Belgium, beervana

Just finished a couple days in Belgium followed up by a nice visit in Amsterdam. More on Amsterdam later, because Belgium deserves a blog entry all its own. Beervana has been attained.

Not that I wasn't expecting it. Ellen and I took a beer cruise to Belgium in 2000, and we still have some friends from that week-long barge excursion where we'd travel a bit down the canal, hop off and ride around on our bikes, and then hit breweries and bars before pedaling back in the evening. It was a bit different to pull up in the MV Explorer into Antwerp and, if memory serves me, Antwerp was the first stop on the canal trip once we left Amsterdam and hopped the bus to get to the barge.

I think that first trip to Belgium cemented my love of beer. Up to that point, I had gotten pretty solid at homebrewing and had sampled many US and European beers but not as many Belgian beers as I should have because, most simply, they tend to be a bit more expensive in the US. It's a bit different now that there are many US high-end beers that cost as much or more than their European inspirations, so I suppose my baseline has shifted to where I now seek out great beer and try to overlook the cost (to a certain point, as you'll see on snapshots of the beer menu coming up on my Amsterdam blog). The thing I appreciate so much about Belgian beers and the brewers is that the beers are hyper-diverse with every imaginable style and flavor profile, and brewers aren't particularly concerned about adhering to particular stylistic guidelines–if something tastes fantastic, brew it and keep brewing it once you've nailed down your particular recipe.

On this return visit, Ellen half-jokingly said that I had 6 days of plans for 1.5 days of our stay. Yep, that's probably accurate. We docked in Antwerp and were cleared by Belgian Immigration officials to leave super-quick, so we hit the city and got train tickets to Brussels. First on my agenda was to find Cantillon and tour one of the few remaining lambic breweries. Cantillon has a bit of a cult status in America: the beers rarely make it over to the US and once the beers hit the bars or shelves, they're snapped up by rabid beer nerds (yep, I'm guilty of that). The beers are naturally inoculated by wild yeasts and have a distinct lactic sourness which is accented by blending 1-, 2-, and 3-year old vintages to achieve the flavor profile in the finished product known as geuze. The beers are sour as I mention, but beyond that they're supremely complex because of the aging process in barrels, which the brewery staff juggle in the storeroom, letting the barrels breathe up high and down low in the stacks according to whatever family traditions dictate gives the desired flavor profile. The barrel room smells tart, the floors are sticky, and there is only about 80% of the volume of beer left after the aging and breathing have commenced.

Sandy, Ellen, Jasper, and I paid our small tour fee and led ourselves around the brewery to view the equipment. There was a group of French tourists receiving a guided tour, but I didn't feel comfortable jumping in nor is my French up to snuff. I filled in Sandy on details of the brewery particulars since he has a Renaissance-style curiosity and wondered why beer is brewed in conditions that almost anyone would say are unsanitary. Basically, the brewery equipment is medievally ancient, the facilities are completely open to whatever organisms happen to be floating around in the outside atmosphere, and the interior is, well, never cleaned so the wild flora don't get disturbed. My pictures can't convey all the cobwebs and moldy corners we saw, and it's amazing that the brewing process can guide and tame the yeasties to produce the lambic.

At the end of the tour, we got two tastings of the Cantillon brews: a jonge (young) lambic liquid which is a flat, sourish, slightly sweet golden beer with musty overtones along with a faint hint of the barrels it's been aged in. Ellen detected some salinity, and I think she may be onto something, since it's not too terribly far from the brewery to the ocean air. Lambic is essentially the brick foundation upon which the finished product of gueuze is built. It can be confusing because lambic is a sort of generic term which can also mean the finished product of gueuze which is the blended sour drink of the three separate vintages as well as other sour beers that include fruit additions such as cherry kriek, raspberry framboise, apricot fou foune, grape vignorone, etc. Anyway, the first sample was the straight young lambic and the second samples were the finished blended gueuze and fruit-flavored beers, each having carbonation at this stage. Sandy valiantly tried a few sips of each sample and said he understood the craftsmanship in the beer but didn't really care for the flavor profile. I'm fine with that and understand his perspective: it's a bit of an acquired taste to grasp the sour, musty, funky, woody beer with a champagne-like effervescence, so it takes some baby steps to appreciate the beers for what they are after trying them a few times. 

Ellen and I got additional samples while Jasper and Sandy grew impatient to see more of Brussels. So, having to cut out, I grabbed a t-shirt and Ellen grabbed a three-pack of 375-ml bottles including a gueuze, kriek, and framboise. My shirt at 13euro was actually more expensive than the three bottles which were 11euro in their holder. I'd have bought more bottles but as it is we probably have no additional capacity in our luggage. We're planning to drink the beers when we debark the ship and hit London; that is, if we ever see the beers again. The way things work on the Enrichment Voyage is that, supposedly, you can purchase alcohol and it will be returned to you as you leave, so hopefully we'll see those Cantillon bottles as we leave in Dover. It'll be a shame if we don't because it's really hard to get them unless you make a trip to Belgium. Those bottles sometimes make it to the US where they usually fetch $25 and up each, so three for 11euro is quite a deal.

After the Cantillon visit, we went back into the central train station area of Brussels to eat some lunch. We had a meal of mussels and sandwiches at a shop. I had mentioned to Sandy that one cool thing about the beers in Belgium is that each beer has its own particular glass, and as we found in the cafe, the sodas did as well. Lunch was tasty but took longer than we realized, so we were later getting to Brugge than we anticipated. Part of our gameplan had been to hit Brussels and then Brugge to avoid the tourists who typically invade Brugge during the day and then leave at night. So, we got there around 6pm as the crowds were thinning, but things we wanted to do such as climb the tower in the center of town were closed. Oh, well. Brugge is beautiful with old architecture and small shops. Ellen found a nice chocolate shop and then peered down into a narrow alley and recognized a bar we had visited in our 2000 visit. We were ecstatic to revisit Staminee De Garre; it's a centuries-old cafe with a decent beer selection of lambics and a house brew of golden triple that's slightly more potent than the Trappist triples yet still somewhat dry with all of the spicy fruity overtones that a triple has. A few drinks (yep, each in it's own distinct glass) and we got back aboard the train to finish our triangle tour from Antwerp to Brussels to Brugge back to Antwerp and reboarded the ship at 0030 (12:30am).

Day two in Belgium was short with a crazy-early onship time of 1500 (3pm) to leave at 1600. Ellen knew that I had grand plans for Belgium, so she had made a bed & breakfast reservation for the two of us that night in Amsterdam with the plan to stay another night then take the train to Amsterdam the next day to meet back up with the ship. However (ominous music here for effect), our plans got thrown for a loop: Jasper got sick from a stomach bug and was ordered on bed rest for 24 hours. Yikes. That morning in Antwerp, I stayed with him as Ellen did a little touring and came back aboard around lunchtime. She and I had discussion at lunch, and since the B&B was paid for, she convinced me to stay behind and hit the town on my own. I was excited and mapped out a few places to visit once I got my bearings from the B&B location, which was about a half-mile from the dock. At 1430 (2:30pm), I left with an overnight bag and found the B&B. Hmm, no one there, but there was a note to call a number for reception. Odd, since this was the reception, plus I didn't have a phone. I did have my laptop hoping to catch up on Facebook and other internet stuff with a real connection, so I logged in using the connection and password posted in the lobby. I emailed the contact that I was there and ready to check in, plus I emailed Ellen to see if she could call from the ship. She wasn't able to reach anyone when calling, and no one came by or replied to my email, so I waited a bit and then by 1530 decided the B&B seemed sketchy enough that I'd rather take the ship on to Amsterdam then hope I'd eventually be able to check in (not to mention that it didn't make me feel secure that I walked in and found all the room keys but no phone, so anyone else off the street could also walk in and grab the room keys).

I dashed back to the ship and made it back aboard around 1540 just before the gangway retracted. The ship's security crew had to quickly search my luggage, and I reported back to the Purser's desk that I was aboard and my plans changed because I couldn't check in to the B&B. Oh, well. Ellen was glad to see me, and I still got to do and see a lot of what I wanted to in Belgium and hope to make it back again some time. Also, getting back aboard the MV Explorer meant I had more time in the Netherlands. We think we'll be able to get our money back from the failed B&B trip, at least we hope.

Next up are Amsterdam adventures...

After a bit of scouring the criss-cross streets of Brussels, we found Cantillon.

Tasting room at Cantillon.

Old-school equipment at the brewery. I don't think I've seen any other brewery that is still using belt-driven power.

Barrels stacked up in the storehouse. The air smells sour, the floors are sticky, there are fruit flies around, and even cobwebs. It's a beautiful sight.

Proper glassware at the cafe in Brussels. Even the Fanta and Coke have their own glasses. Sorry about cropping off your bangs, Ellen.

Gilded buildings in the town square at Brussels.

Tower at the center of Brugge.

Cheers at De Garre. Ellen has a Celis wit (wheatbeer with corriander and bitter orange), and I have a 3 Fonteinen gueuze.

Stairs at De Garre. Not sure why, but some countries have distinctive stairs. Asia seems to have stairs that are very tall even though the people aren't, and Belgium seems to have very steep, worn, narrow stairs (the inner portion where the stair curves is about 3 inches wide). I think it's a sobriety test so you know not to have more if you have trouble navigating the stairs.

Ready, aim, fire!