Cantillon and The Night of Great Thirst: Beertrip Day 12

Day 12 of our Beertrip.  Getting close to the finish line here, but we still have some craziness in store!

Due to our previous late night of a Grand Sour Tasting at Moeder Lambic, Sj and I had a late start to the day.  After a somewhat leisurely breakfast and several well-needed cups of coffee, we headed out to wander the streets of Brussels.  We had been here about 2 years ago and had by no means seen all the sights.  So did we go to more museums and see more churches today?  Do not be ridiculous my friends!  No we had bigger game in our sights!

Brussels is known for it's comics (Tintin anyone?) and surprises abound around the city

Not to be sated after the previous night's sours we were headed for the Grand Daddy of all sour beer breweries--Cantillion!  The brewery is a fairly easy walk from the city center, through a predominantly middle eastern neighborhood, of less than beautiful architectural detail.  We arrived before noon at the brewery.  From the outside this is just a yellow painted building with a large barely marked warehouse door.  A smaller door opens into the brewery itself.  Contrary to the popular imaginary picture of lambic breweries opening their ceiling louvres to let in the wild yeast from a bucolic Belgian countryside, this place is smack dab in the middle of an urban neighborhood!  These guys have been brewing sour beers here since around 1900, using the same methods of open spontaneaous fermentation and barrel aging.  They have tried some unusual ingredients over time as well, but the process is very traditional. 

The Night of Great Thirst, a sour beer festival, was to occur this evening and many sour-heads from across the globe had travelled to the area to take part in that.  Like me, these folks wanted to get to Cantillon before hand!  The place was crowded and bustling with beer geeks of all nationalities, while poor brewery workers struggled to wheel palates of bottles past the throng.  They've made some changes in set up since our last trip out and now have a small tasting bar near the entrance where you can sample beers or order full bottles of the rare stuff.  We saw our favorite beer from them (possibly favorite beer ever), the Lou Pepe Kriek, up on the board.  We ordered the bottle and it came to us unlabeled and coated in a fine layer of dust, uncorked and lying at an angle in a long wicker basket. 

Beer geek heaven...

The place was packed and the small seating area was beyond full.  We managed to find one free stool near an old bartop in back, and set up Sj and the beer there.  We met Cody and Angela, some fellow sour-heads from Texas, while sitting there.  They were drinking a bottle of the Rhubarb Zwanse and we ended up doing a mini bottle share with them.  Later, on our way out, we ran into Mark, a fun guy from Chicago who knows more about beer than I ever will!  We had met him on our previous trip (also at Cantillon) and of course he was headed to the festival later that day as well.  This was a busy, but entertaining trip to visit the holy land of sour beer production.  Most of the rare beers for sale at the shop were long gone by the time we showed up, but we did end up getting a few bottles of the Kriek, Geueze and Rose de Gambrinus for smuggling back home in our luggage.  We'll always have Belgium, my Lou Pepe Kriek...

Moeder Lambic!

The route back home conveniently took us past Moeder Lambic's second location and we stopped there for a not-so-quick lunch of quiche for Sj and a meat and bread plate for me.  There I tried the Band of Brothers, a hoppy Belgian style IPA made by Brasserie de la Senne in collaboration with Moeder Lambic.  This was a very hoppy beer that I liked, since I hadn't had a really hoppy beer in almost 2 weeks, but may have pushed the limits for me.  Since it took a while to get our check, I ended up ordering a second beer, the Cantillion Iris Grand Cru on tap, which was much more mellow than the regular version.  I love this beer bar!

2 Cantillon twins at Moeder Lambic

Next we walked briskly back to the hotel to meet up with our tour group again before the festival.  We took a quick tour of Delerium Cafe, where three levels and uncountable beers waited for thirsty tourists.  Mike bought us a couple of cool beers including a bottle of Deus--the Champagne of Beer.

It was really dark down in the basement, but I was able to lighten up the picture a bit

We gathered all the ducklings in tow and ended up exactly where we had just left from: Moeder Lambic.  Oh the horror!  Back to the best beer bar in Brussels, oh no!  What were we to do?  Why order another beer of course!  Most of our group ordered food, but since Sj and I had just had a very late lunch we didn't need much more.  Mike shared a rare bottle of Italian IPA that was as good as most anything in the USA.  I was conserving my strength at this point, and just trying other people's beers.  Drinking a ton of beers just prior to a beer festival is a recipe for hurling later.  I may speak from past experience.

We finished our quick second lunch and beers and headed to the bus stop just a block away.  We caught a very crowded bus with no AC and were all shortly roasting in our own juices. Mark from Cantillon was with us on this trip and pointed out various functional and defunct Belgian breweries as we passed them.  The festival itself was held quite a bit outside town, about 30-45 minutes by sweltering bus-ride.  We actually ended up missing our stop and overshooting a bit.  Surprisingly this is the only time such a thing happened on the entire trip so I can't complain too much.  A few of our group were possibly a bit cranky about it, but we all rolled with it as best we could.  Other than Mark, I was probably the most excited about the sour beers, but hey stuff happens.  We waited on the other side of the highway about 35 minutes before the next bus going back picked us up and shortly dropped us at our missed stop. 

The Nacht van de Grote Dorst, or Night of Great Thirst, is a beer festival focusing entirely on sour beers, specifically traditional lambic, geueze, kriek, and other fruited lambics.  12 beer producers bring several of their beers, and they will usually host 1-3 foreign sour beer producers as well.  This festival is run very differently to any I have been to in the states so here is a little info I wish I had had prior to going.  Entrance to the festival is free, so there are no tickets, etc.  This results in a large amount of people showing up and no great way to limit attendance.  The place was a zoo!  They sell tokens for the beers at a separate area, as well as the tasting glass for sampling the beers.  Unlike most beer festivals, you actually buy a whole bottle of beer (instead of a small sample) with your tokens and take it out of the main tent.  The bottle cost ran from 14 tokens (Cantillon Fou Foune 750 ml) to 2 tokens (Timmermans Retro Kriek 10 oz).  So if you have fancy tastes you will burn through your tokens fast and end up with only two beers...as I did.  The party was in full swing by the time we arrived and some beers were already sold out (see above Fou Foune).  Sorry... I teared up a little bit there.  Ideally, for this type of event you have a big group of folks together and each get a couple bottles to share.

After our mishap getting to the fest and finding it a bit confusing and crowded three of our group decided they were over it and just wanted to head back to explore Brussels.  The extreme sour beer tasting we had the previous night may have been enough for them!  As a result we ended up with a smaller group than expected for our bottle sharing.  There were not many tables available, so we wandered around wielding our full bottles of beer for a while until we managed to take over a corner of a larger table.  Another, quite large, tour group had staked out that table for themselves and had quite a spread of bottles there already.  We ended up sharing our beers with a few of them, especially a nice couple from California.   

Festival goers before things got really crowded...

Later I learned that most of the breweries were serving small pours of unblended lambics and Krieks for 1 token, so Hassan and I went foraging for some of those.  While the results were not as amazing or complex as the finished products, this was a rare chance to taste the "young" versions of these famous beers.  Interestingly, the Lindemans and Timmermans versions were quite tart and sour--way better than the back sweetened cloyingly sweet final beers they sell.  By the time we figured out about these little gems, the main tent was packed wall to wall with increasingly boisterous folks.  Entering at the same time, Hassan and I were swept away from each other in the merciless tide of humanity like flotsam from a wrecked ship caught in a tidal wave.  In line in front of me to try the pours of Girardin Kriekenlambic were a duo of big drunk guys in Italian rugby jerseys.  When it was my turn to get a pour, a third--even bigger and drunker--guy pushed me out of the way and snaked the last pour.  I was angry, but not about to lose teeth in a fight with most of an Italian rugby team!

Eventually the Belgian Beer Me tour group had to leave and left several partially full bottles behind at our shared table.  So we Beertrips.com folk took over and tried them.  Thanks guys!  We invited a really pleasant couple from Sweden to share in our ill-gotten spoils as well and hung out a while longer. 

Honestly, we tried probably 30 sour beers that night.  Everything by Cantillion was amazing.  Most of the beers from Boon, 3 Fontainen, Hanssens, De Cam, and Girardin were very good.  Newcomer Tilquin was very popular and they had a special beer made with plums that was impressive.  Some of the breweries were not as impressive, but when we were low on tokens we were able to get more bottles of these for cheap: Timmermans, Lindemans, De Troch, Mort Subite.  Most of the ones we didn't like were overly back sweetened--maybe more popular internationally, but not at a sour beer festival!  I was very excited to get to try Allagash Coolship Red and Cerise at this event.  It took me going to another country to get to try one of America's finest sour breweries!  Both of those were on a par with almost anything at the festival. 

We eventually ran out of tokens and most of the beers were gone, so it was time to head home on a crowded bus full of drunk folk.  A large group of guys boarded after us, their bags full of unopened bottles clinking with motion.  Probably all full of my treasured Fou Foune.  I really enjoyed this festival, but I think they may be getting to popular (big) to keep running it in quite the same way.  They could certainly not allow folks to take home bottles to avoid all of the stands selling out of the cool stuff so early.  I actually preferred the bottle sharing method of events back home such as Where The Wild Beers Are where you donate one or more rare sour beers to gain entry to the event and get first crack at tasting the beer you brought when they open it. 

Kerkom, Jandrain-Jandrenouille, Brussels! Beertrip Day 11

Day 11 of our epic beer filled journey across The Netherlands and Belgium:

We awoke early in the morning after a long night of debauchery the evening prior.  We were on the motorcoach by 10 AM and on our way out of Maastricht and back to Belgium. 

Our first stop this morning was the Brouwerij Kerkom.  This is one of the few places that we visited this trip and our visit two years ago.  It was a high point of both trips!  The brewery itself is located in an old coaching inn, and the stone watering troughs for horses still hug the walls of the inner courtyard.  The site used to be a brewery in the past, but because it has not been continually run, it does not qualify for grandfathering out of modern brewery specifications.  Some old family run breweries like Cantillon and Vapeur are able to continue functioning without upgrading all of their equipment.  Mark at Kerkom has been in a battle to get clearance to run a brewery out of this building complex for many years.  He has an unused stainless steel brew system and fermentation tanks sitting in his ancient brick building, just waiting for the go-ahead to get fired up.  For now he has his beers brewed at another nearby brewery under contract. 

Brand new brewhouse gathering dust...

This visit we met with Mark and his wonderful wife in the cozy tasting room.  A large group of bikers arrived around the same time so things were a little busy for the couple.  The bikers stayed out in the courtyard and mostly drank Cokes (really?) so they didn't interfere with our beer enjoyment!  We started with a large stemware glass of Bink Blonde: and amazingly balanced hoppy Belgian pale ale.  This is one of my all time favorite Belgian ales and I sincerely wish we could get it in Minnesota.  We moved on with smaller glasses of all their other Bink beers: Bink Brown, the Spring seasonal Bink Blossom (made with honey and pear syrup), Kerkomse Tripel.  All were fantastic!  They also brew the dry and slightly herbal Adelardus Double, an Abbey style beer brewed with hops, candi sugar and gruit spice mixture.  The Adelardus Tripel was the overall fan favorite from our group, also made with gruit.  We also discovered a new Hop Verdomme (hops be damned!) a hoppy Belgian IPA, made as a better balanced response to American IPA's.  We finished with a wonderfully strong and flavorful "Christmas" beer the Winterkoninkske Grand Cru.  I  have a bottle of this at home waiting for a special occasion! 

Such a great tour group!

For an early lunch we were served gargantuan slices of soft dark bread, cheeses and pates all made with Kerkom beers.  Simple fare but so fulfilling!  Having learned our lessons last trip, we paced ourselves better this visit and did not leave the place reeling drunk!  I love the hospitality, rustic feel and amazing beers at Kerkom.

Can you say "really old farm?"

Our next visit via coach was another farm house brewery, but a much more recent arrival on the scene: Brasserie de Jandrain-Jandrenouille.  This was a walled defensible farmhouse, surrounded by fields and pastures.  Alexandre the brewer was kind enough to meet with us and take us on an extensive tour of his 2006 modern brewhouse.  He actually is an importer of hops into Belgium from the US as his day job, so this jump to brewing on his own wasn't a surprising one!  He does use a fair amount of American hops in his beer, but also uses traditional European varieties.  He was very engaging and full of technical knowledge that made me very happy (and perhaps some of my tour mates to glaze over).

Farmhouse dog looking over his domain

A great brewer shows us around his brewery!

We finished the tour with a tasting of several of his bottled beers in a second story room overlooking the courtyard.  Most of the beers are named after Roman numerals and have very artistic labels from a local painter.  Unsurprisingly all are variations on the Saison/Farmhouse styles.  The wit was much hoppier than I expected, but still quite good.  The others were also all bright, refreshing and very dry.  I was a happy camper after visiting this little gem of a brewery.  I know they are just hitting their stride as a brewery, but I think once the American market catches on to them, they will be very popular...if anyone here can figure out how to pronounce the name…

After the amazing hospitality of two farmhouse breweries in the hinterlands of Belgium we were off the bustling city of Brussels.  We booked into our NH hotel and quickly hit the busy streets to find sustenance.  The hotel is very close to the city center and most of the touristy sites are an easy walk from there.  Some of our group ended up at a streetside mediteranean place for quick pitas.  We met back up shortly after disbanding and headed ended up catching two cabs to our post-dinner appointment with Jean at Moeder Lambic in another region of the city.

Moeder Lambic has been a beer bar for 25 years, changing hands a few times over the years.  Currently it is owned by Jean Hummler and since 2006 has been increasingly devoted to craft beers and lambics in particular.  Jean has close ties with many of the local craft and small brewers, even with some brewers in Italy, Spain and the US.  Last time we were there, Jean Van Roy from Cantillon stopped by with a hand delivered shipment.  This is THE place to be for serious beer geeks in Brussels.  They have a newer separate location near the city center as well.  We ended up in the brick and old wood lined basement for this tasting.  There is a large oaken table and bench style chairs in the center of this dimly lit cave.  The walls around you are lined with hundreds of well organized bottles of mostly Belgian beers.  No Stella here my friends!  The dripping of distant water, the flap of cobwebs in the limited breeze, all added to the ambiance of something unique and special we were to embark upon.

This evening we had possibly the most epic and impressive sour beer tasting I have ever taken part in (except for Quintessence at Cantillon last time we were in Brussels.)  Our group was adventurous but many had never really had much experience with sours and this was a serious "throw them into the deep end and see if they sink or swim" type of experience.  For me this was a true Beer Nirvana.  Jean is incredibly passionate about beer, and especially the local lambics and sour beers.  In between beers he was able to lecture and discuss the history and mechanics of sour beer production, local politics, brewer anecdotes, and much more.  He is a treasure trove of knowledge. 

We had some stinky cheeses and meats to pair with our beers, but I am very glad we had wolfed down some real food prior to coming--something we learned the hard way last time we did this!  Our tasting started around 7 PM and I think we left the place after midnight. Epic!

We started out with Biere Darbyste from Brasserie de Blaugies.  This is a lower alcohol beer brewed with figs.  We first tried the 1 year old version that was bright and saison-like with a distinct mild fig flavor to it.   Then we tried the 20 year old bottle that Jean had discovered, making us guinea pigs of sorts.  The first beer was one of the best I had tried so far this trip, but the 1994 version was insane!  It had definite brettanomyces funk to it, and the fruit had faded quite a bit, but the complexity in such a light beer was astounding!  This was similar to trying young and old Orval, but much more impressive.  That and trying a beer from before I was legal to drink was a feat in itself!

We tried a couple of Oud Bruins and Flanders reds to ease us into the more sour beers to come.  The Brouwers Verzet is a newer brewery putting out that style of beer and the taste was great, but much of our bottles foamed all over the place!  The Rodenbach Caractere Rouge Batch 1 was a crazy sour Flanders Red with cherry and cranberries and well worth a try.  I was excited to try the Rodenbach Vin de Cereal 2004 but it was like a sour barleywine with way too hot of an alcohol burn.  We all dumped that it.  To give Jean credit, he didn't want to serve that one to us, but we wanted to try it anyway! 

We moved to Tilquin Geueze for a newer classic style Brussels sour, and that was very pleasant.  I will be looking for this one! 

Next we did an amazing side by side tasting of three Krieks.  The 3 Fontainen Intense Red from 2012 was (as expected) intense with the cherry flavor, but sweeter and not as tart as some.  This is actually made with regular cherries, but in massive amounts.  The 3 Fontainen Shaerbeekse Kriek is made with only the rare tart cherries from Belgium and was very tart and well rounded with a strong sourness.  To finish this trio was the Cantillon Lou Pepe Kriek from 2008.  This is also made with the Shaerbeekse cherries and is one of the most sought after sour beers in the world.  And rightly so!  This one blew our minds, taking the sourness and incredible cherry flavor to new levels.  The undisputed winner by far.  Prior to our tasting Jean had already done two other beer events and wasn't really drinking along with us, just making sure the beer was good before serving to us.  The Lou Pepe, however, he served to himself as well.  No one is going miss tasting that beer!  One of my top 5 beers of all time for sure.

Kriek Trifecta!

By this time my cohorts were starting to get soured out.  And sleepy.  But Jean had pulled out a couple other rare beers and I was NOT going to home without tasting those crazy treats!  We tried herbal and tart wonder that is elderflower infused Cantillion Mamouche.  We marched boldy on and sampled the remarkable Cantillion Zwanze 2012 which is fermented with rhubarb.  And our final beer on this forced march to sour beer Mecca was Cantillon 50 Degrees N - 4 Degrees E.  This is a very unusual beer from Cantillon in that it is aged in a cognac barrel.  There is a lemony note to it up front, and pretty mellow compared to some of the sours they do, but has an interesting boozy finish that is subtle.  We actually took this bottle upstairs to the main bar with us to wait for cabs home.  Hassan and I finished it off while the rest of our crew took naps.  We ran into the young brewer for Tilquin at that point and knowing he would appreciate it I made sure he got a sample of our beer.

We were back at our hotel by 1 AM.  This was an amazing night that shall remain in my memory for years to come.  And if I forget I can read this post again!

Up Next:  Cantillon and the Night of Great Thirst!

Belgium Day 4: Comics and Crypts

Day 4 of our trip continued in Brussels.  We woke for breakfast, which I had taken to actually eating since lunches had been difficult with our unusual tour schedule.  Strange cold cuts of odd but tasty meats, yogurts with watery consistency, good fresh breads, and lots of unusual toppings.

We headed out with Chris and Hassan again, having lost our counterparts after Cantillon on the previous day.  We looked at some very Gothic Catholic Churches and then headed to the Comic Strip Museum.  Apparently comics are a kind of a big deal to the Belgians, who created The Adventures of Tin Tin.  The museum was in a large funky building designed by the mad Belgian architect Horta.  Incredible metal work and crazy angles.  Interesting place, but with minimal English translations.  I discovered that the Smurfs were created in Belgium!  My childhood rushed back upon me seeing original Smurf comics.  "Are we there yet Papa Smurf??"  After the museum we wandered the streets some more, ogling the old and varied architecture.  Nothing here in the states can get you ready for the scope and age of these old buildings and churches.  To be sitting in an old cafe and realize that people have been drinking and socializing there since long before our own country even existed is mind-boggling.

Monument to the Martyrs

At this point I had my only real migraine on the entire trip.  Surprising since I can often get them from lack of sleep and alcohol, both of which I had had plenty of on this trip so far.  Not fun, but I rested and got my second wind for the coming evening.

We gathered as a group and Mike led us like lemmings through the cattle doors of the rail station.  We arrived at the other location of Moeder Lambic (an amazing beer bar.)  There we were ushered through a side entrance and down a dark, very tight stairwell into a dank and musty cellar.  But what a cellar!  A large wooden plank table with uncomfortable stools was arranged in the center, a low arched brick ceiling, encrusted with nitre above us.  The ancient crypt-like atmosphere was somewhat alleviated by the presence of shelves all along the walls containing hundreds of bottles of rare beers, including some Stone, Mikkeller and other oddities.  Jean, our host and owner of Moeder Lambic, tended to us personally for several hours, taking occasional breaks to gather us some food and to take a personal delivery of Cantillon beers from Jean Van Roy, (who stopped down briefly to say hi to us!)

Jean was an excellent host and gave us a great deal of background about the beer and brewing scene in Belgium.  I learned a lot about how the big brewers like In-Bev and Duvel/Mortgat have been gobbling up smaller breweries, often to the detriment of the beer itself.  He explained that the Belgian beer scene and the brewers are really looking to the American craft beer movement and taking cues from us.  He also gave a very passionate history of Cantillon that I wish I had heard prior to going there the previous day.

We tried about 12 different beers taken from the incredible stash that loomed around us.  Several from a newer brewery named Rulles were very tasty.  Stille Nacht from 2007 was really nice.  Oerbier, a flavorful brown, was served with a barrel aged 2007 version that was freaking fantastic!  And my favorite special beer of the night was the Cantillon 2009 Zwanze (a joke beer that they do each year.)  This version was the first time they used elderflowers and would eventually become the Mamouche beer.  This version had been deemed way too strong in elderflower flavor, but by now had faded to a very heady aroma and flavor.  Each year since, they have been cutting down the flowers to get it just right.  This was a special event not to be missed, and certainly wouldn't have been available to us without our tour leader's connections.

Our group, tasting foot-smelling cheese and drinking very special beers

Look at the dust and cobwebs on this old bottle!

Belgium Day 3: The Brewery That Time Forgot

For day three of our trip to Belgium we had one of the most amazing beer adventures I could have ever have imagined.  Let us speak of that enigmatic time-capsule brewery called Cantillon.  This brewery is a family owned facility that has been around for ages, still using classic techniques and antediluvian equipment to make some of the best beer on the planet.  The way they make beer is very much the way beer was made in Belgium centuries ago, especially the Brussels area.  The brewery itself is located in what is now a very Middle Eastern area of town, and is a fair hike from the city center.  Located in what looks like a warehouse from the outside, there is a sign, and a large orange door that looks like it will open into a workspace.  We stared at the door for a few minutes trying to decide if they were open and if we would get in trouble for opening this big door.  Taking the plunge, we gently opened a door unto another century.

Large kettles and grain mills hearken back to a lost age of brewing, with the brewery itself looking like the inside of an old farmhouse, coated in the dust of ages and a hefty helping of cobwebs.  Up in the rafters of the building lies the old flat copper coolship for cooling the wort overnight with louvres open to the outside to let in all the good local wild yeast and bacteria.  Keep in mind this is not located in the idyllic farmland of the Senne Valley that we Americans lovingly imagine while talking about geuze beers...it is in the center of a bustling Arabic neighborhood.  But it works!  Huge rows of old wooden barrels take up much of the space in the brewery and stacks of unlabeled bottles of sour goodness line the walls.  There are almost no windows and the place is dark and shadowed, smelling of a hundred years worth of old beer, wood, dust and tartness.  Stacks of 2-3 year old hops that any other brewer would toss away in disgust,  sit in the rafters, awaiting use in these beers.  There is no other place like this on our green Earth, and that is a shame.

On this particular day we were at Cantillon for a special event called Quintessence.  They did this event a few years ago, and Mike S. managed to change our tour dates to make sure we got to this.  Upon arrival we were ushered up into the attic space where several barrels were lain on end, each with a station number posted above.  We were given a card with 12 numbers on it...wow we were going to get to try 12 Cantillon beers in one day!  The first station was manned by Jean Van Roy himself and his two young sons, serving up some pate on crackers and a one year old lambic.  After tasting this beer, we discovered that our #1 on the checklist was actually more than one beer.  We went back for the 2 year lambic and then a lambic served from a huge terra cotta amphora.  From there we moved to the next table, trying the gueze: made of 1, 2, and 3 year old blended lambics...now that is a tart and complex beer!  Oh, and at the same table they also gave us an aged gueze that knocked my socks off.  Nearly every station served us from 2-3 large tastes of beer, each paired with an amazing appetizer.

After the straight lambic and geuze we got to try them with fruit added.  The Kriek with sour Turkish cherries, and then the Lou Pepe Kriek made with very rare Belgian sour cherries.  The latter was my favorite of the day, so sour and complex and cherry-like without being sweet.  Then the Rose de Gambrinus, a Framboise made with raspberries, and the Lou Pepe version, made with even more raspberries!

Moving to a lower floor, we tried the Saint Lamvinus and Vignerone both made with grapes.  And the Cuvee St. Gillouse (sp?) and Iris both dry-hopped.  The Mamouch: made with elderflowers was much better than when I had this in the past.  One of the best was Fou Foune: made with apricots and the name apparently roughly translates into the name for a woman's private parts.  The faro was still lambic with sugar added, served from earthenware jugs...not my favorite.

The bottom floor was a pleasant surprise, as three Italian brewers were holding court down there with 9 more unusual beers.  Some were sour, some were fruity (a stand out was made of Italian white plums,) some were barleywines.  One brewery served up home-made salami made with his beer, and that was freakishly good.

I can not believe the number of amazing beers I had at this event.  Surprisingly, I was still conscious, since I wasn't about to dump any Cantillon beer.  Luckily most of these were lower alcohol and refreshing.  In the end I think we sampled 27 different beers or vintages, probably more than I tried at Autumn Brew Review.

We walked several blocks in the brisk and sobering damp afternoon air and ended up at Moeder Lambic, a local beer-bar, much like the Muddy Pig here in Minnesota.  We shared several beers there with some folks we met at the Quintessence.

Dinner at a Thai place hit the spot, then back to the small bar from our first day here for another Westy 12.  There we had to cozy up to our neighbors, and met some nice folks from Colorado and and a family from Britain.  Brussels is quite cosmopolitan.  Then to sleep, perchance to dream of the best brewery in the world.  Cantillon I will not forget your musty embrace!

Belgium Day 2

I am now back home, but have decided to go ahead with a trip documentary of the rest of my visit to the land of beer.  I had hoped to have more along the way but jetlag and spotty internet availability nixed that plan.

On our second day in Brussels we started out early in the morning with Hassan and Chris for breakfast and very strong coffee at a French cafe just down the street from our hotel.  Incredible croissants and omelets.

Our next stop was the central square to ogle the old buildings and take some pictures before the crowds arrived.  We got there just in time for the opening of the brewing museum located in the basement of the ancient Brewer's Guild building...the only guild building on the square still occupied by an actual guild.  Go brewers!  The building is pretty cool, with hop vines and mash paddles hidden among the decorations on the facade.  The museum was fairly sad, taking up a room in the basement with some really ancient wooden brew kettles and mash paddles.  There was a second room taken up by modern brewing equipment like conicals and showing a weird multilingual film with James Bond-like and Euro-Dance-Party music.  But what makes the tour worth it is the miniature bar where you get your full glass of beer at the end of the "tour."  They have two beers on tap changed daily and randomly from the various guild member's beers.  In order to not play favorites they will not tell you what the beers are.  I'm pretty sure the lighter colored beer was Stella, but the dark was certainly a Trappist beer.  Beer at 10 AM?  No problem, we are in Belgium!

At this point the weather was starting to turn and clouds were looking ominous.  Not to be stopped from our explorations of Brussels we continued our walking and stopped off at the Musical Instrument Museum located in a really cool Horta building.  The museum was pretty neat, with headphones that played music from the various old instruments as you neared them.  Not much in English though, so I did get bored after a while.

By the time we finished at the museum, the rain was really going to town.  At my suggestion we decided to trek halfway across town to BeerMania, a beer store with a large selections of Belgian brews.  Streets are twisty and signs are attached at seeming random intervals to the sides of buildings, and with the rain we had a difficult time navigating without getting our map soaked.  Just when I felt that my party was about to lynch me for sending us on this wild goose chase, I noticed a minivan with pictures of beer bottles on it!  At last!  We stumbled inside, dripping and cold, to see rows upon rows of beautiful and baffling Belgian ales.  At the rear of the store is a small rustic bar at which the owner will serve you any beer from his shelves...try before you buy!  We dried ourselves out in this wonderfully homey bar, eating perfect frites (the ubiquitous Belgian double fried crispy French fries,) dipped in mayo, and a nice cheese and meat plate.  We tried 3 Fontainen Geuze, De Struisse Pannepot Reserve 2009, Rochefort 10, and Westvleteren 8 between the four of us.  The Westy was probably my favorite, followed by the Pannepot.  Hassan and I have fairly similar tastes in beer, and both bought an expensive Westy 8 and 12 to take home with us.  The owner was incredibly nice and even has his own beer, Mea Culpa, that is a fairly spice-laden blond.  He called us a cab to get us back home without soaking ourselves again.  This simple visit with friends and great beers was one of the high points of my trip.

Roaring through the twisty cobbled streets of Brussels on a white-knuckle death-ride in a cab driven by a mad-man, we narrowly avoided death and maiming and arrived at our hotel with just minutes to spare before our walking tour.  Our official tour starts now, getting to meet our tour director and other tour mates.  Our director was Mike Saxton of Beertrips.com, a 40 year old bald fellow with a dry wit and relaxed attitude.  This was a very small tour group, consisting of our four from Minnesota, as well as Rich (a hulking 6'7" guy) and his wife Candy, both from the East coast.  We had one other temporary member, Mike, who had just finished a beer trip with Mike S. to the Czech republic, and joined us for two days in Brussels.  Mike was even taller than Rich, more on that later...

Big Mike: good luck fitting in the Belgian bathrooms...

We met our local tour guide and walked about a block down from the hotel to Subite Mort, a bar serving their own Gueze, that Sj and I had tried out the previous night.  Gueze is the the beer of Brussels, though not enough locals drink it.  We got a bit of history as we sipped beer, learning that Brussels is about 85% French speaking and 15% Flemish.  From here, we walked about town looking at old buildings and the Grande Place.  We stopped at another tiny bar down a small alley that our large tour members had to literally crouch to get into.  More wandering, then to another more modern bar with a hoppy brew called called Zinnebier after the old river Zinne that used to run through town.  At that bar we also got to try Belgian chocolates made with Girardin kriek.  Yes I brought some home with me.  We also took pictures of Brussels' mascot the Mannekin Pis (the little pissing boy statue that you see plastered all over town.) Best walking (staggering) tour ever!

Kind of looks like that person is getting peed on...

Hmm, what to do when you have been stopping off every 10 feet for a beer?  Why a dinner at Restobiers, an old restaurant specializing in dishes using beer as an ingredient.  Pate made with Rochefort 10, rabbit braised in gueze, etc.  The food was fantastic, but the place was tiny, crowded and very hot.  Many beers were passed around.

Yummy Thumper in gueze sauce

And what to do when you can barely walk after a huge beer dinner?  The Bad-Idea Bears suggested a trip to the Delerium Cafe.  This is an entire block of buildings that are owned by one person and have several different bars and cafes all serving tons of beers, but most noted for Delerium Tremens (the pink elephant beer.)  We had a beer in the basement, where all the acoustically challenged youth of Brussels seemed to be rocking out to AC/DC and Black Sabbath.  Boybands and glowing pimp hats.  Fun, but not a place I'd hang out regularly.

What a day.  A great start to the official tour of Belgium.