got hectic. It seems that most of the inhabitants of Eizeringen had been called upon to help organize this event, helping with the selling of tokens, the pouring of beer, carrying stuff around, cleaning up etc.

All the beer stands were in the big tent on the church square

In order to get beer you had to purchase a small 15 cl tasting glass, with the Nacht van de Grote Dorst logo printed on it, as well as some tokens to pay with at the different stands. Beer prices varied from 1 token for lambic from cask to 8-10 tokens for a bottle. Some of the rarer bottles could cost as much as 20-30 tokens. Because you had to buy a full bottle to taste a beer it made sense to join a group of people to share with, so my friend and I invited a couple of American visitors, sitting on the neighboring table, to share the bottles we bought. And they did vice versa for us, so that we managed to taste more beers than if we had been on our own.

This year the festival had outgrown the small café so guests either had to find seating outside or stand around the tall tables inside the big beer tent. The latter becoming very packed a few hours into the festival, making it difficult to get more beer. Another novelty this year, one I'm not particular fond of, was the stage next to the big beer tent where live music was played from 8 o'clock. For me, such a festival is all about meeting like minded people and enjoying good beer, so loud music really is a nuisance. I hope the organizers will skip that part of the program for the next festival, just let us talk - that will be noisy enough.

The food was catered for by a butcher that has been at several of the previous events at De Grote Dorst, he had a big food stall on the church lawn where burgers, meat and that traditional dark blood sausage of Flanders were grilled and served. It was really tasty beer food!

... and the beers
At the 2014 festival lambic based sour ales from all the traditional lambic producers in Belgium were available, mostly in bottle but a few also offered lambic or kriek from small casks or bag-in-box systems. With 14 different brands, each with multiple beers, I certainly didn't stand a chance to get through the entire selection in one night. Here follows a summary of lambic breweries and blenders that had beers at the festival.

Brouwerij Boon
Brouwerij Boon is a lambic brewery and blending business in Lembeek, founded in the 1970s by Frank Boon who still runs the company. Frank Boon is one of the reasons we still have traditional lambics; together with Jean-Pierre Van Roy of Cantillon and Armand Debelder of 3 Fonteinen, Frank Boon worked hard to promote traditional lambic in an era when some of the biggest names sold out and started making sweet fruit based ales. Boon brought along the famous Geuze Mariage Parfait and Kriek Mariage Parfait to the festival, and I swear I also saw a few bottles of Oude Geuze Boon VAT 44, released for the Tour de Geuze 2013, though it wasn't listed in the official program.

Geuzestekerij De Cam
Founded in Gooik in 1997, this is a small lambic blending business run by Karel Goddeau on his sparetime (his real occupation is as a brewer at Slaghmuylder!). Gouddeau learned the art of blending lambic from Armand Debelder (while he tought Armand how to brew), and today makes some of the best oude geuze available. For Nacht van de Grote Dorst, he sent along De Cam Kriek Lambiek and Oude Lambiek, but unfortunately none of the excellent Oude Geuze.

Cantillon
Founded in 1900, when gueuze was all the rage in Brussels, Cantillon is a small, family owned and operated brewing and blending business in the Anderlecht area of Brussels. It is also a working museum in the sense that visitors can go on tours to see all parts of the brewery, from the mechanical mash tun on the ground floor to the shiny copper coolship just underneath the ceiling. Since 2009, the brewery has been in the hands of the 4th generation of the Van Roy-Cantillon family, the dynamic Jean Van Roy. Cantillon sent along a number of exciting beers to the festival, such as the Vigneronne made with white wine grapes and Saint Lamvinus made with red (Merlot), Fou'Foune made with apricot and the rare Lou Pepe Gueuze - a geuze made with 2 year old lambic only. To complete the line-up, there were also bottles of the regular Gueuze, Rosé de Gambrinus and Grand Cru Bruocsella.

Brouwerij de Troch
This old lambic brewery, founded and based in Wambeek since 1795, was the first to add fruit to geuze and is mainly known for their Chapeau series of fruit beers which is largely exported to the US. For this festival, Brouwerij de Troch sent their Oude Geuze and Kriek.

Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen
Beersel based Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen, headed by HORAL co-founder Armand Debelder, is one of the most traditional lambic producers in Belgium, refusing to offer geuze on draught since that is historically incorrect (as Armand likes to say, "You won't find good Champagne on tap, so Geuze shouldn't be either"). For the festival, 3 Fonteinen sent along several fairly new creations, such as Intense Red, a kriek relased for Tour de Geuze 2013 and made with 400 gram cherries per liter beer and the brand new Golden Doesjel, made by blending 75% of Doesjel and 25% of Golden Blend. 3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze Vintage 2007 and Schaerbeekse Kriek 2005 were also available at the festival.

A bottle of 3 Fonteinen Golden Doesjel
- at Nacht van de Grote Dorst 2014

Hanssens Artisanaal
Located on a farm in Dworp, this small lambic blending businesses is run by a husband and wife couple on their sparetime. When lambic brewer Jean Hanssens retired in 1997, his daughter Sidy and her husband, John Matthys, decided to keep the old business alive and established Hanssens Artisanaal. They stopped brewing but has kept up the blending business, purchasing their lambic from other brewers. Hanssens was the first blender to start using the Oude Geuze and Oude Kriek denomination for its beers. Both of these were brought along to the festival, along with the weird strawberry lambic - Oudbetje

Brouwerij Girardin
Located in Sint-Ulriks-Kapelle, Brouwerij Girardin is a small family business but still one of the most important lambic breweries in Belgium, not mainly because of its own beers but because they sell lambic wort, for aging and blending to others; both 3 Fonteinen, De Cam, Hanssens and Tilquin buy their lambic from Girardin! Of their own beers, Girardin sent along the Oude Lambiek, Kriekenlambiek, Gueuze Black Label, Faro and Framboise to the festival.

Brouwerij Lindemans
This old family brewery in Vlezenbeek stopped making traditional geuze when the market folded in the midt 20th century, but the new EU designation of traditional lambic and the awakening interest in old style geuze caused Brouwerij Lindemans to start up production again in 2005. Lindemans may be best known for the sweet Lindemans Kriek, the first sweet kriek to become popular in the early 1970s. But Lindemans now also make some decent sour ales - two of which were available at the festival: Oude Lambiek and the Oude Geuze Cuvée René.

Brouwerij Moriau
There was a stand for Brouwerij Moriau at the festival, a lambic brewery in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw that was known for their Moriau Geuze but which closed in 1992. Recently, the beer has been revived by the Boon brewery which blends and release the Moriau Geuze.

Mort Subite
Named after the famous bar À la Mort Subite in Brussels, the De Keersmaeker brewery in Kobbegem was famous for brewing the Mort Subite sour ales until acquired by brewery giant Alken-Maes in 2000. Though the old Keersmaeker name is largely forgotten, the brewery still exists and do make sour ales in addition to sweetened beers (such as the terrible Mort Subite Xtreme series). For the festival, visitors were offered bottles of Oude Geuze and Oude Kriek - decent, unsweetened sour ales.

Oud Beersel
As the name implies, Oud Beersel is the oldest lambic producer in Beersel, founded in 1882 and in regular operations until 2003 when the aging brewer retired without a heir. Fortunately, two fans took it upon themselves to revive Oud Beersel and in 2005 the business re-opened but only as a lambic blender, the brewery equipment having been sold. Today, Oud Beersel is run by Gert Christiaens who travels to Boon for brewing the lambic which is then aged on oak in the cellar at Oud Beersel. For this festival Oud Beersel Oude Lambiek, Oude Geuze and Oude Kriek was on offer.

Gueuzerie Tilquin
The newest lambic blending business in Belgium, Gueuzerie Tilquin, was founded in 2009 by Pierre Tilquin, a young brewer from Wallonia who had studied under Armand Debelder at 3 Fonteinen and Jean-Pierre van Roy at Cantillon to learn how to brew, age and blend lambic. Located in from Bierghes, just south of the Flanders Walloon border, Gueuzerie Tilquin has grown quickly in fame and production volume with lambic bought from Lindemans, Girardin, Boon and even Cantillon (Cantillon usually never sell their lambic but made an exception for Tilquin). Tilquin Oude Lambiek, Oude Geuze and Oude Quetsche 2013-2014 were on sale at the festival.

Brouwerij Timmermans
Founded in 1702, Brouwerij Timmermans is the oldest lambic brewery in Belgium and one of the most spectacular, located in the heart of Itterbeek in a white painted brick building with what must surely be the biggest coolship in the world. The brewery was sold to the John Martin Group in 1993 and stopped making traditional geuze for a few years, until re-introducing the Oude Geuze in 2009 and the Oude Kriek in 2010 - both bart of the Timmermans Tradition series. For the festival, Timmermans offered several Tradition beers, such as Oude Gueuze, Oude Kriek and Blanche Lambicus - the last one a wheat lambic.

In addition to the above Belgian producers, the festival had an exclusive guest from America. What, you may think, an American brewery at a Belgian sour ale festival?! Yes, really - Allagash was present!

Allagash Brewing Company
Portland, Maine, based Allagash Brewing Co has been inspired by Belgian beer styles ever since its founding by Rob Tod in 1994. A few years ago the brewery acquired its own coolship, one of those shallow, open metal tanks where wort is cooled over night and inoculated by yeast from the ambient air - to undergo what is known as spontaneous fermentation. Which is exactly what traditional lambic brewing is all about! Allagash sent along three of their Coolship beers to the festival and they turned out so popular that Allagash was the first beer stand to run out of beer! Fortunately, I had been sensible enough to get a bottle of each, shortly after the festival opened, so I got to try all three of them.

A bottle of Allagash Coolship Cerise
- at Nacht van de Grote Dorst 2014

- Allagash Coolship Red (5.7%): This is their version of a framboise, made by steeping raspberries for four months in a two year old, spontaneously fermented sour ale. It poured a reddish amber color and smelled and tasted strongly of raspberry, but with some funky notes and a good acidity.

- Allagash Coolship Cerise (8.1%): This is their version of an oude kriek, made by steeping sour cherries for four months in a two year old, spontaneously fermented sour ale. It really tasted of sour cherries with notes of cherry pits.

- Allagash Coolship Resurgam (6.6%): This is their version of a traditional geuze, made by blending a two year old spontanesouly fermented beer with an 18 months old and a 6 months old ("jonge lambik") before refermentation in bottle. The one I tried had been bottled in May 2011, making it almost three years old, it tasted of sour fruits, lemon peel and had some funky barnyard notes in the aftertaste - very tasty and refreshing.

Concluding remarks
A little before 10 pm, the beer tent was so crowded that I found it hard to get through to the beer stands to get more beer, and there were queues for the toilets, the food stall and to buy more tokens, so I decided it was time to call it a day and catch the next bus back to Brussels.

My overall impressions of Nacht van de Grote Dorst 2014 is that this is an excellent addition to the much older Weekend of Spontaneous Fermentation festival in Buggenhout, the two festivals differ both in style and popularity so they complement each other really well. I will probably return for Nacht van de Grote Dorst 2016, but intend to do like this year - be there at the opening and call it a day as soon as things get too crowded for comfort.

Visitors queuing for tokens at Nacht van de Grote Dorst

More photos can be found at Flickr in this album.

Belgian road trip autumn 2013

Every September I attend the great Borefts bier festival in Bodegraven, Netherlands, but in 2013 I added a twist by going on a beer road trip in Belgium after Borefts. I was accompanied by two friends and in the span of seven days, in late September and early October, visited breweries and great beer places across Belgium. I've already posted about the visit to Koningshoeven and the tour of Het Anker, so in this post I'll wrap up the rest of the tour which includes stops in Beersel, Ypres, Poperinge, Watou and Hainaut, visiting great beer bars, a hop museum and the breweries Brouwerij St. Bernadus, Brasserie à Vapeur and Brasserie des Légendes.

Taking a stroll in the Zenne valley with Zenne river on the left

Beersel - the heart of lambic
After picking up the rental car in Utrecht we drove south, towards Belgium, making one beer related stop at Onze Lieve Vrouw van Koningshoeven, outside Tilburg, before entering Belgium. In order to get to Beersel we just followed the main highway towards Antwerp and then Brussels. Near Brussels we took off on the E19 which goes around the western outskirts of the city until we were almost due south of it, there the E19 turns south along the Zenne river valley. After a few kilometer you'll see the exit to Beersel which takes you off the highway and onto a winding country road that leads up the hill to the east of the E19.

The town of Beersel is perched on top of a hill, above the Zenne valley, about 15 km south of central Brussels. It's possible to get there by train from Brussels, but I've always gone by car or even taxi (but the latter can be fairly expensive since most cab drivers in Brussels are unfamiliar outside the city and may take a number of wrong turns on the way!).

The main reason for visiting Beersel is related to the valley mentioned above. Zenne, or Senne in French, is the historical area for brewing the spontaneously fermented beers known as lambic or lambiek. The reason for this is probably the many cherry and fruit farms that used to dot the valley, along the small, meandering river of the same name. Just like wine grapes, many fruits carry yeast cells on their skin - yeast that can become airborne and thus trigger spontaneous fermentation if landing in an open tank of cooled wort.

A hundred years ago, every small village in the Zenne valley would sport a lambic brewery to supply the locals with fresh beer. The larger towns, in particular Beersel, would have many. The largest breweries would often sell unfinished or "jonge" lambic to cafés in Brussels or special blenders who would age the lambic for one, two or even three years before making a blend of several vintages to create one of the most popular beers in Belgium in the early 20th century: Geuze. Such a blending businesses, known as a Geuzestekerij, required a skillful master because you had to age each lambic just right and then know how much to blend from each vintage. Some of the blenders also played around with fruits, most commonly sour cherries or raspberries, creating fruit lambics known as kriek and frambozen in Flemish (the latter is probably better known under its French name framboise).

Today only a handful of lambic breweries and geuze blenders exist in Belgium, two of them in Beersel which has remained at the heart of lambic culture in Belgium. Bezoekerscentrum De Lambiek, the official visitor center and museum for all things lambic, opened up at Alsemberg, just outside Beersel, in May 2011. Here visitors can learn about the history of lambic brewing and geuze blending while also tasting authentic, lambic based, sour ales from all 11 members of HORAL - the "HOge Raad voor Ambachtelijke Lambiekbieren" or "High Council for Artisanal Lambic Beers" - which was founded to protect and propagate the knowledge of traditional lambic beers. Cantillon is the only lambic brewery that is not a member of HORAL.

I've earlier posted about my visits to 3 Fonteinen, both to the brewery and blending business run by Armand Debelder and the excellent café run by his younger brother Guido Debelder. My most recent visit was during Tour de Geuze 2013, so I won't repeat myself in this post just stress that if you're in Beersel you really must visit the brewery and try their lambic and kriek served on tap at the café. And if you're lucky, the café may still have a bottle of Hommage 2007 left in the cellar.

Hommage 2007 at Café 3 Fonteinen, in 2013

The other lambic producer in Beersel is Oud Beersel. As the name implies this is the oldest one in town, founded as early as 1882. However, about a decade ago Oud Beersel almost came to an end. In its 120th year, owner Danny Draps - who had taken over the reins after his uncle, Henri Vandervelden - decided to retire, and with no heir to succeed him he was forced to close the brewery. Fortunately, Henri Vandervelden was still alive and a vigorous 76 year old, and he refused to see the end of Oud Beersel, so when two young fans of the brewery contacted him he was quick to act. Together with Gert Christiaens and Roland de Bus (who has since left), Vandervelden drew up plans for a revival. In 2005 Oud Beersel was relaunched as a pure geuzestekerij, Christiaens brewing his lambic at Brouwerij Boon in Lembeek but still aging and blending it at Oud Beersel. The first "new" Oude Geuze from Oud Beersel was released in 2007 and today the business is thriving under the sole owner Gert Christiaens.

Just like Cantillon in Brussels, Oud Beersel is a working museum that is open to visitors on the first Saturday of every month. In fact, Oud Beersel was the first lambic brewery to establish such a "living" museum, and it was that very same Henri Vandervelden who did so in 1973, five years before Cantillon! So set aside some time for a visit to this historic lambic brewery.

In addition to the two lambic business and the highly rated Café 3 Fonteinen, Beersel has a couple of highly rated pubs that I'd like to say a few words about - but for different reasons.

Centrum Hotel
Centrum Hotel is located just "around the corner" from 3 Fonteinen, at the start of Steenweg op Ukkel, and it was here we decided to stay the night in Beersel. Despite being under heavy restoration works, with parts of the dining room closed, the place turned out really great. Besides being very cheap (€55 for a night) and close to 3 Fonteinen, the bar is by far the best hotel bar I've been to in Belgium. In addition to several decent beers on tap, including Tripel Karmeliet, La Chouffe and Girardin lambic, the bar had an amazing bottle beer menu that would have allowed us to spend many nights there and not exhaust the alternatives. And it didn't hurt that the hotel kitchen served hearty dishes of hot food and that we found the atmosphere of the bar cozy and traditional.

The bar at Centrum Hotel in Beersel

In de Oude Pruim
Located further down Steenweg op Ukkel, In de Oude Pruim was rated very high on RateBeer, second only to Café 3 Fonteinen, when I checked out places to visit. However, it turned out to be anything but great. The old couple running the place had all the time in the world (in itself not a sign of bad quality in Belgium) even if we were alone in the pub. It was so quiet in there that I could hear every raspy cough made by the woman, and the ticking of the old clock seemed so loud it brought back childhood memories from the dentist's waiting room. We didn't care for the pils they had on draught and it took several failed attempts, sending the old man scampering down the cellar - or so it seemed - in an attempt to locate a beer from the menu before we finally ended up with bottles of the regular Rodenbach that I had spotted behind the bar. After quickly finishing the beer we left the place as courteously as circumstances allowed. None of us will ever come back. If you plan to visit Beersel, stick to Café 3 Fonteinen and Centrum Hotel.

If you're staying a night in Beersel I would also recommend a nice morning hike in the Zenne valley, it's about 1 km to walk from the church square down into the valley. Just follow Puttestraat and Lotsestraat downhill, in the direction of the railway station, there you take the pedestrian underpass, below the railway lines, and simply follow the small country road ("Langestraat") through the fields down to the valley floor where you can walk along and even cross the meandering Zenne river. It's a tranquil and fairly scenic walk, with cows grazing along the lush river bank.


Oostvleteren and Ypres - in Flanders fields
After the night in Beersel we followed the highway west towards Ypres in West Flanders, a region that still bears the marks of the bloody battles on the Western Front during World War I. The goal was the small town of Oostvleteren, home to De Struise Brouwers, but we also made a stop in Ypres.

Ypres, usually written Ieper in Dutch, is home to the famous In Flanders Fields war museum which anyone with even the smallest interest in our history should visit. Located in the rebuilt Cloth Hall, right next to Grote Markt, the museum offers visitors a shocking reminder of Europe's recent, violent past. From the museum you can also follow a set of stairs up to the belfry, from 70 meters above ground you'll get a breathtaking view of the city and the surrounding Flanders fields - all the way to Passchendaele.

When we'd had our fill of history and great views it was time to check out a new beer place in Ypres, the Brasserie Kazematten.

Brasserie Kazematten in the old city wall of Ypres

Brasserie Kazematten
Prior to the trip, I had read about a "joint venture" between the breweries Rodenbach and St Bernardus that piqued my interest. Named Brasserie Kazematten and opening up in April 2013, in the Ypres city wall just east of Grote Markt, this was apparently a brewpub, the very first to open up in Ypres.

However, upon our visit in early October 2013, the pub was still very much a work in progress - with construction going on both outside and inside - and there was no brewery to be seen. When I asked the bartender, she told me that the brewing would actually take place a couple of blocks away, so Brasserie Kazematten isn't going to be a traditional brewpub, though it will serve its own, unique beers brewed nearby. But Kazematten is still a nice place to visit, the pub offered 8 beers on draught, all from Brouwerij St Bernardus, including their Abt 12, Tripel, Prior, Wit and Tokyo - the last one is specially brewed for the St Bernardus pub in Tokyo, Japan. The hot food was also nice, I went for a tasty meat and pasta dish. If you're in Ypres, definitively check out this place.

Other than Brasserie Kazematten, Ypres doesn't really have any good beer pubs that I know of, so after this pit stop we left for Oostvleteren - about 15 km north west of Ypres.

The town of Oostvleteren is home to one of the most famous craft breweries in Belgium, De Struise Brouwers. Normally it's possible to visit their small brewery, which I did in July 2011, but this time it was closed because of their Borefts attendance a few days earlier. So instead we visited two of the local pubs and stayed the night at a wonderful bed & breakfast.

Walking along Kasteelweg to Vakantiehoeve Schraevenacker

Vakantiehoeve Schraevenacker
The bed & breakfast in question is called Vakantiehoeve Schraevenacker and is part of a working farm, with goats, sheep and horses grazing around. It offers several large rooms on the ground floor, each individually named and with private bathrooms. The owners also operate a restaurant, where you have your breakfast in the morning, but where you can also have dinner or just enjoy a beer outside in the beer garden. Their bottle beer menu was surprisingly good, offering many different De Struise beers - including some rare gems such as Aardmonnik 2008.

Vakantiehoeve Schraevenacker is located in Kasteelweg, about 15 minutes walk after turning off from the N8 highway through Oostvleteren. The reason for mentioning this fact is that both De Struise and two very nice pubs are located around this intersection, so it's just a short walk back to bed after enjoying some good beers at the pub!

't Molenhof
Located on the opposite side of the intersection from De Struise, Het Molenhof was actually recommended to me by Carlo Grootaert before my first visit to De Struise. It's a charming, old place with a wooden windmill right next to it - hence the name - so you really can't miss it. Het Molenhof doubles as a restaurant, but the kitchen closes early so when we got there at 8 o'clock only the pub section was open. But they take pride in their beer menu and you can't really fault a place where you can do vertical tasting of De Struise Black Damnation!

Restaurant and pub 't Molenhof in Oostvleteren

De Sterre
If you crave food and arrive after the kitchen closes at 't Molenhof you can just cross the street to the neighbor pub, De Sterre, they serve a wicked pasta dish and are on friendly terms with 't Molenhof (I even left my bar tab open at the Molenhof while eating at De Sterre - with no credit cards left behind for security!). The beer selection is also decent though a bit smaller than at Molenhof. The couple running De Sterre are quite something, calling them old hippies would not do them justice, but you will not leave the place without a memory for life - I assure you.

Among my many visits to Belgium, this visit to Oostvleteren stands out spectacularly - the two pubs gave me such a good vibe, followed by that peaceful walk back to the bed & breakfast, under a starry night sky, between fields of tall corn and with various animals still up and grazing on patches of open field along the road. It was such a perfect ending to a day of exploring beer and history in Flanders fields.


Poperinge - hop capital of Belgium
After at hearty breakfast at Vakantiehoeve Schraevenacker we left Oostvleteren and headed south into the heart of Belgian hop country - the municipality of Poperinge. The idea was to make a stop in the town by that name before turning west to our main target, Watou.

The town of Poperinge is known as the hop capital of Belgium, surrounding it you will find many hop farms with those characteristic tall poles erected to hold up a system of trellis, to allow hop bines to grow up in a controlled way and to ease the harvesting. You can spot such farms from far away, thanks to the 6-7 meter tall poles erected in the open fields. Thus, it's only fitting that the first thing greeting a visitor, coming by car from the direction of Ypres, is a large, green painted metal hop cone placed in a roundabout on the outskirts of town.

Bins of fresh hop cones with the new "beer wall" to the left
- at Hopmuseum Poperinge in October 2013

Hopmuseum Poperinge
For a beer tourist, the town of Poperinge may not offer a world class beer bar to visit, but its museum dedicated to the history, farming and use of humulus lupulus - aka hops - is outstanding. The Hopmuseum Poperinge is located in Gaasthuisstraat 71, about 500 meter west of Grote Markt, in a remarkable 4-storey building known as "Stadsschaal" or Municipal Scales. This building was used for weighing, drying and storing hops until the mid 20th century. Visitors can rent a very informative audio tour guide that will guide them through four floors of hop history and culture, from the labor intensive hop farming of yesteryear to the mechanized modern farming methods.

The museum also presents statistics showing that hop farming in Poperinge (and the rest of Belgium) has declined dramatically over the past one hundred years. In 1909, there were 665 hop growers with 1.100 ha land in Poperinge, producing around 50% of the hops in Belgium. In 2010 only 32 hop growers operated on 185 ha land in Poperinge, they produced just 285 tons of hops but that still accounted for 95% of the entire Belgian production! Thus, Poperinge isn't only the hop capital of Belgium it is almost the only remaining hop growing region in the country (the remaining 5% of hop production is in Aalst).

On my most recent visit, the museum had just completed its "beer wall", similar to the one in Bruges, which showcases the regular beers brewed in Belgium - about 1,400! The museum is also host to an annual hop competition, where the best hop farmer in Poperinge is chosen by a jury that sniffs fresh hop cones from every farm in the region. We were so fortunate to visit the day before this competition, so we got to smell the fresh hops, neatly sorted into a hundred different numbered bins. Oh heavens!

In a mild hop induced euphoria we got back into our car and headed west ... to Watou.


Watou - abbey beers
Any person with even the slightest interest in abbey beers should visit Watou, this small village lies at the heart of a great region of full bodied and rich abbey beers; Van Eecke brews the excellent Het Kapittel beers in Watou while Brouwerij St Bernardus is located just 3 km outside Watou, along the appropriately named Trappistenweg. Trappist abbey St. Sixtus, home to the world famous Westvleteren 12 - which is available at Café In de Vrede next to the abbey, is located 14 km east of Watou, just past the town of Poperinge. You get my drift?

Taking a stroll along Trappistenweg in Watou
- notice the hop field in the background?

If you plan to stay in or near Watou, I highly recommend contacting Brouwerij St. Bernardus to ask for a room at their bed & breakfast, right next to the brewery. This 2-storey house complex, hidden from the road by a vine covered wall and gate, offers half a dozen large guest rooms, with private bathrooms, and a large terrace covered by glass so that you stay warm and dry while enjoying breakfast on cold or rainy days. On my October 2013 visit I paid just €35 for my own room, which isn't bad when you get to live next door to one of the best family breweries in Belgium!

The hostess, Jackie, will welcome you with a big smile and can help you get a tour of the St Bernardus brewery. More importantly, Jackie makes sure that the refrigerators in the living room are full of fresh St Bernardus beer, so that guests don't have to worry about the lack of pubs nearby. The closest pubs are in the village of Watou, some 3 km or 30 minutes walk away. Unfortunately, poor business seems to have taken its toll on Watou between my 2011 and 2013 visits, since many of the pubs and restaurants closed early or even stayed closed many days of the week. On my last visit, the village square was virtually deserted after 6 pm on a Wednesday!

Because most restaurants in Watou were closed the two nights we were there in October 2013, we ended up eating at De Strooyen Hen a bit outside Watou. Situated exactly midway between Poperinge and Watou, in Watouseweg 54, this restaurant also functions as the neighborhood pub and festival hall, hosting weddings and parties. The kitchen makes really tasty dishes, I enjoyed a delicious rack of lamb, and the menu offers good local beer from both Van Eecke, located down the road towards Watou, and St Bernardus. But beware that De Strooyen Hen, like many rural establishments in Flanders, is closed on Mondays.

Distances to many interesting places are short from St Bernardus bed & breakfast, which makes it such a great place stay. Places such as Ypres, Poperinge, Watou and Westvleteren are within easy biking distance or 5-10 minutes of driving. You can even borrow bikes for free at the bed & breakfast, if you don't bring your own and would like to ride through the flat landscape of West Flanders.

Brouwerij St Bernardus located on Trappistenweg in Watou

If you feel extra adventurous it's only a couple of kilometers to the French border, from St Bernardus you can actually see the mountain of Mont des Cats, also known as Katzberg, on the opposite side of the border. Going there makes for a nice daytrip on a bike, though the road up the small mountain can be taxing if you don't have a bike with low gears. Near the top you'll find Trappist Abbaye du Mont des Cats, which commands great views of Flanders. The abbey is worth a visit in itself but also for beer historical reasons - it is the mother house of two important Trappist abbeys that still brew Trappistenbier: St Sixtus, founded by monks from Mont des Cats in 1831, and Koningshoeven, founded 1881. The abbey shop sells a Mont des Cats abbey beer, but it's not an authentic Trappist beer since it is brewed at Chimay and not locally - but it's still worth picking up a bottle if you visit the abbey.


Hainaut - old and modern breweries
On the way back from West Flanders to Brussels, at the end of the week, we drove through the province of Hainaut, in the French speaking Walloon region of Belgium. The reason for this small detour was to attempt a couple of brewery visits, even though we had no prior appointment. The two breweries are run very differently, one of them is a steam powered, old style mechanical brewery while the other is a shiny modern brewery, but both are independent and brew high quality, unique beers.

Brasserie à Vapeur
Our first stop was at Rue du Maréchal 1 in the small village of Pipaix, which is about 3 km east of the Dubuisson brewery and 9 km west of Brasserie Dupont, in other words smack in the middle of Waloon beer country! The reason for stopping at this address is that this is where you'll find a small but very old brewery which has changed name and owners several times over the centuries, until acquiring its current name, Brasserie à Vapeur, in 1984.

That year a young couple, Sittelle and Jean-Louis Dits, heard that the Biset brewery was up for sale. This was an old steam powered brewery, founded in 1785. The couple wanted to keep the old brewery and its history alive, so they bought it, renamed it Brasserie à Vapeur which is French for "Steam Brewery", but changed very little else. They've spent the last thirty years maintaining status quo but brewing a great line-up of beers with weird and funny names and often weirder and funnier label artwork. Since 1992, the artwork has been created for them by Belgian cartoonist Louis-Michel Carpentier.

19th century mash tun and malt mill at Brasserie à Vapeur

When we arrived at the brewery on a Thursday afternoon we were initially told that they didn't do tours that day, the small brewery usually allows visitors on Sundays only - to watch the brewing process. But after praising them on the well kept old brick buildings we were allowed inside on a short tour of the old brewery. For those of you who have been to the Cantillon brewery in Brussels, Brasserie à Vapeur will seem similar but even older (which it is, by a hundred years!).

Walking into the Vapeur brewery is like walking back in time; the wet and well worn cobblestone floor looks like it has been there for hundreds of years, the mechanical malt mill, the mash tun below and the old steam engine, connected by belts and steam pipes, gives an impression of early industrial era. Even the smell is old, of damp stones and iron with hints of wort, lingering in the air from the last brewing session. My mind started racing and it struck me that if the brewer from 150 years ago had suddenly woken up and returned to his old brewery he would not have noticed any changes  - this is a genuine, 19th century, steam powered brewery.

After the brief tour we thanked the lady profusely, returned to the bright daylight and started up the car, driving east towards our next and final stop that I'll mention in this post.

Brasserie des Légendes
About 17 km east of Pipaix, on the outskirts of Ath, there's an old castle named Irchonwelz which has given name to the small village nearby. These days the old castle is home to a modern brewery, founded as recently as 2006 when two smaller breweries - Brasserie des Géants and Brasserie Ellezelloise - merged to create Brasserie des Légendes.

Unlike the brewery we had just visited, Brasserie des Légendes is a modern high tech wonder of a brewery with a shiny new brewhouse in the courtyard of the former castle. You enter through the main gate of the castle, from a large gravel covered parking lot outside, facing the brewery straight ahead and the shop / tasting room up the stairs to your left.

There were no brewery tours that day, but the large main door to the brewery was open so I quickly took a peek inside before joining the others for a beer tasting session at the brewery shop which doubles as a tasting room. Because the shop / tasting room has no beers on tap you'll either have to buy some bottles and bring them home or find someone to share the bottles with. Fortunately, I had several people to share with and we managed to get through the entire selection of Goliath beers on offer in the shop.

View inside the modern brewery of Brasserie des Légendes

I appologize if this post seems a bit all over the place, which in a sense it had to be given the nature of the trip through so much of Belgium, but I hope it inspires you to do a beer road trip of your own through this small but still so varied beer country.

For more photos from this trip, check these Flickr sets: Ypres, Oostvleteren, Poperinge and the rest.

Liège - the daughter of Meuse

The city of Liège in the French-speaking region of Wallonia, in the southeast of Belgium, has just as long and illustrious history as Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels, but these days it seems to have ended up in the Belgian backwaters and is largely forgotten by tourist brochures and the beer fans who travel to Belgium from all corners of the world.

I won't claim to have done the city justice by staying there for only two days, but at least I got a feel for what it's like today and what it must have been like in former times. This post is a recount of my brief visit in May 2013, to explore the local beer scene and the city of Liège itself.

River Meuse, the mother of Liège, seen from Sainte-Walburge

La Naissance de Liège
A sculpture on the Pont des Arches bridge across river Meuse in Liège is called La Naissance de Liège or The Birth of Liège and shows a woman with a child in her arms. This is an allegory for Liège being the daughter of the river, which is rather obvious when you view the city from the vantage point of Mount Sainte-Walburge north of the city. From there, the Meuse can be seen flowing through the heart of Liège, fondling the shores and creating the island of Outremeuse along the way. River Meuse, by the way, is not only one of the major rivers in western Europe, with a length of 925 km, it's actually the oldest river in the world, having drained out in the North Sea for some 380 million years.

Like Bruges and Ghent in Flanders, Liège has had its share of famous, historical persons, the most powerful being none other than Charlemagne or Charles the Great, the king of the Franks and from 800-814 AD the mighty Holy Roman Emperor ruling all of western Europe. Like his father, Pepin the Short, Charlemagne was born in the village of Herstal, just outside modern Liège, in the 8th century, but his rule was felt all over Europe and was remembered for centuries after. All traces I could find of him in Liège today was the equestrian Charlemagne statue in Parc d'Avroy.

In 985, Liège became the capital of a prince-bishopric which basically means an area controlled by a bishop who had the powers of a prince to extract taxes and make laws for his minions. The first prince-bishop was a man called Notger who transformed the city into a major intellectual and ecclesiastical centre, which maintained its cultural importance during the Middle Ages.

In 1468, the independent and unruly city of Liège was laid siege to by Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy who, just to be on the safe side, enlisted the help of the French King Louis XI. The siege almost ended in a disaster for the Duke when a troop of 600 men, under the leadership of nobleman Vincent de Bueren, charged up the Sainte-Walburge hill with the plan to capture the King and Duke. However, this plan failed when the troops from the city started fighting the Burgundian soldiers instead of going straight into the camp to capture the leaders. This gave the Duke and the King time to rally their troops into a counter-offensive and beat back the attackers. The next day the Burgundians sacked Liège and put the city to the torch. According to legend the city burned for seven weeks. Today this brave but failed attack is remembered with a sense of pride by the people of Liège, who in 1880 named a new stairway Montagne de Bueren in honor of Vincent de Bueren.

The Montagne de Bueren stairway in Liège

During the Counter-Reformation in the 16th and 17th century the diocese of Liège was split up and gradually lost its role as a regional power. But Liège remained in the hands of the Bavarian prince-bishops until the French Revolution broke out in July 1789, this inspired the people of Liège to start their own revolution, overthrowing the prince-bishop and establishing the Republic of Liège in August 1789. Though the republic fell to Austrian forces in 1791, this event had shook the system of prince-bishops so when French troops captured Liège (and Bavaria) in 1794, the city was more than ready to throw out its prince-bishops again. This time for good.

With the fall of Napoleon in 1815, France had to let go of Liège which was incorporated into the newly formed United Kingdoms of the Netherlands where it remained until the Belgian Revolution of 1830, which saw the formation of an independent Kingdom of Belgium. This signalled the start of a golden era for Liège, because Belgium was second only to Britain in joining the industrial revolution and it was in Wallonia, not the arable farm land of Flanders, that Belgian industry were located. Liège became one of continental Europe's first large-scale steel making centres, this required many workers so the population ballooned and the city grew out of bounds.

Walking around in Liège today, you'll notice that areas outside old town often have apartment buildings from the mid to late 19th century, many of them unkept for decades or even totally abandoned. The reason for this is that by the time of World War I the industry in Wallonia was already in decline. Today there's hardly any industry left, giving outlying areas of the city an "empty shell" feel.

Walking down the narrow Au Pérî street 

However, the spirit of Liège has started to stirr again, even if you still see lots of old and abandoned buildings. The brand new Liège-Guillemins railway station, a wonder of engineering based on a design by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, opened in September 2009 and has become a tourist attraction in itself as well as an important hub on the high-speed railway network through Belgium.

Unlike Flanders, which is flat as a pancake, Liège is located in a hilly terrain which means there are steep hills to climb, if your are so inclined, rewarding you with great views of the city below and of the River Meuse. One of the most popular climbs is up the 374 steps of the 28% inclined Montagne de Bueren stairway, which leads up from the Hors-Château street to the Citadel on Sainte-Walburge. From the upper parts of the stairway you'll have a great view of Liège. The sweaty climb is worth it, trust me.

That Liège is about to "wake up" should be clear from the fact that it was one of two candidate cities for the 2017 World Expo, if it had been selected (it wasn't, the World Expo 2017 will be in Astana, Kazakhstan) it would surely have had an enormous impact on the largely rundown but historically rich city. Now, its modernization will take place more gradually than if the World Expo had come here, so if you want to visit Liège to get a sense of what this city was like in its 19th century heydays there's still time.


Getting there
Belgium has an extensive railway network so whether you come from Brussels, like I did, or Antwerp in the north, there are almost hourly train departures in the directon of Liège. I went by train from Bruxelles-Midi railway station to the new Liège-Guillemins station, which cost me less than an hour and €14. You really can't beat time or price.

If you insist on going by car, the European highway E40 passes by Brussels and goes straight to Liège, a drive of about 100 km or 1 hour. Liège even has an airport, but it's mainly a cargo airport (the 7th most important in Europe) though since 2005 it has also had a passenger terminal. But I would still recommend going by train.

Le Vaudrée II on 149 Rue Saint Gilles in Liège

The beer scene
As mentioned in the intro, Liège doesn't draw large crowds of beer tourists so you will be pretty much on your own with the regulars when you visit a pub or brasserie in the city.

Le Vaudrée II
Le Vaudrée is actually a chain of beer restaurants, originating in Liège but now found at 6 other locations in the Walloon Region of Belgium. The original Le Vaudrée was started by Camille Dumez in the mid 1980s, it can still be found in Rue du Val-Benoît on the southern outskirts of Liège. However, since 1990, there has been a second brasserie, creatively named Le Vaudrée II, on Rue Saint Gilles in the heart of old town Liège.

Even though the original Le Vaudrée currently has a higher rating at RateBeer and a few more beers on tap than the second location, I decided against going there because it was located 4 km from my hotel and in the opposite direction of old town. Fortunately, Le Vaudrée II was not a poor alternative.

Le Vaudrée II is located on 149 Rue Saint Gilles, just a 4-5 minutes walk from Liège Cathedral. It's open from early morning until well after midnight on every day of the week, offering breakfast, lunch and dinner accompanied by high quality Belgian beer. On tap, they serve 24 draft beers and on bottle more than 900 different types, so there was no chance I would get bored after one night! Among the more interesting draft beers, when I was there, they served Tripel Karmeliet, Gulden Draak 9000, St Feuillien Saison, Val-Dieu Brune and Mc Chouffe. On bottle I was intrigued by a series of beers from Brasserie Artisanale Millevertus, ranging from a nice Brune to a weird saffron beer. Another nice find was La Brasserie à Vapeur that makes a very funky saison called Vapeur en Folie.

In addition to the excellent beer selection, Le Vaudrée II also has a more than adéquat food menu offering a selection of cold and warm dishes, soups, fish, pork and beef, some of them even grilled on stone plates. The first night I had a tender beef with their own Vaudrée sauce (made with myrtle, white wine, cream, tomato, mushroom. Ardennes ham and tarragon!), which cost me €20 and tasted really delicious. The second night I tried the mixed grill plate, for a euro more, which was also good but more ordinary.

The bar with 24 beers on tap at Le Vaudrée II in Liège

The service at Le Vaudrée II was surprisingly fast and good, I hardly had time to sit down or finish a glass of beer before the bartender came over to ask me for my order. And, to my great relief, the bartender spoke a fairly decent English, allowing me to ask questions about the different beers. This is not typical for native French speaking regions in Europe so this is a great pluss in my book. So, if you find yourself in old town Liège, Le Vaudrée II is the place to go both for great beer and food.

Taverne Saint Paul
Tucked away around the corner from La Cathédrale St Paul de Liège, in the narrow but busy pedestrian street Rue Saint Paul, the 125 year old Taverne Saint Paul is something as unusual in Wallonia as a "brown café" so it was an obvious place to visit when in old town Liège.

Established in 1881, in the building of a former coaching inn, Taverne Saint Paul provides a respite from the daily hustle and bustle. Here time literarily stands still, exemplified by the clock inside the café which has been set deliberately wrong, so that customers have no way of knowing the correct time of day. In 2012, the 29 year old Maxime Piette took over the reins of the café promising not to change a bit, and that still seems to hold true as far as I could see.

Visitors to Taverne Saint Paul are greeted by a dark brown interior, on a sunny day it will seem almost dark in there, with well worn wooden furniture and walls covered with old memorabilia. Usually beer ads, but also old grandfather clocks and cigar boxes. The small bar sports 6 beer taps, which included Hoegaarden, Leffe Blond and Chimay Blanche, and also offer some 30 types of beer on bottle. It may not be the most inspiring selection, but I found the quiet and tranquil atmosphere intoxicating and stayed for longer than I had planned.

The bar at the 125 year old Taverne Saint Paul in Liège

L'Antre du Vaudrée
Just across the street from Le Vaudrée II, on 130 Rue Saint Gilles, you'll find the best beer shop in Liège, L'Antre du Vaudrée. As the name implies, this shop has the same owner as the Le Vaudrée chain of beer restaurants.

The shop is well stocked with beer from all parts of Belgium and like the restaurant across the street it offers an amazing 900 types of beer on bottle. The man behind the counter spoke reasonably well English, allowing me to ask questions about beers and breweries. When I had made my choices, based on what I had tasted at Le Vaudrée II, it turned out the shop was short in stock on one of them. But the fellow behind the counter was of the resourceful kind and solved his problem elegantly by running across the street to "borrow" a few bottles from the beer cellar of Le Vaudrée II!


Concluding remaks
Even though I only visited two beer establishments and a good beer shop, I found Liège to be a very good beer destination as it brings you really close to Belgian beer roots in an environment virtually free of tourists and RateBeerians (unlike in Brussels, Bruges or Ghent where you can't avoid them). So, even if this post may cause more "beer trotters" to visit Liège, I plan to make more trips to this old industrial city in eastern Belgium and the next time I will try to visit the original Le Vaudrée.

The new Liège-Guillemins railway station from 2009

For more photos from Liège see the following Flickr sets: Beer and the City.

Around Bruges in less than 80 Beers

During a trip to Belgium in April 2013 I spent two days in the beautiful city of Bruges, which has witnessed a revival of the local beer scene with a number of great pubs and cafés opening up. Plus the odd brewery or two. An indication of this revival is the recently published "Around Bruges in 80 Beers" by Chris Pollard, who has visited 80 drinking establishments in Bruges. My goal was much more modest, to spend two days just enjoying the history and rich beer culture of Bruges. This post is a recapulation of my experience as a beer tourist in Bruges.

A great way of getting around Bruges in 80 beers?

Bruges for dummies
Bruges (for once the French and English agree on the spelling of a name, while the locals insist on Brugge) is the capital of West Flanders in the north west of Belgium. Receiving its city charter in 1128, new canals were dug out connecting Bruges with the sea, and the city quickly became an important trading port for ships from the Hanseatic League. For the next three centuries, trade was good and wealth amassed in Bruges - resulting in many of the spectacular buildings seen in old town Bruges today.

In the early 16th century most of the canals connecting Bruges with the sea had silted up or were in the process of doing so and the city lost its position as the favored trading port in the Low Countries to Antwerp, causing a slow but lasting decline which saw the population dwindle from 200,000 around 1500 to only 50,000 by 1900. In hindsight, this decline was very fortunate for the preservation of old town Bruges as it meant that there was little money for new projects or renovations to demolish the impressive, old buildings.

Luckily, Bruges also made it virtually unscatched through two destructive world wars, which ruined so much old history in Europe, leaving old town Bruges one of the best preserved late medieval cities in Europe. Today, the entire old town is classified a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in Belgium.

Cafés and pubs lining the Grote Markt in Bruges.

Bruges tourism
There seems to be two modes by which tourists get to Bruges. The one favored by many tour groups, in particular those with elderly folks or Asian tourists, is by bus from Zeebrugge, the port of Bruges, where large cruise ships dump their passengers by the thousands, resulting in dozens of buses heading into Bruges and large tour groups crowding the same streets, squares, churches and buildings. For more adventurous tourists, traveling alone or in small groups, train is the preferred mode of travel. Bruges is located on the main railway line from Brussels to Ostend, about an hour from the capital.

While I was in Bruges I heard that two large cruise ships had arrived in Zeebrugge, both sending multiple groups of tourists into Bruges, so it was no wonder that Grote Markt and most adjoining streets were so crowded that locals and single tourists had to walk in the streets when they tried to pass.

I'm not sure if there are any slow months for tourism in Bruges, April certainly wasn't, and with two million visitors every year you'll either have to tolerate some crowdiness or stay away from the Grote Markt area. Which means you'll also miss out on some of the better pubs and shops.

De Kelk was closed during my visit

Enjoying beer in Bruges
I certainly didn't have time to check out 80 different drinking establishments and I sacrificed some of the more famous ones because of the crowds of tourists, such as Staminee de Garre and 't Brugs Bertje - two highly rated beer bars close to Grote Markt. I was also recommended De Kelk in Langestraat, by a nice bartender I spoke with. De Kelk opens late, at 7 pm, unfortunately it didn't seem to open at all on the Tuesday I was there. I still managed to visit some great and some not so great beer places, in this section I'll focus on the pubs and save the breweries for the next.

Café Rose Red
On my first night in Bruges, after giving up on the crowded places near Grote Markt, I found myself walking through a quiet side street named Cordoeaniersstraat, which seemed more like a residential area than a place to find a good beer bar. Outside number 16 I spotted a blackboard with chalk letters listing several quality draft beers and in the hallway there were many metal placques of great Belgian beers and breweries, including all the trappists. When I peeked inside the first thing that caught my eye was a hundred red roses hanging from the ceiling. I had arrived at Café Rose Red.

The bar at Café Rose Red is tucked away in a corner

Café Rose Red has actually been around since 1987 but I've got the feeling that their focus on good beer, in particular trappists and lambics, are of a later date. Inside, Café Red Rose provides a cozy and fairly quiet atmosphere, sitting well with the slogan "Trappist Beer - Taste the Silence". It opens at 11 am every day and closes at midnight, except Sundays when they close at 10 pm.

In addition to the red roses (all in plastic, by the way) hanging from the ceiling, the café is kept in a simple, rustic style with well worn wooden tables and chairs and a small bar counter, with the beer taps, tucked away in one corner. The walls are decorated with beer signs, there's a cabinet - almost like a religious shrine - with bottles of Westvleteren XII and a mirror doubles as an information board for Belgian sour ales. I felt at home!

Except for some finger food, Café Rose Red doesn't offer much for the hungry, this is a beer café more than a place to go out to eat. But the beer selection is immaculate. On draft, they had Dupont Rédor Pils, Lefebvre Hopus Blond, Het Anker Gouden Carolus Triple, Malheur Novice Triple Black and the Straffe Hendrik Quadruple from local brewery De Halve Maan. The bottled beer menu was even more impressive, with a large selection of geuze and trappist beer. In fact, the menu said that Café Rose Red is an official ambassador for Orval in the years 2012 and 2013!

Gouden Carolus Tripel on draft at Café Rose Red

I was also impressed by the dedication and knowledge shown by the bartenders, they really cared about the beer they sold. At one point I asked about the vintage of an oude geuze, since the bottle I'd ordered didn't say, whereupon the owner, Veireman Kris, actually called the blender to find out for me! (For those curious, it turned out to be the 2010 vintage of Hanssens Oude Gueuze.)

Because I enjoyed the atmosphere so much and still had many beers to try after the first night, I returned the second night to enjoy some excellent bottles of De Cam Oude Geuze, Engelszell Benno (the new Austrian trappist brewery) and Dupont Avec les Bons Voeux. I can safely say that this place came closest to my heart in Bruges.

If you're planning to stay in Bruges for a few nights you may want to check out Hotel Cordoeanier which is located at the same address and with the same owner.

't Brugs Bieratelier
The latest addition to the Bruges beer scene is named 't Brugs Bieratelier or 't Brugsche Bieratelier (as it says on the sign above the entrance). This is a small beer pub which opened up five months ago, on December 1st 2012. It would have remained below my beer radar if I hadn't met a nice fella from Australia, at Café Rose Red the night before, who gave me the rough directions as "close to De Halve Maan". So the next morning I walked around Walplein and several side streets until I found it, in Wijngaardstraat 13.

The bar opens at 12 o'clock every day (and closes whenever the last customers have left) so after a quick stop at De Halve Maan, which opens two hours earlier, I was waiting outside the Bieratelier when the doors opened. This gave me the chance to get a good impression of the bar as well as keep up a long conversation with the young bartender.

View of the bar at 't Brugs Bieratelier

Though just five months old, the Bieratelier has already acquired the atmosphere and the looks of a really old drinking establishment. Much thanks to its old, rustic interior. I was told that the well worn bar counter was 150 years old and had been purchased from the Netherlands, the rest of the wooden furniture also looked old and the floor had been laid with old, wooden boards, almost like on an old sailing ship. The most surprising feature is the low bar counter, when you're sitting on the stools at the bar you feel you're almost siting on the bar! This, combined with the tinyness of the place, about 20 people can sit comfortably by the bar and another 20 in the adjoining room, makes for an intimate bar experience.

Regarding the beer selection, the Bieratelier have a very simple philosophy - they want to provide high quality Belgian draft beer. Period. They don't have a bottled beer menu because they don't sell beer on bottle and there are only 12 taps, but each one has a unique, well crafted Belgian ale. The taps remain unchanged for a full month, the next month they change most if not all to showcase another set of quality draft beer. When I was there in April, they had St Bernardus Prior 8, Hercule Stout, Timmermans Tradition Lambicus Blanch and a number of other excellent beers on draft. I could easily have spent the entire day there, but had to move on to visit other places - though from now on it was going downhill.

By the way, 't Brugs Bieratelier also arranges guided beer tours "to discover the most original pubs in Bruges" every Monday and Saturday at 1 pm. Just sign up in the bar and for €39 you'll be taken around Brussels to sample the atmosphere and beers of the best pubs in the city.

The 17th century home of Bierbrasserie Cambrinus

Bierbrasserie Cambrinus
After my visit to the Bieratelier it was time for lunch which I decided to have at Bierbrasserie Cambrinus in Philipstockstraat 19, since they open at 11 am every day. I was hoping that this beer restaurant would offer a menu of good beer and food pairing. And with windows declaring that they've got 400 types of beer, this seemed like the perfect place for a lunch (or dinner).

Named after the legendary Cambrinus (Gambrinus in English), king of Flandres and patron saint of brewers, Bierbrasserie Cambrinus is located in a beautiful red brick building from 1699, with that common Dutch crow-stepped gable street facade. Inside you'll find a long bar on the right and a number of wooden tables for both larger and smaller groups.

On draft they offered ten beers. Unfortunately, the beer selection revealed a strong preference for InBev and the pub was out of several interesting bottled beers, so in the end I had my lunch, a rabbit stew, with a glass of Blanche de Namur from draft. The food was decent, but not impressive. The three women working in the bar showed little interest in the beers I asked about and were also fairly slow in looking my way when my glass was close to or empty, even though it was just a handful of other guests in the restaurant. Thus, after finishing my lunch I walked over to the bar, asked for the bill, paid and departed the place as quickly as possibly.

Despite a high rating on RateBeer (Bierbrasserie Cambrinus is currently number 3 in Bruges with 93 points), I found the beer restaurant lacking in every possible way; poor draft selection, the most interesting bottled beers were sold out, uninspired food, slow and ignorant service.

De Struise Brouwers beer shop on the Burg square

De Struise Brouwers Beer Shop
While in Bruges I also made a point of checking out the shop that De Struise Brouwers, one of the highest rated Belgian craft breweries, opened up on the Burg square, right next to the Basilica of the Holy Blood, a couple of years ago.

From the outside, the shop looked really well stocked and nice but I had to wait until 1 pm for it to open. When I entered, I was apalled by how warm the shop felt, it was certainly above 30 C. This is not good for storing beer, and most of the bottles stood in uncooled shelves, so I decided not to buy anything as I didn't know how long the bottles had been stored warm. For such a great craft brewery I am surprised they don't take better care of how their bottled beer is sold!

La Trappist
In addition to the pubs and cafés mentioned above, I heard talks to the effect that Bruges will soon also get a dedicated trappist beer pub. Supposedly, it's going to be called La Trappist and open up in May. But there's one worrying fact, it's owned by InBev.

Brouwerij de Halve Maan is the oldest in Bruges
- founded by Leon "Henri I" Maes in 1856

Something's brewing in Bruges - about breweries and festivals
In addition to the pubs mentioned in the previous section, Bruges also offers visitors old and new breweries as well as an annual beer festival. Let's start with the old.

Huisbrouwerij De Halve Maan
There has been a brewery on Walplein in old town Bruges at least since 1564, when it was known as Die Maene ("The Moon" in English), but it's with Leon Maes that the story of the modern brewery starts. Affectionally known as Henri I, Leon was an entrepreneurial spirit and in 1856 he purchased the old brewery, with some help from his uncle Canon P.J. Maes. He quickly threw out the old equipment and constructed a new and, for that time, very modern brewery. Brouwerij De Halve Maan was born.

De Halve Maan, which means "The half moon", was one of several breweries in Bruges, but as the years went by so did the other breweries. When Brouwerij De Os closed in 1985, De Halve Maan became the only brewery left in Bruges, but they were not about to give up. And almost thirty years later, the sixth generation of the Maes-Vanneste family is running a very popular brewery and tavern on Walplein, where tour groups tired of walking the streets of Bruges can stop by for a quick brewery tour and some cold beer in the tavern.

Despite looking like a large brewpub from the outside, and they do serve their own beer fresh from tank in the tavern, De Halve Maan is actually a fairly big brewery by Belgian standards, with an annual production of 30,000 hl beer.

The bar at De Halve Maan brewery tavern on Walplein

There are two good reasons for visiting De Halve Maan rather than just buy their beer at pubs elsewhere. One is to attend a tour of their brewery, which takes place every hour around the day, and the other is to have their Brugse Zot Blond from draft, which is only served unfiltered at the brewery tavern. Everywhere else, or so I'm told, you'll get the inferior filtered version.

In addition to the Brugse Zot, which comes in Blond and Dubbel versions, De Halve Maan brew several types of beer in their Straffe Hendrik series, including a delicious 11% Quadrupel and a more ordinary 9% Tripel. If you can find these on draft, and in Bruges the chances are pretty good, they tend to be a lot more full bodied and flavorful than on bottle.

The name Brugse Zot, by the way, means "Bruges Fools" and is said to originate with the Holy Roman Emperor Maximillian I, who had acquired Flanders through his marriage to Mary of Burgundy (the lady celebrated with Duchesse De Bourgogne). At one time, in the late 15th century, he was staying in Bruges to watch the famous annual Holy Blood Procession, in which the locals jump around and make mad gestures. The next day some citizens had approached Maximillian to ask him about sponsoring an institution for the mentally ill. Maximillian had replied, "Just close the city gates and Bruges will be one big mad house". Since then, the citizens of Bruges have been known as Brugse Zot.

Brouwerij Fort Lapin
Just north of old town Bruges, in Koolkerkse Steenweg 32, a new brewery called Brouwerij Fort Lapin made their debut early 2012 with the Fort Lapin 8 - an 8% abbey tripel beer. Their beer labels carry a pair of rabbit ears above the "o" in Fort, which harks back to the French meaning of the name - "fort lapin" means "strong rabbit".

Fort Lapin is a really small brewery, producing just 300 hl beer annually, and so far they've only got two types of beer in their lineup, the aforementioned tripel and a very tasty 10% abv dark quadrupel named Fort Lapin 10.

The Fort Lapin beers should be available at the better beer pubs in Bruges, but I've also found their beers as far away as Leuven.

A bottle of Fort Lapin Tripel in Bruges

Brouwerij "Bourgogne des Flandres"
In September 2013 a new brewery is scheduled to open up in Bruges, I don't know what it will be called but it will be a brewery dedicated to the famous beer that used to be made by Brouwerij De Os: Bourgogne des Flandres - "The Burgundy of Flanders".

Bourgogne des Flandres is a sour ale made by mixing 50% lambic and 50% Scotch ale, so when De Os closed in 1985 the recipe was picked  up by lambic brewery Timmermans in Itterbeek. Timmermans, since bought up by the John Martin Group, still makes the beer but this fall production will move back to Bruges, the original hometown of Bourgogne de Flandres.

Brugs Bier Festival
If you're planning a visit to Bruges and cold winter weather doesn't sound too scary, you may want to consider the annual Brugs Bier Festival which is held in De Halletoren, the big tower by Grote Markt, usually in the first weekend of February.

The festival, which is also known as the BAB-festival after the organizers Bruges Autonomous Beertasters, was first held in 2007 and typically attracts some 70+ Belgian breweries, serving several hundred beers to the visitors.

A glass of Brugse Zot at De Halve Maan

For more photos of pubs and beers in Bruges, see this Flickr set.