Zwanze Day! And Nevilluxury too!!

Originally Martin and I should have been heading to Darlo for our home game against Guisborough but the match had been moved forward to a Friday evening as Heritage Park was booked for a function on the Saturday.

Needless to say both Martin and I were mightily annoyed by this - the club had known about this issue since the start of the season but had kept the fixture in the programme even though they knew there was no chance it would go ahead on that date.

I switched train tickets for Martin so he could travel on the Friday - incurring further expense that I wasn't prepared to consider - only for the game to be called off due to a frozen pitch. Not a happy bunny.

As it was Liz and I wandered down to Ken's Cafe on Green Street as the early match was West Ham -v- Chelsea.  The place was the busiest I've ever see it, full of Hammers queueing for breakfast. This  included a bus load of French Hammers, some of who we'd seen peeing in a side street.  Zut alors you filthy French people!

After my not-so-petit-déjeuner, we wandered past the Boleyn Ground and bumped into one of our old chum, Stuart Clarke, he of Homes of Football fame.  He was there with his TV producer mate, Dan Gordon.

Stuart was looking to take some shots of fans as they arrived for the game - we suggested he popped into Ken's. Once he was done they were racing off to Kenilworth Road to do the same before Luton's FA cup game.

Duly fortified by my fry-up, I left Liz to watch the game, caught the tube into town and took a stool at the bar in the Euston Tap.  London Miller Chris joined me before we headed up to the newly opened Craft Beer Co bar in Islington where we meet our beery chums, Jackie and Simon.

The Craft Beer Co. is the latest part of the chain and unlike the other outlets, this feels much more like an actual pub.

We don't stay too long though - we head over to the nearby Earl Of Essex which is hosting Zwanze Day. This sees the opening of a barrel of Cantillon rhubarb gueuze in just 32 bars worldwide and this will be the only barrel in the UK.

Not surprisingly there is high demand among the lambic lovers of London and so they're selling the beer in thirds and to do so you have to buy a ticket in advance.

We're there at 4pm to get our tickets as the barrel won't be opened until 8pm. Thankfully the Earl of Essex has an excellent range of beers so we stay put.

I have somewhere else to go for a few hours though as Nevilluxury - guitarist in Punilux - is supporting Alien Sex Fiend's at their 30th anniversary gig at the Boston Dome in nearby Tufnell Park.

I pop into the venue early and catch ASF sound checking,  I meet their guitarist, Simon, who just happens to be a colleague of John Wilson. It really is a small world.

Nev finally arrives with friend Polly - they've come on the train carrying a guitar and an amp - very rock and roll. Cue Nev's sound check.


Nevilluxury

As the doors open and the ASF fans trickle in, Nev starts his 30 minute set - mainly his solo stuff which nonpluses the audience somewhat until they're on his wavelength.

Set over, we retire to the kitchen for post-gig pizzas and a quick chat before they have to rush off for the last train to East Anglia.

I return to the Earl of Essex where Chris has kindly kept my third of the Zwanze safe and sound - it is really good and you can certainly taste the rhubarb.  Sadly it doesn't last long.

We have a few more beers - some of my favourites have come on since I left including a couple of Kernel beers.  In fact, the Kernel maestro, Evin, is here too to taste the Zwanze but it is far too crowded to chat.

Chris and I leave before 10pm - he has had more than enough even by his standards - I'd like more but the place is simply rammed.  Time to head home for a curry and the FA Cup highlights...

Toer de Geuze 2011

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.

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.