Picking up where I left off in Beercation Part I after another night of recovering from a long day of drinking we were up and at it again! This time we didn't lie in as they say here in Ireland. We got up, dressed and out the door by 10 am in order to make it to Cantillon Brewery when they opened.
They are actually located in the heart of busy Brussels, so we made it just in time to join a tour of the brewery. Cantillon also specializes in the production of authentic lambics and gueuze (gueze). Adam was so excited to see their equipment, especially the coolship. Remember when I pointed out that lambics are special to this region because they require the wild and naturally occurring yeast found there? If you did not remember then you need to go back and read it again! You never know when there might be a pop quiz! Back to the coolship. It is the reason a lambic is a lambic. After the boiling is complete, the hot wort (sugar water-starches in the brewing grains are converted by enzymes into sugars) is pumped up into a large copper cooling pan (aka the coolship) which is usually in a room on the roof of the brewery. Louvred windows are left open in this room to encourage the wild yeast spores in the atmosphere to enter and take up residence in the liquid and make some tasty goodness. This takes a lot of time. The wild strains aren't as active as the yeasts that are typically used for making your IPAs, stouts, and so on. We are talking months and years for these brews to be ready rather than days or weeks. |
| This is the cool ship. I wish there was something in there for scale, but it's huge! |
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| This cat greeted us downstairs at the beginning of our tour and then made his way up to the grain storage room for his morning nap inside a barrel! |
The Cantillon tour ends in just the way you would expect and the way we have come to appreciate and look forward to, in the tasting room! So a few beers before noon at Cantillon and then off to Ghent where we went to pick up our Aussie friends, Jason and Anna, who we had met 2 days prior!
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| Adam poses with father and son-in law who continue on a long-running family tradition. |
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| I was kind of grossed out by all the spiderwebs looming in every corner of the brewery, but it was explained that pesticides would be harmful to the beer, so nature takes charge when it comes to the bugs that come round for the sweet ripe fruit used in many of their beers. |
Ghent, is about a 40 minuet drive West of Brussels, where we picked up relative strangers Jason and Anna up at their hotel, and then hit the road. Yes, somehow all four of us managed to fit in the Ford KA, and Jason is Adam sized! Nothing like driving around the Belgian countryside for a few hours in a car the size of a postage stamp to help you get to know someone. Since I'm here writing this post it is safe to say Jason and Anna were not serial killers. Although by the end of the day they may have wanted to kill us. We dragged them to every brewery and bar on Adam's itinerary. If they ever wanted to know anything about Belgian beers I believe they learned it that day!
Aside from several wrong turns and a few stops to ask for directions we finally made it to St. Sixtus. This is another one of the remaining seven trappist breweries in the world, which serves the best beer in the world. Yes, the best as rated by Beer Advocate and Rate Beer. The beer nerds have spoken and there is no arguing with them. I think the beer is wonderful, but I can't help but wonder if it is rated so high because it is so exclusive. This beer can only be purchased at the abbey, and only by appointment, with all kinds of limitations! At least they allow you to drink the beer when you are there. So that's what we did. After lunch and a few very special beers later we took off down the road to the next stop on Adam's list.
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| Westy 8 and 12 two of the best beers in the world! |
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| Jason enjoying his frosty beverage! |
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| Outside of the Abbey St. Sixtus |
Just down the road and one more quick turnaround later and we were at De Struise. This was another stop Adam was pretty excited about. Actually he was excited about all of them, you know kid on Christmas morning excited. It is just so darn cute! Anyway, in we walk to De Struise and Adam starts immediately chatting with one of the brewers Carlo, as if they're best buds. Turns out they've been in contact via Facebook once or twice before, and Carlo is incredibly nice. He shared samples of some of their beers and then opened a personal bottle of his. It was a New Glarus beer from the states that Adam and I have had several times before. But Carlo was excited to try it, and who are we to turn down a beer! We also tried Black Damnation V: Double Black. It is a monster of a beer at 26% abv. Adam bought a few bottles before our trip without ever tasting it. His assumption was proved correct and he now claims this to be the best beer he has ever tasted. This is saying a lot given his current obsession. More photo ops with Urbain & Carlo, and then back to the KA and off to Bruges to visit a few pubs.
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| Urbain, Adam and Carlo at the DeStuise Brewery |
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| Carlo talking to us about their brewing process |
Adam and I actually spent time in Bruges on our honeymoon, but the beer obsession hadn't manifested itself to the current form yet so we only visited one of these pubs at the time. We went to Brugs Beertje, 't Poatersgat, and Cambrinus.
I won't bore you with the details, because this post is already long and I still have a tiny bit more to tell you about. I'll only say that the owner of one of the pubs has made quite a name for herself in the beer world so posing for a picture was a must. Adam also wanted a picture with a man he swore was Billy Connolly but after calling out his name resulted in no recognition Adam was forced to admit it wasn't him. (Adam ninja edit-I admit nothing!)
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| If you saw the movie In Bruges you might recognize this tower! |
Back in the KA we only had to turn around twice to get Jason and Anna back safe and sound and possibly quite drunk back to Ghent. Getting ourselves back to Brussels was quite a different story. Did I mention the reason we found ourselves turned around so many times is because we were without a navigation system. Hertz did not have any available upon booking our car rental and our phones would not connect to any mobile networks! But how hard could it be to get back into the center of a large city like Brussles? We had a map, and it was mostly highway driving, no problem! Wrong, wrong, wrong! We drove circles around Brussels for at least two hours. There was screaming and yelling, several stops on the side of the road to look at the map, and I was near tears because I had to pee so badly and it was 3am and nothing was open! We finally drove past a bar that was open and Adam stopped so I could use the ladies and he could ask directions. Wouldn't you know it not a single person in the bar spoke English! We managed to get someone point to where we were on the map and finally found our way to the hotel around 4am.
Someday I'm sure we'll look back and laugh, but I'm just not there yet.
Our last day in Brussels was spent drinking a few more Belgian beers, paying homage to the peeing boy fountain (manneken pis), and eating waffles, mussels, and frites! You didn't think we went to Brussels and skipped those very important things did you!? We actually did try and glean a little culture with a visit to the Magritte Museum, which was pretty cool, but ultimately beer was the star of our show weekend!
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| Adam checking out the buildings in the Grand Place |
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| Mussels in Brussels! |
Finally I would just like to share a few photos of the stuff we brought home with us. I was completely convinced that Adam would not be able to get all the beer to fit, plus the t-shirts, and awesome beer crate we got from St. Sixtus. Beer weighs a lot! Turns out one of our bags was just slightly over in weight, but we rearranged and everything made it back to Ireland safe and sound! To make sure bottles didn't break Adam packed them in bubble wrap, but he started by first insulating them with his socks!
