Christmas Markets Round 1 - Brussels v Nuremberg

The first of our immense Christmas market battles.

The Food

Brussels provides more variety and has a greater international influence whereas Nuremberg is still strictly traditional.

In Brussels we had pelmeni (the Russian equivalent of tortellini), seafood soup, escargot, a witlof bacon-ey stew thing and tartiflette.  All of which you couldn't fault.

A bit more time in Nuremberg meant a bit more food.

Savoury foods we had were raw pork mince with onion and paprika on rye, pork steak in a bun, some chestnuts, Nürnberger sausages in a bun (unlike the well known big fat bratwurst found elsewhere in Germany these are little finger sized ones) and kartoffelpuffer which are potato pancakes that come with a massive dollop of apple sauce.  Nice.

And sweets we had were traditional German lebkuchen (which sort of resembles gingerbread), a piece of stollen and the fruitiest fruit bread you've ever seen.  Would you like some bread with that fruit?

The Drinks

Brussels only really offered up mulled wine and no mulled beer interpretation, much to our disappointment.

However Nuremberg has Brussels covered here.  We had your standard mulled wine, heidelbeer (blueberry mulled wine) and feuerzangenbowle, where rum soaked sugar is set on fire and then drips into mulled wine.  It is fekking delicious.

The Germans also do an egg punch, which is similar to eggnog, and it turns out that after a few feuerzangenbowle, some beers and some of the egg punch Nicola goes off the deep and and quite mental.  This is her mid craze.

The Other Stuff 

Brussels' Grand Place is beautiful at the worst of times.  Lit up with Christmas lights and the most tasteful, gigantic Christmas tree you've ever seen and it's truly a sight to behold.

Nix also fell in love with this merry go round, if only she was 15 years younger...

Other stuff in Nuremberg?  Not too much.  We couldn't actually determine which was their Christmas tree and the markets were fairly textbook.

The Verdict

It's always hard to diss an original and you can see that the Brussels markets have spawned from German influences but Brussels wins this one fairly comfortably I believe.  It's more interesting and it's more unique.  Nuremberg certainly has its place and we're very happy that we checked it out but we'd return to the Brussels markets again and again before we'd go back to the Nuremberg markets.

The Barrie-ometer of "Feel" - "it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas"

A Last Hurrah in Belgium and Germany

So, back into Europe then...

We arrived in Brussels at about 830am after leaving northern England at 11am on the previous morning.  A bus trip that was made a couple of hours longer after we missed our ferry crossing between Dover and Calais as some bloke was travelling with two massive suitcases filled with phone batteries.  He was interrogated by border security and then the police for well over an hour which then caused us to miss our connection by literally a couple of minutes.  Cheers buddy.

Anyway, we made it to Brussels, dropped our bags and headed straight out for coffee to try and get us through the day after two hours cumulative sleep.

We chewed through a couple of hours at the coffee shop, then headed to the Christmas Markets for a bit of an initial peek before making our way back to Moeder Lambic Fontainas for a few beers.  And much to our extremely grateful surprise they had Jacobins on tap!  And Abbaye St Bon Chien, that's brewed by a Swiss brewer, actually stood up to the Jacobins and almost crosses that line from beer into something else entirely.

We also partook in two of our other favourite Brussels pastimes while we were there.

Spotting more invasions.

And consuming more fritey goodness.

Aside from the Christmas Markets, that was it for Brussels.

Nuremberg

A German city we didn't check out the first time around was Nuremberg so we thought we'd drop in on our way to Prague to get a taste of a traditional Germanic Christmas market.

So naturally, we made sure to get our German pork fix whilst there.

Firstly at Hutt'n, a traditional German pub/restaurant that's just far enough out of the tourist zone.

By the way, that is actually one meal that we split onto two plates.  We love you German portions.

And then at Schaufelewartschaft, which is way out of tourist zone and served us up possibly the most tender pork we've ever eaten.  The meat literally fell off the bone.

We joined a few tables of businessmen ordering that to themselves and downing a few beers on your average Monday lunch meeting.  How anyone can go back to work after finishing that is beyond me given that we shared it and both ended up in food comas.


Finally, dotted all around the city are little Brezen Kolb stands selling extremely tasty pretzels filled with an array of meats and cheeses.  It was hard to go past the impossibly creamy camembert!

Stay tuned for Christmas Markets Part 1 - Brussels v Nuremberg

Pug Sightings (!) - 15

The Beer

Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge
Zinnebir X-mas
BFM Abbaye St Bon Chien
La Rullés Estivale
Cazeau Tournay Triple
Dupont Avec les Bons Voeux
De Dolle Oerbier

Huppendorfer Winter Weizen
Unknown Brewery Winterfestbier, Dunkles Bock

Belgium - The Recap

Meeting Matt, drinking the world's highest rated beer, eating lunch at De Heeren, drinking spontaneously fermented beers at their home in Brussels, acquainting ourselves with Todd the Mental Beaver, working our way through Kulminator's amazing vintage list, surviving driving in southern Belgium semi-unscathed and meeting Fantôme's brewer are just a few of the reasons that the our time in Belgium was far and above the best few weeks of our lives.

The Ticks 

• Beer
• Frites
• Vintage beer
• Mouse javelins with cheese, celery salt and mustard
• Beer cribs
• Croissants in Lille from Pâtisserie du Lion d'or (of which no photographic evidence exists) 
• Sour beer

The Crosses

• V smelly urinals
• Matt
• The Great Rage of Grote Dorst
• Our lovers tiff in Brussels
• Leaving

The Food 

Our lunch at De Heeren was everything you could ask for in a beery lunch (LINK).  Just phenomenal.

The Beers

It's extremely hard to pick just one between us and equally as hard to select only one each.  However the below is a fairly accurate estimate.

Nix - 2003 3 Fonteinen Oude Gueuze
Matto - De Struise Black Mes
Me - 1987 Stille Nacht
Very Honourable Mention - De Struise Special Kay

The Beer Count - 167

Bank Account: Kulminator-ed in Antwerp

So I should be telling you about the amazing view of Antwerp city from the opposite side of the Scheldt, how good the Antwerp Zoo is or about some great Antwerp speciality we tried.  However, when a place has such an extensive and reasonably priced vintage beer last as Kulminator's, it's hard to consider doing anything else whilst you're in Antwerp.

Kulminator is the most ramshackle bar we've ever seen and was the ultimate place to end our Belgian experience, two times over.

The beers pretty much do the talking here so they can do exactly that.

...and we dropped a few euros on this one to celebrate our final night in Belgium 

The Beers

Dupont Avec les Bons Voeux
Buffalo Stout
Gouden Carolus Hopsinjoor
De Struise St Amatus (tap and 2010), Black Damnation: Mocha Bomb, Coffee Club, Black Mes and Special Kay, Pannepot Grand Reserva 2005, Black Albert Batch "0", Kabert
Dubuisson Bush Noel
La Trappe Quercas
De Dolle Stille Nacht 1987 and 1999, Stille Nacht Reserva 2005, Oerbier Special Reserva 2002, 2005 and 2006
Rochefort 10 2003
Malheur Brune
Mikkeller Black
De Troch Oude Gueze

Brussels Part 3 - Pissing Statues, Invasions and a Combination of Both

Brussels Part 2 - Insert Generic, Tongue-in-Cheek Title

MY F UPS - THE FINAL CHAPTER (Nicola's sanity hopes) 

I got us to the station with just enough time to spare to buy our tickets however broken ticket machines meant a breakneck run around the station to find a working ticket machine and then a quick dash back to our platform.  We made it back to the platform in time but as the train was arriving it was only then that I realised that we were about to board the wrong train, right time, wrong train. 

So 15 minutes later we boarded a different train however this one took twice as long and got us to De Heeren late, again... 

We did arrive though and soon had a round of lambics placed in front of us, my latest failure was old news.

De Heeren van Liedekerke is rated as the best beer restaurant in the world and the proceeding five hours certainly confirmed its reputation in our eyes.

For entrées, Matto and Nix each had chicory soup with smoked eel and I had plaice and mussels, both expertly matched with Kasteel Hoppy and Vicaris gueuze/tripel respectively.  Words don't really do any of our courses justice.

For mains, Nix went for the coq-a-la-bier that she said was "delightful", Matto the cod with bacon and mushrooms which was "fantastically fresh" and I went for the guinea fowl with crab risotto, also amazing.  So much meat and so hearty.  Our choices once again were beer matched to perfection.

For dessert, we shared a Westmalle dubbel sabayon (woah!) and various European cheeses.  To drink Matto went for the very exclusive, extremely tasty Rodenbach Vin de Cereal, Nix Cuvée Delphine (huge) and me a 2006 Stille Nacht, it certainly does not get any worse with time.

To finish off we thought we'd go for a cheeky 1994 3 Fonteinen Oude Gueuze, because we can.

We got back to Brussels after a phenomenal food experience and headed to the Hoppy Loft for a couple (note the phone book size beer maps - "it's a beer map because it takes you on a journey") and then Bécasse for a few, a traditional sour beer café hidden away down a tiny alley.  Very cool.

The next day we hit the food trail for some crispy fried kippling, decent Belgian chocolate, pretty good frites, very average hot dogs and very enjoyable, meaty gyros.

The Beers

Mort Subite Lambic
De Troch Lambic
Kasteel Hoppy
Vicaris Tripel/Gueuze
Pater Lieven Blond
Eurotropius First Angel
Brouwerij De Toeteler Amber Tripel
De Dolle Stille Nacht 2006
De Struise Cuvée Delphine
Rodenbach Vin de Cereale 2008
3 Fonteinen Oude Gueuze 1994
Black Bear IV IPA
Cazaue Saison
Delirium Tremens
Lindemans Witte, Bourgogne des Flandres
De Ranke Noir de Dottignes, Kriek
Tilquin Lambic Blend
Moeder Lambic/Brasserie de la Senne Band of Brothers
Contreras Valeir Blond
Kerkom Bink Bloesem
Adelardus Bruin
Duvel

Brussels Part 1 - In the Insurance Against Great Thirst

Staying only 750 metres from the world's best sour brewery (maybe?), there's only one place to begin your stay in Brussels.  Cantillon.

A quick tour of the brewery (quick because of what is promised at the end of the tour), it was time for a few bevs.  You can see how excited Matt was about the tour.

We started off with our freebies, the straight lambic, framboise, kriek and gueuze.  All great but not what we were here for.

We followed up with Zwanze 2012, a rhubarb lambic, Zwanze 2013, an abbey style beer blended with lambic, and finished off with 50°N-4°E, a cognac barrel aged gueuze.  Nix liked the increased tartness provided by the addition of rhubarb to Zwanze 2012, I thought 50°N-4°E was a beer highlight of our trip and Matt, well he's just there to "enjoy the ride", he just "rides the waves", as does Todd the Mental Beaver (that poor bastard).

MY F UPS - PART 2

In a little town on the outskirts of Brussels there's a pub called In de Verzekering tegen de Grote Dorst, which is quite possibly the best sour beer pub in the world.  Its selection of cellared sour beers is unparallelled.  The only problem being that it's only open from 10am 'til 130pm every Sunday. 

So clearly you would want to be there before it opens at 10am.

However, when you're sat on the couch at 930am eating breakfast and buses only come on the 55 of the hour and it clicks that you've taken down bus times to get you there an hour later than you'd wanted to, you can tend to lose your shit.  Nicola, Matt and the couch felt my wrath.  Maybe I should stop working out directions, bus times and the opening times of establishments the night before, after a few too many. 

Anyway, we made it, albeit 40 minutes after Grote Dorst had opened.  We pretty much had to race a bus full of oldies from the main road to ensure we got decent seats.  I believe we managed drag the mean age of Grote Dorst down to about 60.

The rage, the rush and the tension between us all was worth it though, this place is bloody amazing.

We started off with a few "standard" sours from the vat and then got into the vintage list.

A 2005, 2003 and 2002 3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze were good places to start.  The 2003 the first of the beers that was literally "liked nothing you've ever tasted".

2003 and 2005

2002

We then followed up with a 1988 Eylenbosch Lambic, which had gone beyond lambic and become an entirely new beer.  F*cking amazing and genuinely like nothing we'd ever tasted.  However, we agreed there's probably no need to try it again.

The good thing about drinking sours is the ability to jump between different types within the category, so it was time for a couple of old krieks.  We began with a 2004 3 Fonteinen Schaerbeekse Kriek.  Tasty, yet not amazing.

The 2004 De Cam Kriek though, f'ing amazing.  So much overriding sour cherry-ness still remains and it was a true treat to end on.  We walked down the road at 4ish (flexible opening hours clearly) feeling well and truly satisfied.

Grote Dorst is where you go to pay your dues to sour beer.  WOW.

A couple more at Moeder Lambic and it was home time.  A great day it was.

The Beers

Cantillon Lambic, Kriek, Rose de Gambrinus, Gueuze, Zwanze 2012 and 2013, 50°N-4°E, Fou' Foune, Mamouche, Lou Pepe Pure Kriek, Faro
3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze 2002, 2003 and 2005, Schaerbeekse Kriek 2004
Boon Vat 44
Eylenbosch Lambic 1988
De Cam Oude Kriek
Allagash Open Cask
Gouden Carolus Classic
Rulles La Grande 10
De Ranke Cuvée, Guldenberg
Brasserie de la Senne Tripel
Val Dieu Grand Cru, Tripel
Dupont Monk's Stout

Horsing Around in Gent

What are these tasty treats you ask?

If you guessed horse sausage, horse salami, pig bits in jelly and veal tongues in orange sauce, then you really know your meats.  All are eastern Flanders specialities and were very interesting.  However, we were a bit disappointed that the horse wasn't horsier.

Gent ended up being all about food and beer (for something different) so I'm just going to run through what we had.

Cuberdons

A Gent speciality that are a raspberry flavoured soft centred jelly.  We went back for more after trying these the first time.

Het Waterhuis aan de Bierkant

A cool old bar (an institution if you will) that sits right on the canal that provided us our first beers of Gent. As you can see it didn't take long for Matt to settle in.

The box on the wall with all the slots in it is a system for locals whereby they deposit, say, five euros a week and the bar deposits the money with a bank after each week.  Then at the end of the year the bar puts on some kind of beer themed event that the interest earned over the year pays for and they each get their money back.  Why don't we have this back in Oz??

Frites and Escargot at Frituur Bij Filip

We had the best frites of our trip (twice over) at a tiny unsuspecting place tucked behind the Groentenmarkt.  So crunchy on the outside but pillowy soft on the inside.  We also shared a pot of escargot in a briney sauce.  Beautiful.

Waffles at Mokabon

These were the only waffles we had in Belgium because after these it was hard to see them being bettered.  We had the classic with just sugar, one with chocolate sauce and another with fruit.  All were great but the star of the show here is the amazing waffles themselves.  Om nom nom.

Cheese and Mustard

We picked up three different cheeses from a regional producer and a pot of spicey mustard from Tierenteyn where you choose your pot size and they scoop your mustard from a big open vat.  The cheeses were decent but the mustard, brilliant.

Chocolates from YUZU

When you choose ten chocolates that include flavours such as salt and pepper, rum and tobacco, and Szechuan pepper, you know you're in for a treat.  The flavours maybe weren't as full on as we would've liked but still disappeared very quickly.

Vego Dinner at De Appelier

Thursdays in Gent are vego days so after a day of food that included frites cooked in vegetable fat (not good!), we headed to De Appelier for dinner.  I must admit I was pleasantly surprised.  The plate above is only a medium and was loaded with rice, different veggies and a veggie pattie, amongst other things.  Not bad.

Beers from De Hopduvel

We picked up a nice little selection of beers from De Hopduvel, which included the highly sought after Rodenbach Caractère Rouge which is a sour red ale brewed with cranberries, cherries and rasberries.  Nice.

Some Street Art

Cassowary Sightings - daily

The Beers

Gandavum Dry Hopping
Augustijn Blonde, Donker
Gulden Draak 9000
Koddestamper Tripel
Klokke Roeland
De Struise Tjeeses, Ypres
Rodenbach Caractère Rouge
Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge
Dupont Bio Saison
Gruut Wit, Bruin