El Pinguino wrote:Two days max at each spot seems tight, how are you getting around? I'd hate to only have 1 day to relax in each spot before having to drive on somewhere new...
JerCraigs wrote:That seems like a lot to do in a short amount of time. 2 days in Antwerp is lots, especially if you are sticking to the city itself rather than the outskirts.
My favorite place in Belgium was De Heeren van de Liedekerke. Any place that serves "meatloaf" with a little creamer sized pitcher of Orval to pour over it is pretty awesome.
El Pinguino wrote:Two days max at each spot seems tight, how are you getting around? I'd hate to only have 1 day to relax in each spot before having to drive on somewhere new...
atomeyes wrote:JerCraigs wrote:That seems like a lot to do in a short amount of time. 2 days in Antwerp is lots, especially if you are sticking to the city itself rather than the outskirts.
My favorite place in Belgium was De Heeren van de Liedekerke. Any place that serves "meatloaf" with a little creamer sized pitcher of Orval to pour over it is pretty awesome.
trying to figure out how to get to that restaurant and then 3 Fonteinin in the same day, since that kind of seems to make sense. think the best thing to do is rent a car (sigh!) and drive it. otherwise, i'm looking at 3 hrs of train time and switching stations and stuff.
Philip1 wrote:With Chimay being the only city in the Francophone south that you are visiting there may be a temptation to stop along the way in Charleroi, the largest city in the Walloon region. Resist that temptation! I was there last year. Charleroi is not only a crime-ridden dump it is also a beer desert where Interbrew products are the order of the day. If you are arriving in Chimay from the north west a stop in Mons on the way to visit La Cervoise would be a good idea:
http://www.bartowel.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=8515
Kekumba wrote:Quick thoughts after my second trip to Belgium.
Antwerp - Kulminator is Kulminator. I'm sure everyone knows about it whether they've been to Belgium or not. I don't think I saw the owner sit down once the entire 4 hours we were there. Lots of running around for him. His wife, while nice, seemed rather annoyed all night. I drank a few Pannepot's, a couple Oud Beersel beers, and enjoyed some nice meat. Prices are good. I found it rather amusing how many people would walk in and quickly bail on the place because of the lack of seating. Maybe I was just lucky to quickly get a seat the two times I've been there. ’t Antwaerps Bierhuyske was the other place I went and it was also very good. Lots of good Cantillon bottles and not for completely outrageous prices. I didn't buy any since I was headed to the brewery, but they did have Cantillon bag-in-box lambik, kriek, and framboise. That was awesome. Very nice people there.
Brussels - I spent a part of all four days I was in the city at Cantillon. The bottle list right now for drink-in is crazy. All the regulars, Gueuze '06, Iris, Lam, Vig, Fou, all the LP's, Zwanze 12/13, Grand Cru. The second day I was there I was fly solo and at times the only person in the brewery at all (eerily quiet day there). I wanted to thank Jean for Zwanze day in Toronto, but they were brewing and he was quite busy. Out of nowhere, he came over with a bottle of St. Gilloise that he took straight off the bottling line and gave me a pour of it. It was surprisingly very good, with a massive hop bite to it and little to no tartness at all. Thanks to another guy I met there I got to know Alberto, a tour guide, fairly well over the few days. Well enough that he somehow convinced Jean to dig into his cellar and get us a bottle of Soleil de Minuit (and fuck, he gave us a choice that included basically all of the rarest Cantillons you could ever think of). So that was incredible...though I still never got to talk to Jean personally.
Otherwise, Moeder Lambic is good, but people really seem to go crazy over it. Cask Cantillon is the reason to go. Though I had some De La Senne stuff and some house beer on tap that was pretty good. Oh and they have wi-fi, easy to spend a ton of time there if you're just looking to hang out for a while. Becasse is fun, just for the Timmermans served in a ceramic jug. Otherwise, it turns out to be rather touristy. I went to Delirium Hoppy Loft, mostly out of curiosity since the other Delirium's....well, kinda suck. Some decent rotating American taps, fairly impressive bottle menu for breweries outside Belgium. Dead quiet at 6pm, compared to the madhouses on the floors beneath it. I didn't get to any bottle shops thanks to Cantillon's selection.
I had a lot more planned for Brussels, but Cantillon had too many good bottles, and too many nice people to not visit every day...and then I would end up spending the entire afternoon there.
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