(Apologies, I don't know what blogger is doing with this background colour, I can't seem to fix it)
Wow, I have really gotten behind in blogging lately. Things were quite busy in May and I was away multiple weekends. One weekend was spent just south of Paris at the HEC business school as they host the annual MBAT - MBA Tournament for business schools in Europe. I believe close to 100 people from RSM attended and competed in the sports and participated heavily in the partying. Needless to say, it was an exhausting weekend of sports and parties.
The next weekend Mark, a good ISU friend, arrived from Canada for a much anticipated Beer-grimage trip to Belgium and The Netherlands. We had met up in Vancouver in the fall and discussed this trip over some good beers and it all finally came together. I'll summarize the trip below but all the photos can be found here.
Bruxelles
We drove to Brussels on Saturday after our kind chauffeur and official photographer (Tiffany, who works with Tyler) picked us up. We actually had to meet Mark in Brussels at the hotel due to unfortunate circumstances with his flights (we were supposed to meet him in Amsterdam the day before). We were staying at the Ibis right near Grand Place, so were right in the middle of the centre. We had lunch in a cute, but touristy, cafe on Grand Place, enjoying our first beers of the beer-grimage (kriek for Mark and Tyler). The smell of fresh paint and cigars couldn't lower our spirits for the adventure ahead.
Later we walked in quite a strange route (thanks Google), through the likely lesser known and definitely less touristy parts of Brussels to the Cantillion brewery. This brewery is the only one that actually produces lambic beers naturally (without adding anything or doing things to speed up the process). When they make the beer, they do not add any yeast, but allow the wort to be exposed in a large open tub where the wild yeasts present in the air come in through the windows - this is called spontaneous fermentation. They then let the beers ferment in the bottles for 3 years before selling. We toured the brewery, which had all sorts of old crazy equipment and cobwebs everywhere, and enjoyed their beer. We tasted the geueze, kriek, and lambic.
On the way back we went to the Biertempel beer store, which I think has more beer variety than the De Man van Drank beer store in Rotterdam. Mark managed to find a couple of bottles of Westvleteren 12, which were hidden behind the counter, but resisted buying anything else. In the evening we met up with another ISUer who lives in Brussels, Rene, and had dinner at La Folie, a Belgian restaurant near the centre. It was very nice to catch up and have a tasty dinner, but Mark was super jet-lagged and we ended up having an early evening.
Trappist Breweries
The main point of the trip was to visit all 7 Trappist Breweries, and taste as much at the breweries as possible. However, we actually hadn't done much planning ahead and we needed to book well in advance if we wanted to purchase beer at some of the breweries. So we ended up driving to as many of them as possible and touring the monasteries when possible.
Westvleteren/St. Sixtus
This was the first stop as it was the most important to visit ('C' on the map below). This beer is quite possibly the best in the world (and it has been rated so). We were extremely lucky as it was a beautiful day and we were able to sit outside on their beautiful patio (think Naramata or Napa Valley winery style, but in the middle of nowhere), eating their delicious food and cheese and tasting all of their beers. We started with the Blonde then had the 8 and 12. Atmosphere, food and beer were all excellent, I would highly recommend visiting.
After leaving St. Sixtus, we attempted to stay at a beach hotel in Oostende, but quickly realized that the entire country of Belgium had decided to visit the seaside town that weekend. Unfortunately, we had to drive east for about 2 hours, calling hotels as we drove, before we found a hotel that was available. But, it was the cutest hotel (Hotel Astoria) in Ghent, and the town itself was great. We had a Thai dinner and then tried out a little pub nearby (Tyler and Mark had Rodenbach), but since it was Sunday evening there wasn't much happening. Monday morning we explored the centre before leaving and I'd agree with those that say Ghent/Gent is a hidden gem in Europe. I'd like to go back and explore more.
Chimay
We drove very far south to Chimay ('F' on the map below). We weren't able to visit the brewery, but did have a delicious lunch on the beautiful patio at Notre Dame de Scourment, their cafe, overlooking cow pastures. The beer was great and I particularly enjoyed their special beer that you can only drink at the brewery cafe. We visited the abbey grounds and church as well, which was enormous and gorgeous too.
Orval
Rochefort
We stopped in the town of Rochefort ('H') and attempted to drive to the monastery, but there was some sort of crazy parade and our GPS couldn't figure out how to get us to the other side of the town without running down the people in costumes on horses. Eventually, through trial and error, our sense of direction got us there and it was a quick stop to just look at the outside of the building and church. We could peak at the copper piping inside the windows of the brewery. We ended up having dinner in Rochefort (which appears to be a bit of a holiday town) at an Italian pizza place called San Marino (huge portions). Then we started the long drive back to Rotterdam/Amsterdam.
La Trappe
Tyler and Mark managed to take the train the next day to visit La Trappe ('J'), which is the only Trappist Brewery in the Netherlands. They had a delicious meal (beef stew with monk's bread) and some good beer, I'm told (they highly recommend the Bockbier).
View Larger Map
Next we cut through France to get to Orval ('G' on the map). It consisted of huge buildings at the monastery, right on a beautiful little lake. It was possible to buy beer there and to take a tour of the grounds, but we declined to do both and just had a quick beer at the cafe at the bottom of the hill from the brewery. We were running short on time and had to hit at least one more brewery before heading back to Rotterdam.
In the end, they missed out on Achel and Westmalle, which is not so bad considering the distance traveled in 3 days.
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