Whilst otherwise sensible folk were flocking into London for some wedding, London Miller Chris Turner and I were speeding out of the capital on the Eurostar. Destination Brussels.
From here we wandered to one of the newest bars in town - Moeder Lambic Fontainas - which had a large choice of beers on tap including an excellent range of saison beers which I've really got a taste for. One of the best was the IV Saison from Jandrain-Jandrenouille - really excellent and apparently quite trendy!
Others that I tried included a trio of fine beers from one of my favourite Belgian brewers, De Ranke, with their XX, Hop Harvest and Saison de Dottinges. An excellent start to our trip.
The third member of our party - Roger - met us here as he was on a later train out of St Pancras. After a couple more beers we wandered off to the hotel to check in and turn our bikes round (as Liz's dad would day).
This bar is slap bang opposite the famous Manneken Pis which always attracts the tourists - we ignored it though and headed straight for the bar. The interior is like a small museum with odd, scary puppets hanging from the ceiling and giving the place a highly surreal air.
The beer choice was excellent and the time flew past as we tried beers old and new - we had the odd food break to keep our strength up with Roger having several servings of tette presse (brawn).
Before we knew it, it was approaching midnight. In all we spent over 200 euros and had about 14 beers each - steady going really and we didn't feel that bad considering. See the whole bill here.
We had an early start on the Sunday when we went travelled to Halle station for the main event of the weekend - the bi-annual Toer de Geuze - which is when all the major lambic producers open their doors to the public.
(left) The best of Boon
There is a very good report on the day on this posting from Des De Moor who was on our bus so I won't try and explain the intricacies of the day to you as he does it so much better.
Joining us on the bus were Jackie and Simon from London who we know well from many beer festivals. We also got talking to an American couple - brother and sister - and a friendly Belgian guy who sat with us so he could translate what our bus guide was saying.
At the first brewery - de Cam - there was a mad scrum for the bar and the way in which tokens were bought and beers were served was rather chaotic. After finally getting a couple of beers we wandered outside where we got chatting to some more Americans, one of who was Pete Slosberg.
The bus then took us at a healthy pace around the breweries of de Troch, Boon, 3 Fonteinen and Oud Beersel.
The beers of Boon are amongst my absolute favourites and they didn't disappoint, especially the kriek which was beautiful.
In all, it was a really interesting trip but the crowds were huge as it was a very sunny day on a bank holiday weekend which meant that a lot of locals were out in force.
Such an early start meant we arrived at Brussels Midi at 11:33am local time - too early to check in to our hotel so we wandered off to the Fleur en Papier Dore - a small bar which had a couple of excellent new beers for me - a tasty IPA, Hopus, and De La Senne's Zinnebir.
From here we wandered to one of the newest bars in town - Moeder Lambic Fontainas - which had a large choice of beers on tap including an excellent range of saison beers which I've really got a taste for. One of the best was the IV Saison from Jandrain-Jandrenouille - really excellent and apparently quite trendy!
Others that I tried included a trio of fine beers from one of my favourite Belgian brewers, De Ranke, with their XX, Hop Harvest and Saison de Dottinges. An excellent start to our trip.
The third member of our party - Roger - met us here as he was on a later train out of St Pancras. After a couple more beers we wandered off to the hotel to check in and turn our bikes round (as Liz's dad would day).
In the evening we headed for the original Moeder Lambic bar though this took about 20 mins longer than it should thanks to Chris and his less-than-ideal map reading skills. A decent bar but service was a tad slow and I much prefer the vibrancy of it's younger sibling.
The following day we set out with the best of intentions to try some more of the city's pubs but for some reason we ended up spending the whole session - from noon to after midnight - yes, almost thirteen hours - sat in the quirky surroundings of the Poechenellekelder.
This bar is slap bang opposite the famous Manneken Pis which always attracts the tourists - we ignored it though and headed straight for the bar. The interior is like a small museum with odd, scary puppets hanging from the ceiling and giving the place a highly surreal air.
The beer choice was excellent and the time flew past as we tried beers old and new - we had the odd food break to keep our strength up with Roger having several servings of tette presse (brawn).
Before we knew it, it was approaching midnight. In all we spent over 200 euros and had about 14 beers each - steady going really and we didn't feel that bad considering. See the whole bill here.
We had an early start on the Sunday when we went travelled to Halle station for the main event of the weekend - the bi-annual Toer de Geuze - which is when all the major lambic producers open their doors to the public.(left) The best of Boon
There is a very good report on the day on this posting from Des De Moor who was on our bus so I won't try and explain the intricacies of the day to you as he does it so much better.
Joining us on the bus were Jackie and Simon from London who we know well from many beer festivals. We also got talking to an American couple - brother and sister - and a friendly Belgian guy who sat with us so he could translate what our bus guide was saying.
At the first brewery - de Cam - there was a mad scrum for the bar and the way in which tokens were bought and beers were served was rather chaotic. After finally getting a couple of beers we wandered outside where we got chatting to some more Americans, one of who was Pete Slosberg.
Pete was one of the first to brew decent beer in the US and it sparked a small revival in brewing which led for a while to new US brews being sold in Oddbins back in the 1980s. I used to drink a lot of his stuff and it was great to finally meet him (even though he sold up many years again, preferring now to just travel and drink).
The bus then took us at a healthy pace around the breweries of de Troch, Boon, 3 Fonteinen and Oud Beersel.
The beers of Boon are amongst my absolute favourites and they didn't disappoint, especially the kriek which was beautiful.
(right) Simon, Jackie, Roger, Chris and our friendly Belgian chum
In all, it was a really interesting trip but the crowds were huge as it was a very sunny day on a bank holiday weekend which meant that a lot of locals were out in force.
The queues at most of the breweries meant that there was often less time that I would have liked for drinking. I'm not known for my patience.
We were dropped off back at Halle station and as we had an hour or two to spare before we caught the Eurostar home we went to the Moeder Lambic Fontainas for a few more beers.
On reflection I don't think I would do the toer again as the queuing makes it too frustrating for an impatient git like me but I will certainly head back to Brussels now that I'm beginning to get my bearings.
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