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

Struise Almighty, Westies with the Besties

Could what was otherwise going to be a phenomenal day regardless, start any better than meeting this guy?  NO.

All of the puzzle pieces were falling into place, Matty Brim had made it from Vic Park to our camp ground in Ieper (albeit he got hit by a car 50 metres from the Ieper train station), we'd made it to Ieper from northern France by 930am, the bikes that we'd hired were ready to go and we knew exactly where we needed to ride to.  That's all of the puzzles pieces, yes?  Wrong.

The most insignificant seeming puzzle piece, a cycling map of the very region that we were in, was sold out at the tourist office and the book shop across the road.  Both normally stock it and had countless copies of every other surrounding map.  F*CK!!

The Options
  - Just taking off on the bikes and hoping for the best?  Probably not the greatest idea
  - Walking the 40 kilometres?  Hmm...
  - Taxi company 1, 90-100 euros return - too much
  - Taxi company 2, 80 euros return - still too much

We were in trouble.  Enter the camping ground owner's daughter.  She would drive us to In De Vreder for 30 euros and we'd work out the rest when we got there.  Sold!

Every drop of the world's highest rating beer made the 30 euros and the fact that we were a long way from our camp ground with no way home insignificant.  An absolute masterpiece of brewing.  And walking away with a six pack for 20 euros that we will slowly consume over the next 15 years felt wrong.  You could name your price for this six pack back in Oz.

So without transport between the two, we started the 5 kilometre walk between In De Vrede and De Struise Brouwers, six pack in tow.  And the weather wasn't bad either.

We squeezed in a quick lunch (cat food terrine) on someone's windowsill and in we went.

The best tap list we have ever seen somehow got progressively better as the afternoon went on.  This is beer geek heaven.

In an old classroom, in a tiny Belgian town, at a brewery that is only open for four hours per week, we slowly worked through as much of the tap list as we could.  For four fleeting hours of our life, and on Matt's first ever day in Europe, we consumed a set of beers that are just absolutely flawless.  If you lived anywhere near Oostvleteren you would be here every week.

We had 13 beers, left with a couple more take-aways (a Tjeeses was thrown in for good measure) and only paid 29.75 euros - the head brewer insisted on giving us our 25 euro cents change.

To cap off one of the great days of our lives Nix managed to thumb us a lift back to Ieper (apparently I wasn't selling it) and we met angry cat.

And this was our home for the night.  We all snuggled.

Brilliant.  Look out Bruges.  Ho ho ho.

Pug Sightings - 10!

The Barrie-ometer of "Feel" - this is whale country, bitches

The Beers

Westvleteren 6, 12
De Struise Imperialist Lager, Weltmerz, Eliot, Riporter, T.H.R.E.E., Pannepot Reserva 2010, Tjeeses Reserva, Rio Reserva 2009, Black Berry Albert
De Struise/Three Floyds Shark Pants