Beers and Brugge

The beautiful city of Brugge

In my last post, called "Beers and Battlefields", I started to talk about the wonderful beers in Belgium. As there are over 500 different beers, I very soon ran out space in the last blog, so here I go again, on the wonderful beers in Belgium.

The Halve Maan brewery

My trip to Belgium was to fly on Emirates to Amsterdam and then to travel from Schiphol airport to Brugge by train. This was three train trips, which I arranged before the time.  I picked Brugge for no other reason then this was the only place that I could arrange a tour to the World War one battle fields around Ypres. Brugge is an amazing city and I will gladly go there again and again!

I was armed with a list of the fines Belgium beers which I needed to look for. This was supplied to me by Dr Errol Cason, who is one of the brewers at the Kovsie Brewery. This was, of course some of the Trappist beers. I have mentioned them in my previous blog, but they were so good, they will also be mentioned in this post (or maybe only in a later post).

Dark beer at the Halve Maan Brewery

So after one short flight and  two long flights and three train trips, I arrived in Brugge around 14:00. The hotel I had booked was very close to the train station. This was the Raddison Blue Hotel. Once out of the heated airport and trains, the full force of the freezing cold hit me.  Anyway - as a passionate traveler - I was not going to sit in my hotel room in a new city, so off I went to explore the old city of Brugge. It is really a beautiful city. It was relatively untouched by the two world wars in Europe and much of the old city has remained. What a wonderful place to explore. There is more to Belgium than just beers. There is also wonderful Belgium chocolate (of which there were many shops in the old city), Belgium lace and Belgium waffles.

Mossel pot with a beer

Then there were the various beer shops! Also lots of nice places to eat, all with beer on tap, of course. What is very unique about the beer on tap in the restaurants in Brugge is that the beer is delivered, directly from the brewery, via an underground pipeline! Very unique. This is the beer which is produced by the Halve Maan Brewery in Brugge.

What I love doing in an interesting city is to get "lost". I have never in my life been really lost, but what I mean is, I just follow my nose and take any interesting street and see where it takes me. The first place I came across in my wanderings was the Halve Maan Brewery. As this was one of the good days (no rain - but just cold) the brewery was quite busy. I tried two of their beers. The first one I had was there dark beer, the second was a blond. Sitting quietly after the long travel with a nice beer in the courtyard of a very old brewery was a very pleasant way to spend a hour or so. The beer was good, but not worth traveling all the way to Belgium to taste!

One of the walls of beer

As it was quite some time since I had something to eat, I needed to find some food. Belgium Mossel (Flemish spelling!) pots seemed to be the order of the day. Just about every place offered this, so this is was, along with a beer which was piped underground from the brewery just across the road.

Chocolate poter

After a nice meal, it was time to continue exploring. Then I found beer heaven! Two places. One advertising over 500 different types of beer and another with two walls of beer! The one with the walls of beer had a place where you could have a beer. They offered a chocolate porter. Beer and chocolate in one. Just had to try it. I
t was very nice! This was called Peraris. Just have to love the fact that each beer has its own special glass!

As the sun sets very early in Europe in winter and considering the long journey I had, after the wonderful porter, it was time to head back to the hotel. Next day was the battlefield tour! The main reason I had come to Belgium. Next time I go to Belgium it will be for the beers! Still lots to discuss on the Beers of Belgium so I guess there will be another beer post soon!