Jan 8th - Today we head back home. We've had an incredible journey, but I think we are ready to return home - not ready to return to work, but I guess that is a necessary evil that makes the travelling possible :)
Our flight out is later in the day and check out isn't unitl noon, so at least we aren't rushed getting out of the hotel. We originally thought we would get out early, stow our bags at the airport, and then take a short day trip somewhere the train might take us, but... When we got up, packed up, and made our way to the airport it was a complete downpour of a day, so we whimped out :) We looked at each other, thinking about where we wanted to go in the rain & both agreed that we were prepared to hang out in the airport until flight time. So we settled in, had an excellent lunch (turns out that meal prices at the airport in Zurich are fairly reasonable when compared to Zurich in general)...and waitied for our flight back to Boston.
Happy to report, uneventful flight & all souveniers made it back to NH in tact!
New Beers for the day: no new beers today, sad I know :)
Monday, January 16, 2012
Day 25 - Strasbourg to Zurich
Jan 7th - Ah, our last full day of vacation. We think back to the beginning of the trip...way back in Innsbruck, Salzburg, Munich...boy that seems like a lifetime ago! Work seems even longer ago, so that is a good sign :)
We headed down to the breakfast room at the hotel and experienced probably our busiest breakfast of the trip (lots of people!), but definitely an impressive spread, we got our fill here! All set for heading back to the train station. Today we are headed back to where the trip started...back to Zurich.
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, it was a bit difficult finding a place to stay in Zurich - that because looking for hotels, average pricing was in the 300 - 400 Euro price range. It even seemed "normal" for hotel rooms to be well above that price range. But, I managed to find a place located on the outskirts of Zurich for 99 Euro, with a free shuttle to the airport...that'll work just fine. With our EuRail pass we can get from the train station to the airport & then pick up the shuttle, perfect! We got settled into the hotel and then hopped our way back on the shuttle to the airport and back to the train station which is a good starting point for exploring a bit of Zurich. It was a bit later in the day so we knew this would be a quick tour. After a morning & afternoon of travelling, finding the hotel and getting back to the center of the city... it was getting to be late in the day so first order of business was to find a bite to eat. Not far from the train station was a beer hall - Rheinfelder Bierhalle - smaller than some of the bierhalles we experienced in Germany, but had some decent beer & hearty menu for a fairly reasonable price - reasonable for Zurich anyway. We have come to realize everything in Zurich is expensive...Rob stated it well with a "it's like everything in Zurich is airport price"...he was so right about that.
After a fill at Rheinfelder, it was getting dark out, but we decided to take a walk down one side of the top of Lake Zurich through the old town , across the bridge & back up the newer part of the city back to the train station. It was definitely a chilly, windy night but we did enjoy the views of the city at night. We managed to find a good view of St. Peter's Church that has the largest clock face in Europe, 8.7 meters in diameter...even from a distance it looked huge.
Our last stop before heading back to the hotel was at a brasserie in the train station called The Federal - there was a large beer list here, but we opted to share a sampler of some of the on tap beers. Meh...was a little less than impressive - so we finished up & made our way back to the hotel for the night.
New Beers for the day: Feldschlosschen Dark, Feldschlosschen Special, sampler @ the Federal...nothing good enough worth mentioning though, so won't bother listing here
We headed down to the breakfast room at the hotel and experienced probably our busiest breakfast of the trip (lots of people!), but definitely an impressive spread, we got our fill here! All set for heading back to the train station. Today we are headed back to where the trip started...back to Zurich.
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| Beer, sausage, potatoes...mmm! |
After a fill at Rheinfelder, it was getting dark out, but we decided to take a walk down one side of the top of Lake Zurich through the old town , across the bridge & back up the newer part of the city back to the train station. It was definitely a chilly, windy night but we did enjoy the views of the city at night. We managed to find a good view of St. Peter's Church that has the largest clock face in Europe, 8.7 meters in diameter...even from a distance it looked huge.
Our last stop before heading back to the hotel was at a brasserie in the train station called The Federal - there was a large beer list here, but we opted to share a sampler of some of the on tap beers. Meh...was a little less than impressive - so we finished up & made our way back to the hotel for the night.
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| Nice looking sampler...contents less than impressive |
Day 24 - Luxembourg to Strasbourg
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| Strasbourg |
Jan 6th - It's another day & off to another country. We really do love how close things are here in Europe. We got up & had a quick breakfast - the hotel we stayed at included breakfast in the Italian restaurant downstairs, which was about on par with the accommodations - pretty low on the impressive scale when compared to what we have experienced the rest of the trip. But I do have to give a nod on the coffee - great coffee, however no refills offered :( and Rob let me have the last croissant left in the joint - he is a keeper! :)
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| Petite France |
We headed straight for an area of the city called Petite France to walk around. I have to say, this area in 2 words - quintessentially cute! The narrow cobblestoned streets & timber framed buildings look like something out of a children's fairytale book...yes, a little sugary sweet, and right up my alley :)
After we had walked around for a while, we were both beside ourselves with hunger so started searching for a place to have a late lunch. We stumbled on a place called Academie de la Biere...sounded good to us! We found a great beer selection & had a delicious traditional Alsacian Tarte Flambee. Alsace is the region of France that Strasbourg is in, and the Tarte Flambee is like a pizza with an extremely thin crust, and traditional topping of creme fraiche, onions & bacon. I went with the pure traditional version & Rob opted to have one with smoked salmon added, mmmm!
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| Notre Dame Cathederal |
No longer starving, we went back out to the streets to walk around & explore some more around Petite France for a few hours, checking out the massive Notre Dame Cathederal along the way. Once we had worked up a hunger again, we decided to go back to Academie de la Biere for dinner before calling it a night.
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| I bet there was a great Christmas Market here :) |
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| Petite France @ Night - high water levels here too |
New Beers for the day: Babar, Kronenbourg 1664, Fisher Tradition, Flouron D'Alsace, Kasteel Rouge, Picon (Blech! Little did we know this turned out to be Kronenbourg + syrup, tasted like 7-Up...did I mention blech? That taste is still burned into my tastebuds!), Grimbergen Bier de Noel
Day 23 - Ghent to Luxembourg
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| Luxembourg |
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| Looking back up from the Grund |
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| Loking down at buildings in the Grund |
When we arrived in Luxembourg City, it was a torrential downpour and very windy - we didn't have too far to walk from the station to our hotel, so we got bundled up and made the trek getting absolutely soaked in the process. Our hotel is located above an Italian restaurant...definitely not the nicest or most comfortable accomodations we've seen on the trip, but it's just for the night so it will suffice.
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| Funky vases outside a museum |
What makes Luxembourg city beautiful is very different than any other city we've visited on this trip. Yes, it had beautiful old buildings - but here it's the landscape that is so unique & interesting. As we walked over the Adolphe bridge from the area of the city our hotel is in to the more touristy part of the city, we got our first glimpse down into one of the deep gorges. As we made it a bit further into the historical part of the city, the bridges, cliffs, gorges, and old buildings all along were stand-out stunning. We found the location of the elevator that takes you from the top of the city down to the river level of the valley to do a walking tour of the area called the Grund (the area in the valley below the city).
After touring the Grund & taking the elevator back to the top again, the skies had opened up again with another good downpour. We took cover for a while by a building that had some outdoor covering. We waited and waited but it didn't seem to be letting up...so we decided to go back down to the Grund level where we had seen a pub by the river, not too far from the elevator to warm up, have a beer, and wait out the rain. We were chatting with the bartender who told us that they have been getting an unual amount of rain in the past weeks...and the river outside the window that we had thought must be at a high level he told us had been about a meter higher, yikes! |
| There's a building in that cliff! |
It only took one beer for the rain to let up again, so we were able to walk back to our hotel without getting drenched again. We knew we were hitting the road (or should I say rails) again in the morning, so we chilled out in the room for a bit & researched a spot close to the hotel for a bite to eat. We found a Greek restaurant with great reviews - hey, when in Luxembourg...eat Greek?!...why not :) We were not disappointed...once translating the Greek menu items that were in French, what we ended up ordering was probably some of the best Greek food we've ever had.
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| Pretty stained glass of Luxembourg in the train station |
New Beers for the day: Mythos (hey, we were in a Greek restaurant), other then that were repeaters :)
Day 22 - Ghent
Jan 4th - What to do today to top the adventures from yesterday?? That's an easy one...since this is our last day in Ghent and we haven't actually seen it during the daylight hours, we're off on foot to have a look around.
Ghent is certainly a beautiful city - seems like I've said this before about a city or two...but the architecture is impressive and it's an easily walkable city so we can take it all in. There are two quarters to the city (a piece of mathematics that doesn't quite add up to me) - the arts quarter & the historical quarter. Our hotel is in the arts quarter where there are a lot of museums, but is only about a 10 minute walk to get to the historical quarter, and that's where we going to explore for the day.
We made it to the castle & went inside to wander around the self-guided tour. I think we got to see just about every inch of the castle & up into one of the towers for some great views of the city. The castle had lots of displays of weapons & torture devices, some which gave me the willys :) There was also a replica of a guillotine - the blade was an original though, eek! A big part of the history of Ghent is that there was much animosity between the inhabitants of the town & the rulers. Back in the 1500's, the ruler at the time forced the inhabitants to parade through town barefoot, wearing only white shirts and nooses around their necks as an act of public humiliation for thier disobedience against authority. Today, the noose is a symbol of pride in the city & the nickname of people who are from Ghent is "stropkes" which means noose-wearer.
After we finished up the tour, we were off to find a bite to eat...we decided to try out what seemed to be Belgium's answer to McDonalds, I think it was called Quick. The verdict, I'd take it over McD's any day :) On our walk back through Korenmarkt square, we found plenty of places selling waffles, so I did get to have my Belgian waffle fill...it was a tough choice between Nutella or plain sugar waffle, but I settled on the sugar waffle...oooh, it was yummy!
We had a fairly quiet last night in Ghent, found another great spot to eat - Rob had a chance to try out the chicken waterzooi which is a local dish - it was kind of like a chicken & vegetable stew with a cream based sauce. Our final stop for the night was into one last recommended beer bar, The Trappist before heading back to the hotel to get organized & packed up for hopping on the train in the morning.
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| Royal Dutch Theatre |
We headed towards the Castle of the Counts to go inside & take a tour...passing many beautiful buildings along the way - the Belfry that is a prominently tall tower seen from almost anywhere in Ghent, the Royal Dutch Theatre, St. Bavo's Cathederal, and a funky building that I loved because it had these cool dancing figures on top - I looked up later and found out it is the Masons' Guild Hall. We also stopped for some pictures from St. Michael's Bridge that has great views from all 360 degrees.
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| The Belfry |
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| Masons' Guild Hall |
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| Castle of the Counts |
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| Inside the Castle |
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| View from the Castle |
After we finished up the tour, we were off to find a bite to eat...we decided to try out what seemed to be Belgium's answer to McDonalds, I think it was called Quick. The verdict, I'd take it over McD's any day :) On our walk back through Korenmarkt square, we found plenty of places selling waffles, so I did get to have my Belgian waffle fill...it was a tough choice between Nutella or plain sugar waffle, but I settled on the sugar waffle...oooh, it was yummy!
Last stop for our daytime walking tour on the way back to the hotel was at St. Bavo's Cathederal. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside which is too bad, as it is beautiful and massive (there are more than 20 altars). We took it all in on the main level and also down in the crypt before heading back to the hotel.
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| Ghent |
New Beers for the day: Maes Pils, Ciney Blond, Ename Blond
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Day 21 - Ghent & Ypres, Roeselare, Bruges
Jan 3rd - Have you ever had one of those days where you wish you could have a 'do over' ? This was defintely one of those days on many fronts...so sit back & hopefully get a good laugh at our mis-adventures for the day, like we can do now :)
We planned a pretty full day with a day trip to Ypres (Ieper) and Roeselare. There is no easy way to get to Ypres, but through a connection in Kortrijk with a bit of a wait there. Our goal for Ypres was to see a bit of the town and to find the cemetery where Rob's great-grandfather is buried & visit his grave. When we arrived at the train station, it was raining pretty hard, and walked through the town (it is a very pretty town) to find an information center where they looked up the location of the cemetery for us in Vlamertinge and gave us info on how to get there by bus. There is only one bus that goes out there & it does not run very often. We were only about a 15 minute wait for the next bus at 12:26, so we went right out to the bus stop to catch it...found the proper spot & saw the correct time on the schedule. Well, 12:26 came and went, and went, and went. We waited a good 20 to 30 minutes after the scheduled time in case it was late, but alas, no bus to be found. The next bus on the schedule wasn't for another couple of hours, so Rob made the call that we should move onto our next plan for the day. Strike one for us for the day.
So back to the station for a train back to Kortrijk for another wait for a train to Roeselare - and to find the Rodenbach brewery. We had about a 15 minute walk in a torrential downpour & high winds, when we found the brewery, completely soaked. Come to find out...brewery tours? Oh no...only for groups for 50 people or more. Tasting room/gift shop?...no such thing here. Sigh...yep, that's our strike two for the day.
So back to the train station again, getting even more wet, and finding the next train back to Ghent. At least we should be able to salvage something of the evening. The train we were on makes a stop in Bruges, and as we were approaching the station, the clouds in the sky disappeared & the sun came out. We absolutely fell in love with the town of Bruges when we were here 10 years ago, so we figured why not hop off the train, find ourselves some dinner since I had a hankering for moules & frites (mussels & french fries...a very Belgian thing to to), a waffle, and a stop into the Bruges beer locations we had on the list. Oh, the day was turning around! Walking from the train station into the town, I quickly saw why I loved this place the first time around - such a beautiful spot. We were very close to the De Halve Maan brewery which is the oldest running brewery in Bruges - running since 1856. It was 4:00, so the last tour was over, but their tasting room was open for a bit longer & they had a huge fireplace where we were able to warm up & get mostly dry while we enjoyed a sampling of their brews.
Sufficiently nourished, we went off to find a well hidden beer bar called La Garre. It came recommended, and we heard that they have a wonderful house beer. Well hidden it was indeed - we could see it on the gps, and we walked fully around an entire block trying to find a way to get there...when Rob discovered a very narrow alley beside a chocolate shop that led us to the place. We ordered up the house beer, and when the waitress brought them to us, the head was so white, frothy, and huge that I thought she had deliverd us a glass of milk :) Letting it settle out was well worth the wait...it was an amazing tripel.
Then we were onto our last stop in Bruges befor making our way back to the train station, at another recommended place called 't Brugs Beertje with an impressive beer list. We found a spot across from a couple of older gentlemen from England who were highly entertaining. Before we knew it, it was getting close to the time we needed to catch our train back to Ghent, so we rushed out the door, and ran our way back to the station...only to find we missed it by just a minute or two, ugh! That was the last train back to Ghent tonight. So what to do? Check to see how much a cab would be to ride back...120 Euro...hmmm, we think not. The next train is at 4:10 am...thankfully the Bruges station platforms have enclosed seating areas, so we got comfy on some seats & waited for a few hours. Thankfully it wasn't too cold out. I guess we don't get a strike four, so let's just call this icing on the cake :) We did make our train at 4:10, and made it safe & sound back to Ghent...never did a bed feel so good!
So even though the day didn't quite go as exactly planned, we were happy to have spent some time back in Bruges, and the 'bad' was all part of the adventure...just happy to be healthy & enjoying life. Looking back though...maybe we should have gone back to Cantillon today to see Jean Van Roy brew :)
New Beers for the day: Leffe Brown, Omer (Belgian Blond Ale), Brugse Zot Blond, Brugse Zot Dubbel, Straffe Hendrik Tripel, Straffe Hendrik Quadrupel, La Garre Tripel (house beer at La Garre), Malheur 10, Echt Kriekbier, Prearis Quad
We planned a pretty full day with a day trip to Ypres (Ieper) and Roeselare. There is no easy way to get to Ypres, but through a connection in Kortrijk with a bit of a wait there. Our goal for Ypres was to see a bit of the town and to find the cemetery where Rob's great-grandfather is buried & visit his grave. When we arrived at the train station, it was raining pretty hard, and walked through the town (it is a very pretty town) to find an information center where they looked up the location of the cemetery for us in Vlamertinge and gave us info on how to get there by bus. There is only one bus that goes out there & it does not run very often. We were only about a 15 minute wait for the next bus at 12:26, so we went right out to the bus stop to catch it...found the proper spot & saw the correct time on the schedule. Well, 12:26 came and went, and went, and went. We waited a good 20 to 30 minutes after the scheduled time in case it was late, but alas, no bus to be found. The next bus on the schedule wasn't for another couple of hours, so Rob made the call that we should move onto our next plan for the day. Strike one for us for the day.
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| Ypres |
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| Ypres |
So back to the station for a train back to Kortrijk for another wait for a train to Roeselare - and to find the Rodenbach brewery. We had about a 15 minute walk in a torrential downpour & high winds, when we found the brewery, completely soaked. Come to find out...brewery tours? Oh no...only for groups for 50 people or more. Tasting room/gift shop?...no such thing here. Sigh...yep, that's our strike two for the day.
Wandering Bruges...
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| Mmm...Moules! |
We meandered our way to the town center & went looking for a spot to eat. There are a ton of small restaurants all listing their specials outside, so we did a quick walk about looking for where we would find moules & a good deal. I happened to be perusing one menu outside a restaurant door & noticed there was another on the other side of the door. Thinkng it might be in English, I did a quick step over to the other side not realizing there was a slightly elevated, black carpeted wheelchair ramp at my feet. Those of you who have known me a while know my affinity for clumsiness, and yep I went flying. Thankfully nobody was witness (not even Rob) to my display of gracefulness, but I did land smack dab on my knee. I'm going to go ahead and call this strike three for the day since several days later, it is still tender to touch. We did settle on a place to eat & I had very enjoyable moules & frites. Dessert was included in the meal as well...not a waffle though, so I'll need to find one of those elsewhere.
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| There's the alley |
Then we were onto our last stop in Bruges befor making our way back to the train station, at another recommended place called 't Brugs Beertje with an impressive beer list. We found a spot across from a couple of older gentlemen from England who were highly entertaining. Before we knew it, it was getting close to the time we needed to catch our train back to Ghent, so we rushed out the door, and ran our way back to the station...only to find we missed it by just a minute or two, ugh! That was the last train back to Ghent tonight. So what to do? Check to see how much a cab would be to ride back...120 Euro...hmmm, we think not. The next train is at 4:10 am...thankfully the Bruges station platforms have enclosed seating areas, so we got comfy on some seats & waited for a few hours. Thankfully it wasn't too cold out. I guess we don't get a strike four, so let's just call this icing on the cake :) We did make our train at 4:10, and made it safe & sound back to Ghent...never did a bed feel so good!
So even though the day didn't quite go as exactly planned, we were happy to have spent some time back in Bruges, and the 'bad' was all part of the adventure...just happy to be healthy & enjoying life. Looking back though...maybe we should have gone back to Cantillon today to see Jean Van Roy brew :)
New Beers for the day: Leffe Brown, Omer (Belgian Blond Ale), Brugse Zot Blond, Brugse Zot Dubbel, Straffe Hendrik Tripel, Straffe Hendrik Quadrupel, La Garre Tripel (house beer at La Garre), Malheur 10, Echt Kriekbier, Prearis Quad
Day 20 - Ghent & Brussels
Jan 2nd - Once we woke up and had breakfast, first order of business was to find a laundromat & do our final load of laundry for the trip. Luckily there was a place right around the corner from our hotel...so a much easier venture than it had been in Berlin. Exciting stuff I know :)
With enough clean clothes to last us to the end of the trip, next up on the agenda was a day trip to Brussels, so we headed off to the train station for the 40 minute train ride. We'd been to Brussels once before, so didn't have a burning need to do a lot of sight-seeing this time around - goal for the day was to hit some beer related destinations.
A visit we had been looking forward to for a long time was to the Cantillon brewery, a short walk from the Brussels Midi train station. We found the building without problem, and once we made our way inside, a great experience was to be had, we were sure of it. Rob was almost beside himself with excitement :) We were given a short intro to the origin of the brewery & some basic history from one of the brewers, and then we were handed a brochure that outlined their brewing process & we were set free to wander about the brewery at our own pace, reading about each stop along the way. OK, setting us free to meander around the brewery may not be a good idea...we'll be unsupervised in the barrel room! :) For anyone not familiar with Cantillon, it has been an independent family run brewery since 1900 - started by Paul Cantillon, carried on by his sons Marcel & Robert Cantillon, and now run by Marcel's son-in-law Jean Van Roy. The beer they produce here all starts from one basic style called lambic. For our non-beer geek friends, lambic is a sour-tasting beer that gets its wonderful flavors from wild yeasts & micro-organisms/bacteria. When we were in Belgium about 10 years ago, we had our first taste of lambic beer & we were immediately hooked. OK, back to the tour...
First up we had a good look at the mashing house to see the mash tun, where the grain first meets the hot water & gets to work converting the starches into surgars. At Cantillon, they add 1,300 kg of crushed grain (malted barley and wheat) and 10,000 litres of water to the mash tun & spends about 2 hours here - end product being the wort.
Next stop on the tour was up one level to see the grain mill (where the malt is crushed before being added to the mash tun) and the boil kettles (where wort from the mash tun is pumped to and hops are added). They start with 10,000 litres of wort in the 2 copper boil kettles and boil for between 3 and 4 hours until 2,500 litres have evaporated off. This level of the brewery also includes the granary where the malt and hops are stored.
Next up was one of the most interesting parts of the tour was up to the cooling tun room. Here there is a huge, shallow, copper vessel called a coolship where 7,500 litres of wort get pumped into from the boil kettles so it can cool overnight. There are shutter vents in the room which lets the cold night air in, both serving to cool the wort and innoculate the wort with the wild yeasts and bacteria floating in the air, officially turning the "wort" into "beer". Magic happens in this room :)
After oogling the coolship for a while, we made it to the room where barrel upon barrel of lambic was fermenting and aging away in oak & chestnut barrels. I tried not to think about the spiders in this room (that we were told about in the intro to the tour) that are integral to the process in that they control the insects attracted to the sweet malt liquor & fruit that makes up the beer...so they are a good thing here. At least it's not snakes that are neccessary to take care of the insects :) We had also been told that they used to have a cat in the brewery to control the rodent population...we forgot to ask why they no longer have a cat.
Almost the last stop on the tour was to see where the barrels get cleaned & where the bottling happens. Rob was interested in seeing the machine he heard that they use here where the barrels get strapped in & then a heavy sharp chain rotates inside to scrape the edges. After the barrels are "clean", they are steam sanitized and then smoked with a sulfur candle to kill any mold spores trying to get a foot-hold in the wood of the barrels.
Now, the last stop was to get a taste of some of the goods...we had a taste of the Gueze which is a blend of 1, 2, and 3 year old lambic, the Kriek which is a lambic fermented with cherries, and the Rose de Gambrinus (framboise) which is a a lambic fermented with raspberries...all wonderful! The toughest part was deciding what we might be able to bring home with us :) We wanted to take as much as we could, but also need to figure out what weight & space we can finaggle in our backpacks...so Rob settled for 6 bottles, but might be back.
Thoroughly impressed with the tour, we set back out onto the street for our next stop. Rob immediately realized her forgot to get a picture with Jean Van Roy - who wasn't brewing today, but was in the tasting room helping out & talking with customers, so we went pack in for a quick picture. When we asked for a picture, he was more than obliging but asked if the sweatshirt he was wearing was ok to be in the picture...it was a Pliny the Elder hoodie, and we told him it was perfecly fine (of course!). When Rob told Jean that we were homebrewers & it was such a thrill to get here, he told us that he would be brewing Tuesday & Thursday if we wanted to come by and see them in action. Oh so tempting!
Now, finally we were onto our next stop of the day - to a beer bar called Moeder Lambic - that was on our list and the bartender at De Wildeman told us we must get to. We sat down for a drink and some late lunch before the trek to our final planned stop in Brussels. Moeder Lambic did have a great beer list, but the ambiance was just ok (very modern looking), and our server was not very attentive...maybe we were there just a bit too early.
Last up on the Brussels agenda was Delirum Cafe - which we'd been warned might disappoint...but had to go anyway. I do love the pink elephant, and wanted to get a Delirium Tremens from the source. The first time I tried a Delirium Tremens was a few years ago in Chicago, and loved it then...and it did not disappoint here. We were also pleasantly suprised by the cafe itself - yes it was crowded and the music maybe a tad bit loud, but it was full of character & we thoroughly enjoyed it. Apparently this place used to be very smoky when busy, but there was not an ashtray in sight when we went in - new smoking laws in Belgium maybe?
With our fill of Brussels for this trip, we made our way back to Ghent where we wandered around a bit more at night looking for a bite to eat (I found the most delicious & tender Flemmish beef stew) before calling it a night.
New Beers for the day: Cantillon tasting (Gueze, Kriek, Framboise), Lambic Cantillon, Kriek 3 Fonteinen, Delirium Tremens, Delirium Christmas, Oude Lambiek Oud Beersel, St. Idesbald Tripel, t'Stropke Huisbier, Augustine Blond, Klokke Roeland (Waterhuis house beer - menu stating max 3 per person), Quintine Hercule Stout, Boon Kriek
With enough clean clothes to last us to the end of the trip, next up on the agenda was a day trip to Brussels, so we headed off to the train station for the 40 minute train ride. We'd been to Brussels once before, so didn't have a burning need to do a lot of sight-seeing this time around - goal for the day was to hit some beer related destinations.
First up we had a good look at the mashing house to see the mash tun, where the grain first meets the hot water & gets to work converting the starches into surgars. At Cantillon, they add 1,300 kg of crushed grain (malted barley and wheat) and 10,000 litres of water to the mash tun & spends about 2 hours here - end product being the wort.
Next stop on the tour was up one level to see the grain mill (where the malt is crushed before being added to the mash tun) and the boil kettles (where wort from the mash tun is pumped to and hops are added). They start with 10,000 litres of wort in the 2 copper boil kettles and boil for between 3 and 4 hours until 2,500 litres have evaporated off. This level of the brewery also includes the granary where the malt and hops are stored.
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| Boil Kettle |
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| Grain Mill |
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| Granary |
Next up was one of the most interesting parts of the tour was up to the cooling tun room. Here there is a huge, shallow, copper vessel called a coolship where 7,500 litres of wort get pumped into from the boil kettles so it can cool overnight. There are shutter vents in the room which lets the cold night air in, both serving to cool the wort and innoculate the wort with the wild yeasts and bacteria floating in the air, officially turning the "wort" into "beer". Magic happens in this room :)
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| Vents where the air flows in... |
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| Coolship |
Almost the last stop on the tour was to see where the barrels get cleaned & where the bottling happens. Rob was interested in seeing the machine he heard that they use here where the barrels get strapped in & then a heavy sharp chain rotates inside to scrape the edges. After the barrels are "clean", they are steam sanitized and then smoked with a sulfur candle to kill any mold spores trying to get a foot-hold in the wood of the barrels.
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| Washing machine, chain hanging on the left |
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| Bottling Machine |
Now, the last stop was to get a taste of some of the goods...we had a taste of the Gueze which is a blend of 1, 2, and 3 year old lambic, the Kriek which is a lambic fermented with cherries, and the Rose de Gambrinus (framboise) which is a a lambic fermented with raspberries...all wonderful! The toughest part was deciding what we might be able to bring home with us :) We wanted to take as much as we could, but also need to figure out what weight & space we can finaggle in our backpacks...so Rob settled for 6 bottles, but might be back. |
| Rob with Jean Van Roy |
Now, finally we were onto our next stop of the day - to a beer bar called Moeder Lambic - that was on our list and the bartender at De Wildeman told us we must get to. We sat down for a drink and some late lunch before the trek to our final planned stop in Brussels. Moeder Lambic did have a great beer list, but the ambiance was just ok (very modern looking), and our server was not very attentive...maybe we were there just a bit too early.
Last up on the Brussels agenda was Delirum Cafe - which we'd been warned might disappoint...but had to go anyway. I do love the pink elephant, and wanted to get a Delirium Tremens from the source. The first time I tried a Delirium Tremens was a few years ago in Chicago, and loved it then...and it did not disappoint here. We were also pleasantly suprised by the cafe itself - yes it was crowded and the music maybe a tad bit loud, but it was full of character & we thoroughly enjoyed it. Apparently this place used to be very smoky when busy, but there was not an ashtray in sight when we went in - new smoking laws in Belgium maybe?With our fill of Brussels for this trip, we made our way back to Ghent where we wandered around a bit more at night looking for a bite to eat (I found the most delicious & tender Flemmish beef stew) before calling it a night.
New Beers for the day: Cantillon tasting (Gueze, Kriek, Framboise), Lambic Cantillon, Kriek 3 Fonteinen, Delirium Tremens, Delirium Christmas, Oude Lambiek Oud Beersel, St. Idesbald Tripel, t'Stropke Huisbier, Augustine Blond, Klokke Roeland (Waterhuis house beer - menu stating max 3 per person), Quintine Hercule Stout, Boon Kriek
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