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Subject: Lambic Digest #371 (June 15, 1994)
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 00:30:14 -0600
Lambic Digest #371 Wed 15 June 1994
Forum on Lambic Beers (and other Belgian beer styles)
Mike Sharp, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Flanders, Part I (Michael Sharp)
Mo' Flanders (etc.) (Michael Sharp)
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Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 10:19:58 PDT
From: msharp at Synopsys.COM (Michael Sharp)
Subject: Flanders, Part I
[This is from Stephen George <74363.26 at CompuServe.COM>]
[I've only reformatted the text for easier reading]
Making the Rounds in Flanders (mostly)
My wife and I have been living in Antwerp for two months now (business) and
have used it as our base to explore most of Belgium. Phil Seitz posted some
information on visits to Belgium a while back. All excellent information.
I hope to supplement some of it; Phil, you seem to visit Francophone Belgium
more often than not. I aim to provide more details about the Flemish side.
I will disclaim this information now. I do not have lots of different books
on Belgium and Belgian beers, so I don't know if any of it is redundant. I
do have Jackson, which seems to be pretty good. I also have your collected
wisdom. Thanks to all. I apologize for length, but hope you'll find the
bandwidth worthwhile. I'll be happy to respond/defend, but would appreciate
it if you wouldn't overload my CompuSpend
mailbox; TIA.
Getting around
We rent our car from Brussels-Zaventem airport and they have a huge
(like $90) 'airport charge' on car rentals as well as the 20 % VAT.
You may get a reasonable quote from Hertz (etc.), but that's only
their cut. It might be cheaper to rent in town. Go manual if you
can; it will also save you a heap of cash. Just speculating, but it might
be cheaper all around to fly in and out of Frankfurt. Doesn't matter so much
when you're on business.
If you will be based in a city, use the trains, trams and subways. They run
frequently and are reasonably priced in a country where gasoline costs a buck
a liter and parking is a PITA. They are even cheaper on the weekend if you
buy a return ticket, and if there are two or more in your party it gets
cheaper still. We can both go round trip to Brussels from Antwerp for 420 BeF
on the weekend.
An excellent, budget way to see Belgium is by the Train and Bicycle program
You can take a train to a station and then rent a bicycle for a day
(return by 8PM) or longer. 35 stations participate in the program, and most
have marked trails through the surroundings. If you take the train, you get a
discount on the bike rental; it costs 150 BeF instead of the 280 BeF you pay
for walk-in rentals.
You call the stations in advance to book the bikes; pick up a Trein + Fiets or
Train + Velo brochure from your local station. They also provide a lock, a
bungee and a pump. No helmets were available. You have to pay a deposit (3
bikes = 700 BeF) and have some ID; passport is better than drivers' license.
These bikes aren't all in the best condition, but they let us pick our own
out from those in stock. I call them 'Peewee Herman' bikes, more for their
appearance than their behavior, although mine did slip gears time and again.
They're 3-speeds and are available in mens' and womens' models.
Antwerp
Since Antwerp has been our home, we have spent more time discovering it than
the other cities. Thus the relative fecundity of listings here. I realize
that it isn't most people's first stop. When I was here on my 'grand tour'
in '89, the comment 'industrial city' was enough to send us by without a
visit. Now that I'm working, it is exactly that same industry that brings
me here. Nonetheless, it does have some good tourism and also serves the
beer-enthusiast quite well.
Antwerp has a small center; you can walk to all of the places listed here from
the Central station. There's also a good tram link that runs the width of
the center, so if you visit one too many places, you can still get right
back to the train station. If you drive, park along the Schelde river;
spots are more plentiful there.
If you've been reading a while, you've probably guessed that the Kulminator
cafe is my favorite. It has the best selection of any cafe, anywhere, that
we've visited to date. It's namesake beer is available here, as well as a
reasonable selection of other imports, but who comes to Belgium to drink
Guinness? Classical music is the background. It's speciality is cellared
beers, and I've recently posted a list of just the lambic selections. They
also have some aged Goudenbands, Chimays, Stille Nachts (nachten?).
This is the home cafe of De Objectieve Bierproevers. The proprietor, Dirk van
Dyck, is the club's VP. Peter Crombeq, BTW, is the Prez. You can join OBP
here for 600 BeF if you're so inclined. Membership includes a
subscription to the quarterly journal and you can participate in activities
like brewery tours, the weekend of Spontaneous yeasting, the 24 hours of
Belgian Beer, etc.
Jackson makes mention of De Pelgrom on Pelgrimstraat. Rightly so, perhaps.
It's a great old brick cellar, with a reasonable selection of beers. Their
speciality is the Poorter beer sold in a 750 ml crock. They let you keep the
bottle if you like, but the beer didn't live up to its $10 pricetag.
Located nearby, however, is an even greater find; De Cluyse, which is another
cellar, this one in stone, dating back even further. It appears non-descript
from the street, but the atmosphere is unique and they have a much better
selection here, including Boon products (sir, I must warn you, these beers are
very sour
:-))
These places are both close to the 280 + beer soorten store on Reynders
Straat. I posted some information on this place a few digests back. In
that relatively short span, they've received a new order of Cantillon
which they are selling at much better prices. The 750 ml Gueuze was down
from 300 BeF to 115 BeF. I asked the shopkeep about this (complimented
him, actually) and he told me that he was now buying from the brewery
directly rather than from a distributor. They also had quite a stock
of lambic products just in; the Liefmann's Foudroyant line is there. I'm
not a Genever-proever, but if you are, note that there is also a genevers
shop and cafe (De Vagant) on Reynders straat.
A couple of other notes. The cafe Bierland, mentioned in Jackson, sadly
doesn't live up. You walk down the street and there's a huge inviting
sign screaming BIERLAND. You go in; it's a student cafe (apparently didn't
used to be). The menu is the old Bierland menu, but most everything is
crossed out.
Jackson mentions the old place 'Aux Armes de Tirlemont' at the Eiermarkt as a
good place to drink Gueuze (de Neve). We keep trying to go but it always
seems to be closed. Once we got through the doors, only to find that it
was a private party.
And another place to drink in style is De Elfde Geboud, near the cathedral;
there's a beer of the same name, but I doubt if there's an affiliation.
The place is chock full of icon statues apparently 'purchased' from churches.
The beer list isn't vast, but it beats the heck out of Quinten Matsijs,
which Jackson touts.
East of Antwerp, the Westmalle Trappistencafe. The locals tell a story that
this cafe is connected by underground pipes to the brewery across the road.
True or _not_, it's a great place for a pilgrimage. One would suppose that you
get the freshest Westmalle here, as well as the opportunity to eat the
monastery's cheese and bread with your beer. It's got a large patio for
sitting in the sun and people-watching, and even on the blustery,
rainy day we visited, it was quite crowded.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 10:30:01 PDT
From: msharp at Synopsys.COM (Michael Sharp)
Subject: Mo' Flanders (etc.)
[this is another message from Stephen George <74363.26 at compuserve.com>]
[maybe someday he'll get a link to compuserve tha doesn't screw with ]
[the article formatting! Perhaps we should take up a collection? 8-) ]
Brussels
Most of the bright spots on the Brussels stage have already received a lot of
press. The Cantillon brewery is a must-visit; Beer St. has a wonderful
selection, but it kind of lacks on atmosphere IMHO. There is another museum
located at the Brewer's Guild building in the Great Market. It's not much of
a tour; mostly slides and a computer presentation; highly dedicated to
mega-producers and the company that supplies chilling equipment for megas.
The replication of a maltings is neat. And you do get a pretty good beer
in the cafe at the end of the tour. I think it cost 70 BeF, so if you
discount the beer, it doesn't cost that much to see the brewery. You can
purchase Les Memoirs of Jef Lambic there for under $10 (paperback,
French only). You can also buy Jackson here in English if you, like I,
leave home without it. About 900 BeF.
For classic cafes, don't miss A la Mort Subite. Their Mort Subite Gueuze is
served from 750's and is more complex that the stuff I can get in the
supermarket (375 ml bottles). Probably lays around a while. Either that or
the atmosphere makes it better. This is the only cafe I've seen with a
non-smoking section. They also stock the full spectrum of flavored MS
products. The Art Deco places near the Bourse are also nice, but
their beer lists are pretty lame.
Otherwise, consider stepping out to Lambic country (would you not? :-))
There are three tours we saw; the Hoppe, the Geuze and the Brueghel.
All cross around this country and you can visit nearly every lambic town
within a few km. We drove, but you could bike it if you don't mind some
hills. I didn't get to visit any breweries (to Jay Hersh, who posted on
the Boon brewery in LD #342, thanks, made me feel like I didn't miss it all).
The countryside is gorgeous, particularly on the Brueghel route.
We did stop at De Rare Vos in Schepdaal, which is the home town of
Eylenbosch. There you can drink young lambic straight from the barrel;
purchase it by the liter for 110 BeF. For Todd Gierman, who asked about pure
lambics, it was slightly sour and totally flat. Young is probably the key
word here; with age it would be different. I've only tried one Eylenbosch,
but I'd guess it's pretty souped-up, so to speak, by blending, sweetening (?)
and certainly by carbonation. They also have a kriek lambic which tasted like
Faygo Redpop, if that doesn't pin down my region too much. It was really
too much cherry. Since I don't brew (yet), I don't know if this is par for
the course on fresh kriek.
Bruges
Amidst the constant flow of tourists through Bruges, it is possible to pass an
idle moment at two notable cafes (Both mentioned in Jackson):
The Brugse Beertje, which receives digest mention occasionally, is a good
stop. We had the Boon Framboise '86 here, but we were contributing to the
tourist menace and so I didn't have too much time to drink in the menu. The
surroundings are pubby; they have lots of posters, etc.
We found the cafe Erasmus to be even more enjoyable. For some reason, the
place was completely empty when we visited. It doesn't jump out as a beer
cafe; very modernistic. The proprietor entertained us with stories of his
desire to serve quality beers; his favorite at the moment, and not a hard
sell at that, was De Dolle Brouwers' Dulle Teve. I received a lengthy
lecture about the pronunciation of Gueuze (huur-zuh) here.
Ghent
IMO, Ghent sits largely in the shadow of Bruges, and therein lies its charm.
It has a very attractive city center, a lot fewer tourists that Bruges and
(at least) two great places to have a bier. If you visit in the summer,
you'll do much better to visit Het Bierhaus aan de Waterkant, which is
located near the center, across from the Vleesmarkt and just around the
corner from the castle. They boast >100 beers; some are out of
stock. Sit outside and take in the panoramic canal scenery.
And the Hopduvel, which has been made famous by Jackson, is worth seeking
out. It's a good walk from the city center on a small side street - hard
to find on most maps, but check out the Belgium street guide. They have
a good selection of beers and a collection of breweriana; also a beer
garden which would be pleasant if it ever stopped raining. They list
Cantillon products as their house brand; I also understand that they brew
some of their own beers. Jackson notes their spice beer, which I didn't
see on the menu. One word of caution; they committed the faux pas of
serving the lambics upright. You can see on the bottles where the yeast has
laid down on the side during storage. By the end of a bottle, you can
imagine where the yeast winds up. A bright point. They are the only
place where I've found a DDB Boskeun beer in stock, and this was a
fantastic product.
And finally on Ghent, we've spun some bandwidth over the book Het Mysterie
van de Geuze by Jos Cels lately. I found my copy at the Club Gent (which,
despite it's name, is a paper/book store). Price is 1695 BeF (about $50).
Books cost a lot in Belgium. They had a copy at a store in Bruges, too, but I
forget the name. As noted, Standaard Boekhandel doesn't stock the book.
You can order it there; two weeks delivery, same price.
------------------------------
End of Lambic Digest
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