The Best Beer in the World

It all started out innocently enough.  Taavo suggested we taste some Belgian beers. One thing led to another and before we knew it, we were dusting off our passports.

Physically Belgium is small- about the size of Massachusetts. Beer-wise Belgium is really big- 120 breweries, over 800 different beers and more than 500 specialist beer cafes.

Belgium and beer go way back. By the time the Romans came west, beer was already being brewed by the Belgae. Brewery ruins date back to the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. Today those bloodlines live on. For diversity of beer styles, Belgium is it.

There is a lot more to beer than Budweiser, Coors or Heineken for that matter. Beer can be every bit as diverse and sophisticated as wine and Belgium has the goods.

For our tastings, we tried to keep an open mind. We had our list of must try’s, but typically we’d ask our waitperson for recommendations- and Sharon (the obvious, unanimous and the most sober choice) kept a log. By the end of our trip, we had tried at least 75 different beers.

Michael Jackson (not that MJ- the famous beer guy) divided Belgiums’s beers up in his classic “Great Beers of Belgium” into the following categories: Wild Beers, Fruit Beers, Bieres Brut, White Beers, Brown Beers, Red Beers, Saisons, Belgian Ales, Trappist Beers, Abbey Beers, Wicked Beers, Passionate Pints, and Pils.

I found it nearly impossible to pick favorites. It always seemed to come back to the best fit at the time- the mood, the food, the time of day and so forth.

That said, the most intriguing generally fell into two categories- Wild Beers and Religious Beers (Trappist & Abbey).

Wild Beers mean wild yeast. For the first few thousand years beers were brewed, all beers were brewed with wild air-borne yeast. Today there are something like 6000 breweries worldwide. Less than ten depend on wild air-borne yeast. These are the Belgian Lambics.

As MJ puts it, these are the most challenging and exciting of beers. I would also add they are the strangest- an acquired taste- which I acquired on this trip.

On the other hand, to me,  the Belgian Religious Beers have always been- Tasty, Tasty, Tasty.

I’ve always liked the idea of monks brewing beer as one small step towards salvation.

And the beers monks brew are really, really good. Experts have voted a particular as Best in the World, several times running.

This favorite is brewed by Sint Sixtus monks in a very remote area of Belgium, near the hop-producing town of Poperinge.

This Westvleteren beer is almost impossible to buy, even in Belgium. The only commercial establishment serving the stuff is a beer cafe across from the monastery. The only non-black market alternative is to buy direct and in person, which involves dealing by phone with the Trappiste monks and showing up at their monastery at the appointed hour.

Tom Allewaert, our hotel manager at the Erasmus Hotel in Bruges, said, “You can try to call them, but all you’ll get is a message that there are 200 people ahead of you on hold.”  We gave up on that then and there.  But we did make it to Sint Sixtus, and did drink our fill of Westvleteren, but am getting ahead of myself in this story.  Probably best to start at the beginning.

We organized our travel in three chapters:  Brussels, Brugge and Watou. All in West Flanders.

Brussels is not only the capital of Belgium, but the capital of the European Union. Big, sophisticated, old and urban for 800 years.

Brugge is picturesque, medieval, laced with canals and wonderful.

Watou is so far off the beaten track that even Belgians say “where?” Take a wrong turn and you are in France.  Great food though, and great beer. Curious cows and ground zero for beer.

While Belgium is a bit on the expensive side, it turned out that drinking Belgian beers in Belgium is most economical. A silver lining indeed.

Brussels

Sharon and I flew overnight from Boston to Brussels, arriving at BRU mid morning. We caught the train into town and then walked (somewhat circuitously and I take the blame) to our hotel.  Happily our room was available and we were able to relax, recharge, and then explore the neighborhood a bit before Taavo and his girlfriend Meredith arrived from London.

Hotel discounts in Brussels are a weekend event. We planned accordingly and scored a deal on the Le Dixseptieme Hotel in the historical heart of Brussels, around the corner from the Grande Place. Parts of the hotel go back to the 14th Century.  In the 17th century, Le Dixseptième was the residence of the Spanish Ambassador. Our kind of place.

Taavo and Meredith arrived on schedule early in the evening. After they dropped their bags off in their rooms, we headed out to see a bit of the town.

We ended up at the Poechenellekelder for food and drink. Great location opposite the Manneken-Pis (little pissing man) with a wonderful beer selection. Nice atmosphere and good people watching. And yes, I can pronounce it now. The trick is not think about all the letters- all at once.

The next day we were sitting at the Poechenellekelder mid-day and struck up a conversation with a couple at the next table. They were English, he worked at the BBC and they were big fans of The Sopranos & other HBO shows.  We countered that we were big fans of all types of Masterpiece Theatre.

We explained our plans and quest. When we got to the part about Watou, they paused and looked us over for a second time and added with a note of envy, “You guys are really doing this right.”

We enjoyed the young folks at the front desk of the Le Dixseptieme. Not surprisingly the young Islamic woman wasn’t as enthusiastic as we were about beer, but she was fun and articulate.

The young Belgian guy was friendly and candid. He was surprised that we were from the USA. He said we weren’t anything like the Americans he was used to from TV. His wife was addicted to Miami Vice. They were soon heading to South Miami Beach for their USA experience.

We tried to explain that there was more to the USA than Miami Beach, but he said that not so far as his wife was concerned.  He also volunteered that, in his experience, the American hotel guests were much more polite & grateful than the French ones. The Flemings don’t much care for French (speakers) even when they are Belgian.

The aptly-named Grand-Place was pretty much right around the corner from our hotel. My pics are in the slide show. I borrowed the image below. It captures the feel of the space really well, though the colors are a bit washed out. There is a fourth side to this quadrangle- just behind the photographer- which includes the headquarters of the brewer’s guild.

When we’d wander through, there were many more folks out and about.

Lots more going on too. My guess is that this was shot early in the morning.

There is a lot more to be said about our time in Brussels, but I’m going to have to keep it short.

The Brussels’ museums are remarkable with the likes of Hieronymus Bosch, van Eyck, David, Magritte and Delvaux. Personally I’m partial to the surrealists. The really odd is often found embedded in the most normal. One can look at Belgium as something of a Bourgeois Paradise, but with a surreal and subversive twist.

The Cantillon Brewery was another Brussels’ highlight. Cantillon is a working family brewery, which, as one of the last breweries in the world using ultra-traditional methods and wild yeast, has become a place of pilgrimage for beer enthusiasts. Curiously it looks like a garage from the outside. Inside its musty and alive.

After three nights at the Le Dixseptieme Hotel we all checked out and headed back to the train station. As it turned out, we did get on the right train and an hour later we were in Brugge.

Brugge

As we stepped out of the train station we looked out over an expansive parking lot filled with thousands and thousands – of bicycles. Purportedly our hotel was about a mile’s walk, so off we went. After just a couple of wrong turns we arrived at the Erasmus.

Hotel Erasmus has been described as designer-modern, very beernut-friendly, with a great location close to the historic city center. All true.

From the outside it looked like the 1300’s. Inside it was like stepping into 21st century Helsinki. A bit disorienting, but not a problem. My favorite space was the patio out back. A few dining tables on the canal- Ridiculously picturesque, and a great spot for dinner and a great beer, which we took advantage on our first night and all the nights thereafter.

Lots of great things have been written about Brugge. After visiting I‘d have to say they’re all true. Even all the over the top stuff. Then again you have to be in the right mood. We were, or at least I was.

Here is what one of our guidebooks, Insight Guides Belgium, has to say about Brugge:

“The capital of West Flanders is one of Europe’s best-preserved medieval cities, with a turbulent history that is concealed by the serenity of its present-day appearance.

Those who speak of Bruges as the ‘Venice of the North’ or ‘Belgium’s Amsterdam’ do little service to a city that is simply unique and happy to be itself. This city is not some pale imitation of another, and needs no such false comparisons to illuminate it. Bruges is the pride and joy of Flanders, and beneath the smoothly cosmopolitan surface with which it greets its legions of foreign admirers, it is Flemish through and through.

In attempting to describe this canal-fretted ensemble of medieval architecture, it is hard to avoid the word “picturesque”. As Arnold Bennett said as long ago as 1896: ‘The difference between Bruges and other cities is that in the latter, you look about for the picturesque, and don’t find it easily, while in Bruges, assailed on every side by the picturesque, you look curiously for the unpicturesque, and don’t find it easily’”

This historic center of Bruges (French) or Brugge (Flemish) is a Unesco World  Heritage Site- Rightly So.

Most of the tourists were European. Brugge is a favorite short-hop destination. I understand why. I’d go back in a second.

The acoustics were remarkable- bells, horses-hooves on cobblestones, and water.

Just like Brussels we spent our days in Brugge walking, visiting museums, and seeing the sights. And yes we climbed the 366 steps to the top of the tower- Great view. Very medieval too on the way up with slots for archers and tight spaces.

For added entertainment, Sharon took up reading the Gideon Bible in our room- in Flemish. To check on her pronunciation, she’d go downstairs and read out loud to Tom Allewaert, the idiosyncratic manager of the Erasmus. He seemed to find Sharon’s readings most entertaining. One day, one of Tom’s buds was there. He ran a neighboring store.

After the reading, he offered Sharon a job.

Watou

The last leg of our trip took us to rural Belgium. We rented a car in Brugge and drove first up to the North Sea and then back down to Watou, where we had reservations at a most special B&B adjoining the Sint Bernardus Brewery.

At the 11th hour in our trip planning, I found this B&B. I emailed them, but no response. I also had a phone number. I suspected the key would be language, not my strong suit, so I leaned on Sharon.

She was none too happy about the challenge. As she put it, bluntly, “I don’t speak Flemish.”

I pleaded and whined until she said OK. She grabbed some books and after a half hour’s quick study, she called Watou and made our reservation in Flemish. They were full up, but if Taavo and Meredith could share our bathroom, there was space. This was not a problem and the reservation was made.

Sharon scares me sometimes.

The last stop on our drive to our Watou B&B was Café In De Vrede, the brewery tap for Westvletern beer from the St. Sixtus Trappist Abbey- next door.

To say Café In De Vrede is off the beaten track is an understatement. Its off the beaten track, off the beaten track, off the beaten track, which after all is where one expects to find monks living a life of seclusion.

I think I saw a monk driving by on tractor. But to tell you the truth, I was more interested in the Westvleteren beer at hand.

Yes, it is really really good. How good?

“Best in the world?”

Sitting on the patio out back at the In De Vrede with Sharon, Taavo, and Meredith with smiles all around, it was hard to argue that it wasn’t really special.

This was a neighborhood of special beers though, as we found out a few miles down the road at our B&B, t Brouwershuis.

Not only is t Brouwershuis next to the grounds of the St. Bernardus Brewery, it  once was the master brewer’s home. Now run as a B&B by his daughter Bernadette.

Bernadette was charming, sensitive, and hands down, the the most gracious, charming, sophisticated B&B host I’ve ever run into. The Belgians staying there agreed, adding, “You know, she doesn’t have to do this. She sold the brewery and now has all  the money she’ll ever need.”

Sharon was named after one her mother’s dolls.

We suspect Bernadette was named after her father’s beers. If true, Bernadette lived up to her name.

St Bernardus beer is world class.

We had ample opportunity to contemplate its subtleties and sophistication.

t Brouwershuis is the only B&B I’ve ever run into which had an open beer policy- at no charge. A mini refrigerator off the living room was always stocked with St Bernardus beer.

One of the Belgian guests informed me of the unstated rule- Have all you want. Just don’t be a jerk.

Not a bad rule. One that, indeed, goes a long way in many situations.

Sitting in the t Brouwershuis’s living room sipping from a glass of St Bernardus, I thought back to the Westvleteren we had recently tasted. St Bernardus measured up. And in many respects was remarkably similar.

As I sorted out later, this was not happenstance. Bernadette’s father, Evariste Deconinck, did some deals with the monks of St. Sixtus Abbey. Probably in that very living room.

As far as which beer was better? There’s a rule in baseball, “Tie goes to the runner.”

The runner in this case, to my mind, is Bernadette and Sint Bernardus.

There is probably only one way to confirm this call though,

Go back, for another round.

Beer list in order of consumption: Popperingr Hommelbier,Vielle Orval, Gouden Carolus Tripel, Hercule Stout, Lindemann’s Faro, Taras Boulba, Affligen Dubbel, Orval, Stouterik, La Chouffe, Chimay Tripel, Cantillion Geuze, Cantillon Lambic, Cantillon Faro, Cantillion Rosede Gambrinus, Oude Goede Tyd, Vieuxtemps, Hoegarden, Bourgogne des Flandres, La Rulles Tripel, Duvel, Delerium Tremens, Malheur 12, Rodenback, Westmalle Dubbel, Oer Bier, Duchess de Bourgogne, Kriek Girardin, Malheur 6, Vicaris Generaal, Dertig, Abbaye des Rocs, Westmalle Dubbel, Moinette, Abdis Bruin, Bush/Dubuisson, Vicaris Tripel, Duivelsbier, St. Feuillien Bruin, Abbay des Rocs, Liefmarrs Kriek (Erasmus Special), Pannepot 2006 Old Monk’s Ale, Rochefort 10, Stout Bie, Moinette, Vicaris General, Vicaris Tripel, Westvleteren Blond, Westvleteren Bruin 8, Westvleteren Bruin 12, St Bernardus Tripel, Watou Tripel, St Bernardus 6, St Bernardus 8, St Bernardus 12, Popperings Hommelbier, Gulden Draak, Ois de Geuze, XX Bitter, Duchesse de Bourgogne, Gueze Girardin, Marriage Parfuit, Hercule Stout