2016 Photochallenge Week 13: B&W Street Photography

At the end of last year I discovered Photochallenge.org.  This is a small group of photographers who set forth a weekly challenge to other professional and amateur photographers.  What I was drawn to with this weekly assignment is that is pushes you to try new techniques and get out and take pictures on a weekly basis.  I'm taking part again this year and will also do a quick blog post about each of them.  The rules of the challenge do require that these are new pictures, not from your back catalogue.  With my busy work schedule, I may not be able to get out each week and do this, so I will likely add a few of my older photos on the blog--taking the opportunity to look at the plethora of pictures I've taken and actually do some processing and weeding.

Photochallenge.org Week 13: Black & White Street Photography

This week's challenge was to try out street photography.  Strangely this does not mean taking pictures of a street or curb!  The idea here is to take photo's of everyday life going on around you.  Most classic street photography is done on-the-sly without the subjects knowing they are on film--getting more candid and less posed shots.  This one was a tough challenge for me to do.  I'm naturally very shy (and Minnesotan) and taking pictures of unsuspecting people threw me off a bit--while doing so is not illegal here in the USA, it is still potentially invading someone's personal space.  The other issue I had was that I live out in a pretty rural town where street scenes during the day are pretty quiet.  Add on the rain and even snow most of the week and I struggled.  I'll be heading downtown soon and will make up for it.  In the mean time--here are a couple of older shots.

1) Rainy alley: I went back into my older photos and looked for some pics that would fit the bill.  I found this one from our trip to Belgium a few years back that I took with my iPhone.  Rain was dripping on us and my friends Chris and Hassan were walking ahead of us, followed by my rain-drenched wife off to the left.  I don't think they noticed me falling back to take photos, so this was very much unposed.  

2) Ghent:  This one was taken from a tour boat on the canal.  While the subject is really the amazing architecture along the street and canal, the folks sitting along the side of the canal relaxing during the day were a happy bonus to the shot.  Rain came out and drenched us about 5 minutes after I took this photo.

3) Sunset in Bruges:  This one was also from my iPhone on our first trip to Bruges, Belgium.  My group had walked ahead of me and I was struck by the long shadows they were leaving on the shiny cobblestones.  

Belgium Bloopers!

 

My write up on our trip to Belgium and The Netherlands is now over.  But I discovered some funny and random pictures hiding on my camera's memory cards and thought I'd throw them out there for others!  These are in no particular order, and often have little to no meaning!  I just thought they were odd or funny at the time.  I realized from these things that Europeans are a bit strange.  Enjoy!

"I'm crazy dude with a bird on my head!"

"Why, yes I do happen to have some Grey Poupon!"

Nothing sells dresses like a ton of slithery snakes!

I would have nervous sitting right under this guy...

How many beer geeks can you fit in one rotating door?

Brussels, where even the frites urinate on the ground!

"Here, let my ram my ovipositor down your throat and insert my alien fetus into your chest!"

If I hung this up in my exam rooms kids would have nightmares for weeks!

Feed Me!

"And for my next trick..."

Demonstrating proper technique!

And a fond farewell to you from Belgium!

The Restrooms of Europe!

Now that I have completed my mostly serious write up of my epic two week beer trip through Belgium and The Netherlands, I felt it was time to air some of the funnier stuff from the trip.  This particular post focuses all on childish potty humor, so please avert your gaze if this is not your thing!

Living in America we take certain things for granted:  Wheel chair access, traffic rules, universal access to health care, easy access to guns, etc.  In Europe things are different.  One item that struck me as unusual this trip was the bathrooms.  As a guy with a notoriously small bladder, taking part in a trip centered around drinking copious amounts of beer, my interest in the subject should be self explanatory! 

First off, nearly every bathroom we had in our hotels was a tiny little closet with barely enough room for my meager 5'8" frame to wedge into, and containing just a short toilet.  In every case one had to flush, open the door with your dirty hands, and go often across the hotel room to the sink.  Do Europeans just not wash their hands?  And not grow taller than 5 foot?  And not eat so much that they can't fit on a toilet?  OK, maybe that last one is true. 


I also discovered a strange mechanism for flushing in most toilets--a set of buttons, one small and one large.  It took me a couple of times before I realized these buttons must be for "I just had a wee and need a little flush" and for "I just took a huge dump and need this to actually go down," respectively.  Once I got used to this, I found this to be a great concept and useful for conserving water.  This is something we should do in America. 

Big dump, little dump!

Next up let's talk about public bathrooms.  When I travel in the States and need to drain the dragon, I know that there will usually be easily available places to do so.  This is not the case in Europe.  Restaurants usually had them, but don't take kindly to American hobos wandering in and defiling their restrooms.  I saw them at the train station, but it actually cost Euros to use the hopper!  This is why one can often see men urinating on the sides of buildings, and why one should avoid stepping in suspicious wet spots on the pavement.  The restaurants that do have restrooms usually have them upstairs or down in the basement.  One pub in Bastogne had the tightest spiral stair down to the bathroom that I have ever seen!  A freaky red horror light shone menacingly from below, tempting incautious drinkers to their deaths...

Watch your step and don't drink too many beers...

Our last day in Belgium, we took part in the Zythos Beer Festival: a huge gathering of mostly men flocking to drink a ton of amazing Belgian ales.  About 40 minutes into the festival I noticed that there was a bouncer near the back door exit to the port-a-potties.  Always looking for my next bathroom option, I discovered that they were charging 1.50 Euro to use the bathrooms!  That comes to about $2.50.  Lure several thousand beer geeks into a building where they will drink a huge quantity of liquid and then charge them to use the bathroom?  Somewhere an evil mastermind is chuckling wickedly while he shuffles stacks of Euros and pets his white fluffy cat.

Hurry up and stamp my hand--I have to pee!

As one can imagine, many men are cheep and would rather spend that money on beer.  As a result, there was a large contingent of urination going on outside the building.  While waiting for the tram home, I counted no less than 4 guys urinating in the same decorative hedge.



Gnomes do it...





"Don't you look at me!"

Trolls do it...

If this isn't disturbing, I don't know what is!  The teeth just make it worse...

Strangely, while human public rest areas were rare or absent entirely, nice spots abounded around Brussels for your faithful hound to drop a load.

That cartoon dog looks so happy!

Perhaps they should have some of these with people on them....

Proving that you never buy beer...only rent it!

This is the old toilet on the battlements of the castle in Ghent.  The "results" are dropped outside the castle walls!



Zythos, Vapeur and and End to Beer Trip 2014

Days 13 and 14 of our epic Beer Trip across the Netherlands and Belgium.

Waking up with surprisingly little aftereffects of the Night of Great Thirst, we had a quick breakfast and boarded our coach.  We drove for a bit and shared some of Hassan's Westvleteren 8 bottles (so he wouldn't have to pack them and get them home).  At least by this point we had tasting glasses from La Rulles instead of plastic or paper cups! 

In a small town in the countryside, we arrived at our destination before 11 AM: La Brasserie A Vapeur.  This is an old brewery from around 1902, whose claim to fame is that it is still run by a turn of the century steam engine!  Anchor Brewing can claim the name "Steam Beer" but this place has been actually brewing with steam for over a century.  We luckily arrived just in time to catch part of the mechanized brewing process.  Our group entered the old brewery building to a whistling, hooting, ratcheting mayhem of a great old steam engine.  Pistons scraping and whooshing out clouds of billowing steam, rotating belts and wheels all across the room.  The mash rakes in the mash tun were rotating, being run by the engine.  My camera (and Sj's glasses) instantly fogged up at the steamy onslaught!  I should have worn my steam-punk outfit!

When you do beer journalism and see a ton of modern breweries, it is hard to get excited about a brewery tour, but this was a truly unique experience for me.  Other than Cantillon, this is the coolest brewery I've visited in my life!  I took many a picture in the dark and steamy environs but not too many came out well.  After a time, one of the brewers took our group up a pair of rickety and narrow stairs to the second floor brewing area.  We saw the old coolship, but they are not using it any longer, the area now home to a family of swallows.  Ancient tanks and an only slightly more modern brew system were also up above.  Our tour guide spoke a bit of English, but mostly French so I understood only about a third of what he was telling us, but he was very friendly and helpful.  With all the easy falls, loose boards, flying pistons, and whirling belts, the place is dangerous!  No way would this brewery be able to do tours (or even be open for brewing) in America. 

Across the small road was a farmhouse building where the other functions of the brewery take place.  There is a large room in front filled with benches and long tables.  In the center of the building is a small kitchen and a tiny tap room, where they poured us glasses of their beer.  Another, smaller back room hosted the tiny shop, bathrooms and miscellaneous junk storage.  Everything here exuded an air of age and long use, conjuring up memories of my grandma Ruth's old antique store.  Wonderful smells of cooking food wafted from the kitchen, making my belly rumble.

I sampled both of their beers, the saison and the Cochon while there.  At first both are interesting with heavily spiced aromas and unusual complex flavors.  However, as they warmed, both showed severe flaws--sourness, hot alcohols, and other medicinal and even enteric flavors.  So, this was one of coolest breweries I've ever been to, but not in my top for actual beers.  The label art (and some of the wall art in the brewery) were done by a local comic artist and included disturbing images of naked pigs with human "anatomy".  I want to post a pic, but don't want my blog to get tagged as pornography, so I'll leave it to your imagination! 

This is the toned down American Export version of the label!

We eventually settled down for a large lunch in the front seating room.  Our group took up one table, but the rest of the place was filled with a loud bunch of French tourists.  The brewer tried to give a presentation in French, and was trying to translate to English, but the second he stopped speaking French the large group got rowdy and needed to be shushed down before he could go on.  He ended up just giving up on the presentation all together.  Before the lunch I had seen the chef out gathering up mash and wort from the current batch being brewed.  The food was great, and nearly everything was fairly local and involved beer in the recipe.  A fantastic soup using grain from the mash started the meal.  Hearty beer bread, ham, salami, beer pate, beer marinated salmon, was all heaped upon our plates.  The place was crowded though and we really had to fight to get in line.  Since we had a deadline and lunch had already started late we may have bulled our way to the front of the line a few times to get done quicker.  Before we left they brought out an enormous cheese board with over 20 different local cheeses (yes several made with or soaked in beer!)  Being lactose intolerant is a drag sometimes. 

We escaped the crowd as quick as possible, and actually left before desert.  Last on the coach was our guide Mike, bearing soft and yummy take-away tarts for us to eat on the bus.  A good tour guide always looks after his flock! 

We arrived at Leuvin after a bit more time on the coach.  We checked into our hotel as quickly as possible and headed out for the culmination of our Belgian beer trip.  Zythos Beer Festival is Belgium's answer to the Great Taste of the Midwest or GABF, drawing an international cadre of beer geeks over its two days.  A few of our group decided to explore the city instead of going straight to the festival--leaving it to us die-hards to head out there right away!  The hotel was a very easy walk to the bus station where they had free shuttles to the Zythos Beer Festival.  When we arrived at the station however, there was a great milling centipede of a line to get on the shuttle.  Since we were already a bit late for the game, Mike turned us around and promptly found us a cab to the festival.  We took a 20 minute ride, to arrive at a large festival hall outside the city limits. 

Entry to the festival was free and the entrance was the only area not filled to bursting with people.  Like the previous beer festival, tokens were involved, but this time one token got you a uniform pour of beer at each stand.  You did have to buy the 8 oz taster glass as well, and it wasn't until later that we discovered they had given me one from last year's event.  There were over a 100 different stands pouring beers at the festival, having anywhere from 1 to 15 beers at each!  Every place had a glass rinsing and scrubbing station.  The Belgians respect their beer and do not want you pouring their beer into the dregs of an Imperial stout or a sour!  My biggest complaint about most Minnesota festivals is not enough dump or rinse stations, so these guys have us beat!  The biggest issue for me was trying not to get drunk in record time!  Even when told to just give a little pour, every station would give you a full glass.  And nearly all of these beers were between 7% to 12% ABV!  So I ended up having to waste a lot of really good Belgian ale in order to try more things. 

I didn't bring my real camera to the festival, and almost every picture I took with my iPhone turned out blurry.  Oh, well you will have to use your imagination!  Some dimly remembered highlights from the festival, in no particular order since the whole thing was crowded and chaotic:

1) Silly looking people wandering around wearing Fluffy pink Delerium Tremens elephant hats. 

2) Silly looking people wandering around wearing Chouffe gnome hats. 

3) Getting to tell the brewer at Brasserie de Blaugies about trying his 20 year old Darbyste two nights before.  It turns out he had already heard the story and was very happy that it had held up that well.  We also tried his Saison d' Epeautre--which was probably the best beer of that style I have ever had in my life!  I got to try the borderline too hoppy collaboration with Hill Farmstead--La Vermontoise --there as well.

4) The universal shout that rings out at all American beer festivals from a broken glass is apparently universal.  With the large indoor space and strange acoustics there was a very strange reverb and sussuration from this that would rotate throughout the packed hall.

5) The De Struisse folks had over 20 beers on taps and could have supported their own festival!  Many were barrel aged, sours and crazy American styles.  The Gentleman Sour and the Beer Geek Wedding stood out for me above others.  They were already out of Blackberry Albert.  These guys are the Surly of Belgium! 



Seriously… look at all those beers!

6) The beers of Brasserie de Cazeau were so well balanced and perfect that they really stood out to me.  Tourney Noire was a beautiful Belgian Stout, and the elderflower saison was remarkable.

7) They charge 1.50 Euro to use the bathrooms!  At a beer festival!  Since men are by nature, cheap, this resulted in a horde of drunken dudes urinating all over outside the building.  While waiting for the bus home later I counted no less than 5 guys urinating in one large hedge at once.

8) I got a chance to try the Kriekenlambic (unblended but fruited lambic) from Girardin that had been snaked away from me at the Night of Great Thirst.  Not bad, but not sour enough!

9) Some brewers were absent--I didn't see Kerkom, and some of the lambic producers were not there.

10) Watching the complete emptiness and lack of a line at the In-bev booth was somewhat rewarding in a schadenfreude sort of way.

11) Hof Ten Dormaal was a surprise gem.  They had a peated whiskey barrel aged blonde ale that was extreme!  That one left behind smoke and tartness for ages...luckily this was one of the last beers I had in the evening!

All of our group did eventually make it to the festival, but we ended up leaving long before the end, mainly because our group had not had dinner yet!  Overall the festival was quite fun, especially once we figured out how everything worked.  I was sad that we were not able to stay another day for the Sunday session and try all the beers we missed the first day! 

After we arrived at our hotel, we were in desperate need of food to soak up all that fine Belgian beer.  We walked to Domus, a large brewpub specializing in creating mainly lager beers.   The place had several levels and like the Tardis, seemed bigger on the inside!  They had a very huge food menu, including a three course beer pairing menu made specially for the Zythos festival goers.  This was our final group event and all of the group made it to the dinner--some of us barely made it there in time due to missing the shuttle back to the hotel.  We ended up on the upper level, and poor Arthur had been there for quite a while already.  At least he had a head start on the beers!  I ordered the tasting menu--of course!  The food was excellent and the beers were surprisingly well made.  I would recommend this place wholeheartedly.  With some hugging and final tour toasts, we ended this fine evening and our official Beertrip was finished. 

The next day Chris, Hassan, Sj and I all travelled back home, but not before a couple of Belgian ales in the airport in a farewell toast to that amazing land of beer!

Thanks Mike Saxton for running a great tour and showing us all a wonderful mix of things on this trip.  For those who enjoyed these write-ups, the reality of doing these things is far, far more impressive!  Please check out Beertrips.com for details of Mike's other trips--he does trips to Germany, Czech Republic, even Spain and Italy! 

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!