Beer Travel – Brussels Part 1

Eureka, and happy New Year. I wish you all a prosper 2013. I would like to start with some experiences of my latest visit to Brussels, Belgium. The days after Christmas are always a good opportunity for me to visit an European city and luckily for me Brussels is only a 60 min flight away… (sorry guys). I have been in Brussels two times already and it was time for another one. The first part will cover some general information about Brussels, the second one some beer related information and the third one will be about a specific brewery based in Brussels. More about this particular brewery later on. The pictures in all the Brussels posts are courtesy of my brother

Fig 1: Houses at the Grand Place with the Belgian brewers guild (the one with the horse on the top)

Fig 2: Buildings of the European Commission complexes

Brussels as the capital of Belgium and chair of the European Commission (executive of the European Union) is not only worth a visit if you are interested in architecture (Fig 1 and 2) but also for beer or comics. Luckily for me I am evenly interested in beer and comics… The old city of Brussels is very beautiful and is definitely worth a visit (Fig 1).

Fig 3: Atomium located in the North of Brussels

In 1958 Brussels hosted the world exhibition and built the well-known Atomium (Fig 3) which symbolizes an elementary cell of iron. Other town landmarks for Brussels are the fountain with the little boy releasing himself called Manneken Pis (Fig 4) or the Royal Palace (Fig 5).

Fig 4: Manneken Pis

Fig 5: Royal Palace in Brussels

I could go on and on… Brussels is such an interesting and vivid city. A lot of people speak English so no worries. In fact this is true for most of the European cities I visited so far. However, if you speak French it is much easier to speak to people in Belgium. The food was very good as well and the Belgian beers, well, are just incredible. But there are some mainstream beers (Lagers) in Belgium as well. So not every Belgian beer is great!

Fig 6: Belgian Beer

I was very surprised how easy it is to get some very good beers in Brussels. The very first beer I had was from Rodenbach. Even a lot of souvenir shops sell a broad selection of Belgian beers (Fig 7) at a very low price: St. Bernardus Abt 12 in a 0.33 L bottle for 2.50 euros (roughly 3.3 USD)… or even Cantillon’s Rosé de Gambrinus for 5.5 euros (7.3 USD). And all the restaurants I visited had a broad selection of Belgian beers in their menu. To top it all, I bought myself a tax-free beer gift box at the airport. I do not remember another airport where they sell beer in the tax-free shops. Very cool!

Fig 7: Belgian beer selection in a souvenir shop

I guess most of my readers are interested in beer related information about Brussels and the mysterious brewery we visited. The next post will be solely about beer bars, beer shops, beer museums…

Oh, if you ever go to Brussels pack an umbrella… Rain is very common here in Europe.