See, I made a deal with the person who offered me the beer. I would only get to drink it on two strict conditions:

1) That I not publish online what it was or where I drank it.

2) That I name my price, no questions asked.

I couldn’t have agreed to the deal any faster. The beer sounded top-notch, and it more than lived up to my stratospheric expectations. I can safely say that it’s one of the top 5 beers I’ve ever had, and I was really sad to see the bottom of the glass.

Trust me, I’m dying to write all about it. I even took full tasting notes.

But I have to hold up my end of the bargain. So this is the last I’ll say about it online. I’ll be more than happy to share details about it offline, though.

On that note, it’s time to wrap up this multi-part trip recap. Thanks for reading. Big thanks, again, to everyone who shared tips and advice before and during the trip, especially all the nerds on BeerAdvocate. And an extra special thanks to Mrs. Beernerds for letting me indulge my love of beer throughout the trip. She’s obviously a keeper.

One last thing: I’ve got the notes and the Google Maps I put together to guide my beer hunting in Bruges, Brussels, Amsterdam and Paris. If you’re headed that way, let me know and I’ll be happy to share them with you. Leave a comment on this post, or e-mail me: beernerds at gmail dot com.

The restaurant didn’t have much to offer beer-wise, aside from two offerings from Pelforth, a brune and a spring seasonal. I had never heard of the brewery, but I figured it was worth a shot and ordered the Brune. It was pretty decent, sweeter and less complex than the best of the style — it seemed like more of an English brown than a Belgian brune – but still a good beer.

Pelforth Brune

Back in Paris the following day, we had a post-Louvre lunch at a restaurant/bar nearby, Au Trappiste. As its name implies, the place is Belgian-beer friendly. I started with La Trappe Quadrupel, another classic quad. I was happy to be able to drink one, even a fresh one, after the disappointment in Amsterdam.

La Trappe Quadrupel

I didn’t plan on a second beer, but near the end of the meal I noticed a chalkboard advertising their beer of the month, St. Feuillien Biere de Paques (the second Easter beer I had on the trip). I’ve enjoyed the couple of St. Feuillien beers I’ve tasted, so I didn’t hesitate to try their seasonal. It was quite good — bigger, darker, bolder and boozier than I expected for a spring beer (with lighter, refreshing brews such as St. Arnold Spring Bock in mind), but I enjoyed it.

St. Feuillien Biere de Paques

Our last night in Paris (and in Europe), we went back to one of my old haunts, The Frog & Princess, a lively brewpub in the 6th. Even though I wasn’t into craft beer yet, I hung out here a lot when I lived in Paris in 2002. I loved one of their dark beers (back when my favorite beers were Bass and Guinness), and it was a great spot to watch US sports on satellite TV (including NFL and MLB).

When we walked in this time, it looked completely empty, so much so that we weren’t sure they were open. Once we got inside, we noticed two people drinking at the bar, and two bartenders. There were 6 taps and one hand-pulled engine, and I asked the bartender about the latter, in French. We quickly figured out he was from the US (Philly, to be exact), so I asked him about the rest of the lineup in English. He gave me a sample of a couple of beers, before deciding to save us the trouble and giving me a full sampler (and not charging for it).

The 6 beers were:

-FNB (Frog Natural Blonde)

-Maison Blanche

-Ginger Twist

-Parislytic

-Inseine

-Dark de Triomphe

Frog & Princess sampler

None of them were anything special, but they were all decent for their styles. Parislytic seemed like an English brown, with some nice malty sweetness up front, and some disappointing metallic bitterness in the back. Inseine, on the cask engine, was a solid ESB, and Dark de Triomphe a good porter, with plenty of dark roasted malt and a decent body.

After finishing the sampler, I ended up drinking a pint each of the cask ESB and the porter. The bartender, who admitted that he didn’t know much about beer, said the cask ESB seemed to be a favorite with the brewers (who brew on-site 3-4 times a week) and with “beer connoisseurs”. He said their blonde and blanche were their top sellers, unsurprisingly, while the Ginger Twist was becoming something of a flagship brew. I didn’t taste much ginger, but it did have an interesting herbal/spicy bite.

All six beers had a low abv, with the Parislytic clocking in at 5.2%, Dark at 5.0% and the rest between 4-5%. None qualified as true session beers (none were below 4%), but it was still a nice change of pace after a trip full of much bigger and bolder beers.

The first was La Taverne de Cluny, a few blocks from our apartment in the bustling 5th arrondissement. The beer selection was limited but solid, with a handful of Belgian classics leading the way.

I started with a bottle of a French beer I’d never heard of. Well, it’s probably fair to say that I haven’t heard of most French beers, and that there aren’t all that many. But I was intrigued by the bottle of Anosteke from the Brasserie du Pays Flamand, which was advertised as a hoppy seasonal ale. I assumed that this meant “hoppy” in the European sense, which proved to be the case, as it was a bright, saison-ish pale ale with a small but nice hoppy bite.

Anosteke 1

Anosteke 2

There weren’t any more interesting French beers on offer, so I stuck with the refreshing theme and opted for a bottle of Orval, the classic Trappist/wild ale. I’ve had both good and bad Orval (with the bad being so wild/funky that I find it nearly undrinkable), but this was a very good one: bright and thirst-quenching, certainly Bretty but not too much so, with just enough of a hoppy bite.

Orval

That reminds me that I noticed a couple of different places on this trip had two different listings of Orval on their menu: standard Orval, and Orval that was at least 6 months old. I was tempted by the latter, to see what kind of tricks the yeast plays when it’s had some time to age, but I never got around to ordering it. I’ll put it near the top of my list for the next trip.

The next day, we took a break from our sightseeing to get a couple of drinks at Le Sous-Bock, another beer-friendly restaurant/bar, this one in the 1st district, east of the Louvre. Their beer menu was long but relatively uninspiring, with plenty of basic European macro-lagers and even Budweiser (the US one) and Corona.

The one interesting thing on the French page was Oldarki (Biere au Patxaran), a beer from the French Basque country brewed with Patxaran, the traditional Basque plum liqueur. I’ve had Patxaran many times (my family’s Spanish roots include some Basque strains) and it’s quite tasty.

Sadly, this beer wasn’t. It tasted like any number of beers out there that have some sort of artificial additive mixed in with a mediocre base beer. It wasn’t undrinkable, just uninteresting and relatively unappealing. Seemed like a waste of a decent idea. Then again, there are plenty of great beers that feature really nice plum flavors, without having to resort to any post-brewing additions.

Oldarki 1

Oldarki 2

After that letdown, I opted to go back to a reliable favorite: St. Bernardus Abt 12, a classic quad and one of my favorites. It quickly and emphatically washed away the previous beer.

St. Bernardus Abt 12

Leffe Bruin

The following day, we took a break from more serious touristing for a quick lunch-and-beer at De Beiaard in the Spui square. De Beiaard is a chain of restaurant/bars, with this location perfectly situated between a busy square and one of the canals, making it a great people-watching spot as tourists and locals streamed by on foot, bicycle, scooter, tram, car and boat.

Their beer selection was decent, and one thing caught my eye, Hertog Jan Grand Prestige, a quad. I’m a sucker for quads, even ones I’ve never heard of or tried. It’s not necessarily the ideal style for a lunch beer, but I enjoyed it. We were also glad that we were practically on our way out when we noticed a small mouse dashing under a table across the room. That was our cue to leave.

Hertog Jan Grand Prestige 1

Hertog Jan Grand Prestige 2

That night, our final one in Amsterdam, we walked the half-dozen blocks from our hotel to ’t Arendsnest, a very well-regarded bar that prides itself on serving only Dutch beer, and a wide range of it. I came prepared with RateBeer.com’s list of top 50 Dutch beers, and was both thrilled and disappointed to see that the bar had many of them. Thrilled, of course, because I would be able to drink a couple of them, but also disappointed because I knew I couldn’t spend another week or two hanging out there and tasting a bunch more.

Despite the wide range of options, I ended up with two beers from De Molen, a brewery which practically owns the top of that list of great Dutch beers, and which seems to have fully embraced the idea of big and bold beers. I ended up drinking two of their beers, both big and delicious imperial stouts.

The first was De Molen Hel & Verdoemenis, which means Hell and Damnation. It was relatively fresh, bottled 9/16/10 (bottle #785, incidentally), and you could tell. Even though I really liked it, in all its thick, black, motor-oil glory, it was also very big and boozy (10% but tasted bigger). You could tell that a few years would help turn it from a very good beer to a great one.

De Molen Hel & Verdoemenis 1

De Molen Hel & Verdoemenis 2

I followed that up in the only way I could, with another huge stout: De Molen Hemel & Aarde (which means Heaven & Earth). The standard version is a 9.5% imperial stout which the brewery says is “made with the most heavily peated malt in the world from the Bruichladdich distillery”. Well, I didn’t drink the standard version. Instead, I ordered an aged version. Here’s the brewery’s description:

“And still we thought that we could do better! So we barrel aged this beer in Bruichladdich whisky barrels used for the first time in 1972. As a result an unbelievable complex beer with flavours like smoke, vanilla, coffee, chocolate, peat and wood. What’s not there? And the most surprising part is probably the great balance between these flavours. This is why it’s still very easy drinkable. But it’s no beer for those who are just discovering real beers.”

The aging boosts the abv up a tad, to 10%, but it tastes much bigger than that. Bottled on 6/7/10 (bottle #919), this has to go down as the peatiest imperial stout I’ve ever drank. I’m not a Scotch nerd, and on the rare occasions when I do drink Scotch, I think I prefer it less peaty. Still, this beer was delicious. The huge wave of peat up front quickly settled down, so that instead of overwhelming the beer it just led the way to tons of big stout goodness: vanilla, chocolate, smoke, all in a thick, mouth-coating package. It came in a small bottle, just 20cl (I think), which seemed the perfect size to slowly sip this monster. It screamed “cigar beer”, and I don’t smoke cigars at all.

De Molen Hemel & Aarde Bruichladdich Barrel 1

De Molen Hemel & Aarde Bruichladdich Barrel 2

A quick note about the bartender: he was nice and was working hard, but he was also quite clueless, which was disappointing for such a well-regarded beer bar. Both times that I ordered, he pulled out the wrong bottle from the coolers. Fortunately, he showed me the bottles before opening them, so I had a chance to correct him both times.

Also, before ordering the second stout, I tried to order off the vintage menu, which listed (among other very tempting things) 2003, 2004 & 2006 vintages of La Trappe Quadrupel. I asked for the 2003, and he pulled out a fresh bottle instead. I pointed to the vintage section in the menu, but he said they didn’t have any of those beers. I suspected that he just didn’t know where they were, but even if they were simply out of stock, it was disappointing. In the end, though, this was a relatively small annoyance at an otherwise great bar.

Sadly that was the end of our time in Amsterdam, with an early wake-up call and long day of train travel to Paris the next morning. What a way to go out, though. The next time I’m in Amsterdam, I’m going directly to ‘t Arendsnest, and I’ll make sure to have done much more research on Dutch craft beer.

Our hotel happened to be 4 doors down from one of the more respected beer bars in town, Bierproeflokaal In de Wildeman. It was an obvious first stop.

“Proeflokaal” means “tasting room”. In de Wildeman, despite being right in the middle of the bustling nightlife scene in the heart of Amsterdam, seemed very much a locals place. When we walked in on a Monday night, there was a smallish, older crowd tucked into the small table areas, and a couple of people standing at the low bar. It sounds funny, but that’s how it works – the bar is low, maybe waist-high, with no bar stools or seats, so people stand there and hang out.

I didn’t know what to target here, and their wide selection (with a chalkboard listing ~25 seasonals and rarities) gave me a ton from which to choose. I finally opted for a 2009 Kasteel Cuvee de Chateau on draft, a dark Belgian ale with a thick creamy head and nice boozy kick.

Kasteel Cuvee de Chateau

For my next beer, I asked the bartender for suggestions, and he pointed out the Flying Dog 25^th Anniversary Farmhouse IPA. At first I worried that it might be a different name for the Raging Bitch Belgian-style IPA, which is a very good beer but which was also readily available in Houston. But the bartender assured me that it was a beer that Flying Dog brewed specifically for the bar’s anniversary. That certainly made it worthy, and I’m glad I drank it. It was the only saison-style beer that I had on the trip, and also the only hoppy IPA that I drank, making it a very nice, refreshing departure, with the added bonus that it was a well-done, interesting blend of the two styles.

Flying Dog / In de Wildeman 25th Anniversary Farmhouse IPA

With Mrs. Beernerds still working on her sweet lambic, I ordered a third beer: De Ranke XX Bitter. I had heard good things about it, and I very nearly ordered it at Chez Moeder Lambic in Brussels, before the waiter recommended a different offering from the same brewery, the Noir de Dottignies. It made sense here, as a follow-up to a hoppy saison, and it held up very nicely. It seemed like an interesting mix between a classic English ESB and a hoppy American pale ale, with just a touch of Belgian yeast to round it out.

It was the third and final De Ranke beer that I drank on the trip, and I must say that the brewery really impressed me. We don’t get their stuff in Texas, and I’m not sure we get it in the US, but it’s well worth seeking out.

De Ranke XX Bitter

Traditional lambics are sour. Cantillon brews their lambics through 100% spontaneous natural fermentation, which means the yeast that feeds the brewing process is literally wild, atmospheric yeast. This timely post from Jester King does a much better job than I could describing this kind of traditional farmhouse brewing.

Back to Cantillon. The brewery is in Brussels proper, walking distance from the touristy areas and the town square (Grand Place), tucked into a warehouse in a very urban part of town. Their website has a great feature which I was glad I caught before the trip: a scenic walking tour of Brussels that begins in the Grand Place and ends at the brewery. We followed that route to Cantillon, enjoying the sights and the history along the way.

When you walk into the brewery, you feel like you’re being transported, if not necessarily back in time (they have some modern equipment standing alongside their old stuff), then most certainly to a completely different place. You don’t feel like you’re in the big city any more.

After a short introduction from one of the staffers, you take a self-guided tour of the brewery, with nothing off limits. It’s pretty amazing, really, that you’re able to just walk around from room to room – from the small but relatively modern bottling room; to the copper- and stainless-steel-lined fermentation room; to the bottle room were thousands of unlabeled bottles lay on their sides, stacked practically to the ceiling; to the huge, dark and dingy barrel room, where dozens and dozens of wooden barrels store lambic in various stages of development, aging and blending.

Cantillon’s brewing philosophy is to let nature do the work. That goes for the wild yeast, obviously, but it also explains all the cobwebs and bugs you find throughout the warehouse. As the tour brochure says, any sort of pesticide would interfere with the natural fermentation, so they don’t worry about the bugs – the spiders and their webs will take care of them.

At the end of your self-guided tour, you get small servings of two of their beers. We got two half-glasses of gueuze (a blend of young and old lambic), and then one half-glass each of a raspberry and a cherry lambic. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I don’t love sour beers, although I do like them more every time I try them. Regardless, you can’t help appreciating the way this stuff is made, and drinking these expressions side-by-side really helped me notice the subtle differences. Even the “fruity” expressions aren’t that fruity. They use 100% real, fresh fruit, which is added to already-brewed natural lambic, kicking off secondary fermentation. The result isn’t an overwhelming cherry or raspberry or white grape flavor, but instead it’s subtle notes of fruit and a noticeable but not artificial change in color.

I could go on and on about the place. It was remarkably interesting, and I have to echo the thought that, if you’re in Brussels and you like beer, you simply must visit Cantillon.

One final note – Chez Moeder Lambic (the Fontainas location) is walking distance from Cantillon, situated between the brewery and the tourist center of town. We visited the two places on different days, but I can’t imagine a better way to dedicate a day to beer than by visiting the brewery, and then stopping at CML afterwards for a world-class beer or three.

Near the start of the tour

Mash room #1

Mash room #2

Mash room #3

Fermentation room #1

Fermentation room #2

Storage room

Barrel room #1

Barrel room #2

Barrel room #3

Bottling equipment display

Close-up of bottling display

Bottling room

Bottling line & bottle storage

Hundreds of bottles aging

A glass of gueuze after the tour, gift shop in the background

The bar

Gueuze & guidebooks

Two-for-one lambics...

Raspberry & cherry lambic (not necessarily in that order)

The first bar we visited was A La Mort Subite, a 1920s beer hall a few blocks from the town square. It has long wooden benches all along the walls and really high ceilings, giving the impression that it could be a raucous good time when there are a lot of people there (that’s what the reviews say, too). We were there in the middle of the workday, however, and it was nearly empty.

Their selection is limited but relatively impressive, and they also brew their own traditional lambic. I originally intended to try that, but a sign advertising their seasonal tap caught my eye:  De Dolle Brouwers Bos Keun Biere de Paques. It’s De Dolle’s spring seasonal (“Paques” means Easter), a bright, fruity pale Belgian ale. I enjoyed it, although I must admit that it was relatively unremarkable, and without taking notes I’m struggling to remember much else about it.

De Dolle Bos Keun

The other Brussels beer bar we visited couldn’t have been much more different: Chez Moeder Lambic, a newish, modern bar on a small square next to one of the main streets in town. What it lacked in historic charm, however, it more than made up for with great beer.

The long list of draft beer, displayed on chalkboards along the walls, was very impressive. After much deliberation, I opted for a Val-Dieu Grand Cru, a big, delicious quad. The waiter also helped us pick a beer for Mrs. Beernerds, as I told him that she liked sweet lambics as opposed to sour ones. That meant we didn’t try any of their extensive list of Cantillon beers, but she was happy with his selection.

Our first round came with a small bowl of tasty malted barley to chew on, which I slowly enjoyed over the course of a couple of hours. A really nice touch, I thought.

Val-Dieu Grand Cru & some malt to snack on

I hadn’t drunk any cask beers on the trip thus far, so I went with a Cuvee de Ranke on cask for my next one. Yep, another sour. I’m not nearly at the point where I can fully appreciate nuances in sours, but I think it’s a good sign that I’m knowingly ordering them and, most importantly, enjoying them more and more.

Cuvee De Ranke

When I ordered, the waiter made sure to ask if I knew what it was like, and I assured him I knew what I was in for. It was a nice touch – the crew at Anvil often does the same thing when you order a sour there – and I think non-nerds would appreciate the warning if they haven’t had a sour before.

I hadn’t even looked at the bottle menu yet, and once I finally did I was very impressed. There was no Westvleteren, but there were dozens and dozens of interesting options, including plenty of aged beers and some really tempting Mikkeller beers (standard and barrel-aged 1000 IBU, plus standard Beer Geek Brunch Weasel and two barrel-aged versions, each featuring a different scotch). There was even a page for, loosely translated, “Beers that the Gods drink”, a handful of aged bottles priced at 150-200 euros.

The Mikkeller offerings

The waiter must have noticed I was having a hard time deciding, so he struck up a conversation. He asked me what I liked and I responded that I was willing to try anything good. So he rephrased the question, asking me what style I would pick if I had to drink just one, and I told him I love dark Belgians, dubbels and quads especially. He suggested De Ranke Noir de Dottignies on draft, and he hit the nail on the head. It wasn’t a huge abbey-style ale, just a really tasty dark Belgian with a lot of fruity malt and a surprising amount of non-bitter coffee flavors.

De Ranke Noir de Dottignies

Before we left, the waiter asked how long we were in Brussels, and we told him just the one day. He said we absolutely had to hit Cantillon, which echoed what we had heard from many sources. That definitely sealed the deal, and we made Cantillon our main target for the next morning.

I walked past Erasmus on the way to a generic Irish pub to watch a soccer game, while Mrs. Beernerds took a nap in the hotel. When I saw the cellar menu I just had to stop in, and I luckily had about 40 minutes before kickoff.

My timing – it was the middle of the afternoon – was perfect, and when I walked in I was the only customer in the place. I asked the waiter if it was OK to sit down for a beer, and he gave me the green light and their beer menu. One bottle immediately jumped out at me: De Dolle Stille Nacht 1986. I had read about Stille Nacht (Silent Night) before, and since this was the first time I had ever seen a 25-year-old beer for sale, I quickly ordered it.

The waiter pointed out that the beer was in their cellar, meaning it would not be cold. I appreciated the warning, but was obviously even more excited about this beer, especially as I had never before been to a place with a true cellar.

De Dolle Stille Nacht 1986

Since I was drinking alone, I took full tasting notes. Here they are, mostly unedited:

Reddish caramel, bright and clear. No head on the pour, tiny bubbly ring. Body is fizzier than it looks, but still quite smooth and somewhat full. Smells of sweet port, prune juice, some leather and booze. Candied sugar, hint of spice. Fruity, dry, a touch of sneaky sour in the back, finishes somewhat ashy/dirty. Surprisingly smooth despite the obvious heft (12%). I like the smell slightly better than the taste, if only because I don’t love the sour touch in the back. But I don’t mind it either. Really interesting, certainly enjoyable too.  A sipper for sure. Could smell it for days too. Careful pour from waiter left 1/5th of the bottle behind. I poured that into the empty glass, predictably sludgy with lots of floaters.

I would have loved to savor it for a while longer, but kickoff was fast approaching. I paid (9.50 euros, which I thought was a very good deal), and rushed off to the pub, where a bottle of Duvel and a pint of Guinness kept me company through the game.

Later that night, we went to another truly great beer bar, ‘t brugs Beertje. It’s small (with room for ~20 people in the front room, maybe 10 people at the bar, and another 15 in the back room), meaning it’s one of those European places where you and your neighbors are pretty cozy. It wasn’t far removed from the main square, and even though our immediate neighbors were Italian and Scandinavian, and the loud conversation at the bar was in English, it felt like a locals place. The walls and ceiling were covered in a wide range of beer signs and nostalgic paraphernalia, which was very cool.

From the extensive menu, I quickly picked out a Rodenbach Grand Cru, a classic Flanders red. Many of you know I’m not a huge fan of sour beers, but they’ve been growing on me. Plus, I was dead-set on taking advantage of the opportunity to try beers such as this one, even though I knew I probably wouldn’t love it.

Rodenbach Grand Cru

The Rodenbach Grand Cru reminded me somewhat of my “gateway” sour, Petrus Aged Pale (a Flanders Oud Bruin), although there are some key differences since they’re slightly different styles. The Grand Cru is darker, with vinegar and cherries at the forefront. Sour is the name of the game, though. I enjoyed it, and would love to drink it again.

While I was working on that, Mrs. Beernerds had ordered her first sour, Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus. We didn’t expect her to love it, but she wanted to at least try some traditional lambics, if only to compare them to the sweetened lambics that she enjoys. As expected, this wasn’t up her alley, or mine for that matter. But I was thrilled to finally taste a Cantillon brew, and it certainly wouldn’t be our last. You’ll hear all about Cantillon and traditional lambics in a couple of days.

Rodenbach Grand Cru (left) & Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus

Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus

For my last beer in Bruges, I opted for another vintage selection, this time of a beer I’ve had before: a 2008 De Struise Pannepot Reserva. I’m a huge fan of De Struise, and this is one of my favorites. It’s a big, dark, oak-aged old ale with plenty of character, and it’s one of those old ales that really feels and tastes “old”, and I mean that in a good way.

2008 De Struise Pannepot Reserva

2008 De Struise Pannepot Reserva

I didn’t have access to my notes, so I couldn’t compare my impressions with the fresher bottle I drank previously. But it was a very good beer, and a worthy finale after two great days in Bruges.

This was not one of those places. 2be is a tiny bar overlooking one of the canals in Bruges, and we found it somewhat by accident. It’s at the end of a small alley, one side of which is lined with beer and beer paraphernalia. Across from that “Wall of Beer”, a couple of steps lead down to a curious, dark room, empty save for lighted beer displays along the walls. At the end of the alley is a small bar – big enough to hold maybe 20 people – with a handful of taps and an impressive bottle selection on the shelves.

"Wall of Beer"

Basement beer display #1

Basement beer display #2

Basement beer display #3

To the right of the bar is a cool wraparound balcony overlooking the water, with plenty of seating space and a lovely view of the town. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hang out there, so we got drinks.

The bottles behind the bar were very tempting, but most of those beers are readily available in Texas. The others, sadly, were 750ml bottles, far too much for me to drink solo. I asked the bartender for a recommendation, and she suggested Anker-Bok on draft. It was OK, decent but unremarkable. The setting, though, more than made up for it, and we enjoyed the 30 minutes or so we spent there.

Our next stop was probably my favorite bar of the entire trip: Staminee de Garre. It’s a tiny place, with room for maybe 30 people split between the downstairs bar area and a room upstairs. It’s relatively hidden, down a really narrow alleyway just off a heavily trafficked pedestrian street near the main square. You simply wouldn’t find it if you weren’t looking for it. We were looking for it, and we had very detailed directions/descriptions thanks to the nerds at BA, but we still managed to walk past both the alley and the bar itself, before climbing the stone steps into the bar.

The tiny alley that leads to Staminee de Garre

The stone steps leading up to Staminee de Garre

It oozes old-world charm, and when you walk in you just know people have been drinking great beer there since well before you were born. It’s quaint and dark, yet still somewhat lively. Simply put, it’s an awesome place to drink a beer.

The bar at Staminee de Garre

Staminee de Garre

Speaking of beer, they have about 6 taps and a bottle menu that I didn’t really examine. That was because the must-drink beer here is the house tripel, Tripel van der Garre, on draft. It’s not really called that, at least not in practice – you simply order the “house beer”. It lived up to the hype. It’s delicious, a complex yet refreshing tripel, dangerously drinkable given the 10.5% abv. You could say all of those same exact things about Duvel (8.5%), of course, and that’s some great company for this beer. It would make a really interesting side-by-side, but the Van Der Garre Tripel stands up very well on its own.

Lindemans Pecheresse (left), Tripel Van De Garre

Mrs. Beernerds had her favorite beer of the trip here, Lindemans Pecheresse (their peach lambic) on draft. She dislikes most beer, but loves sweet lambics such as this one, and she said it tasted even better (sweeter and less “beery”) than it does back home. Unsurprisingly, she would drink more of it throughout the trip.

This obviously wasn’t a beer trip per se – that whole “honeymoon” thing – but I couldn’t travel to Europe without tracking down some great beer.

So, instead of clogging up Twitter timelines with a couple hundred (or more) posts on the trip, I’m bringing the blog out of retirement. Over the next few days, I’ll post recaps of the beery parts of the trip.

Of the 35 or so beers that I sampled, I only took full tasting notes of two. I didn’t want Mrs. Beernerds to spend chunks of the trip watching me type into my phone. Still, I jotted down what I drank and where I drank it, and took pictures of just about every brew.

Whenever possible, I made a point to drink beers that we can’t get in Texas. I was armed with a couple of lists of breweries/beers/vintages to look out for, and I happily found a few of my top targets. I think I only ordered “blindly” (meaning, without any prior research/knowledge of the brewery and/or the beer) a handful of times.

There were also couple of times that, after drinking something new but underwhelming, I fell back to an old favorite, and I made sure those occasions were worthy (a great beer from the region) and rare.

I also drank a half-dozen pints of Guinness. Man United played three times during the trip and, inevitably, the places I tracked down to watch the games were Irish-style pubs with limited beer selection. No complaints, though; Guinness was my first favorite beer and, when short of good alternatives, I’m happy to have it as my fall-back beer.

Without further ado, here’s the first installment. We flew from Houston to Paris, but that same morning we took a series of trains to the beautiful medieval town of Bruges.

Cambrinus was our first bar of the trip, and even our first real meal of the trip. It’s a modern gastropub-style establishment, apparently named after Gambrinus, “a legendary king of Flanders, and an unofficial patron saint of beer”. It was surprisingly quiet when we walked in on a Friday afternoon. It’s no more than 1.5 blocks off Bruges’ famous main square, which seems to be swarmed with tourists at all hours, but even that slight distance made Cambrinus a perfect place to sit down for a quiet, hearty meal, and for two truly great beers.

The beer menu was more of a beer book, with a wooden cover and over a dozen pages of beers sorted somewhat by style: general Belgian ales, lambics, Trappists, and a couple of other sections. I would have loved to study it more closely, but my advance research gave me no choice but to go straight to the Trappist beers, where I was thrilled to see a section for Westvleteren, listing the 12 (quad), 8 (dubbel) and blonde.

The beer menu at Cambrinus

An aside on Westvleteren: It’s a traditional Trappist brewery (brewing began in 1838), and to this day the monks brew the beer themselves, onsite. Despite the acclaim that continually comes their way – Westy 12 is BeerAdvocate’s top-rated beer in the world, with the 8 ranked 15th on the same list, and the blonde ranked 39th among Belgian beers – the monks have resisted any efforts to commercialize their beer. As a result, they brew very limited quantities (only enough to pay the bills) and the beer is extremely hard to find.

This would not be my first taste of Westvleteren, as I had managed to score 4 bottles of the 12 on the De Struise web store early last year. Until recently, the only way to buy any Westy online was from people reselling it, for top dollar naturally. That changed a bit when Westvleteren partnered with the online De Struise store to sell very limited quantities of the former’s beer. I managed to get my hands on four bottles of Westy 12 last year. I drank one immediately, traded a second, and am aging the last 2 bottles.

I tweeted my reactions to that bottle of 12, and to sum up, it was a letdown.

Undaunted by that initial disappointment, at Cambrinus I didn’t hesitate to order the 12 right off the bat (the ~9 euro price tag didn’t put me off either). This fresh bottle of Westvleteren 12 (the cap read 11.02.14) was very good. I love quads, and this was pretty close to how I imagine the perfect quad – dark and sweet, fruity and malty, a bit spicy, with a kick from the alcohol and the yeast, and full-bodied with just a touch of Belgian-style fizz.  My only complaint was that this bottle was still hot, and tasted boozier than I expected. If nothing else, that makes me even more excited to age my 2 remaining bottles for a while longer.

Westvleteren 12

Westvleteren 12 cap

By starting the trip with what many people consider the best beer on the planet, I knew there was nowhere to go but down. I didn’t go too far down, though, as I stuck with the same brewery and ordered the 8, a dubbel. I briefly considered going with something different, but I didn’t want to risk missing out on something so rare. My research said a couple of other places on our itinerary might have Westy, but this was the only sure thing. As it turned out, I didn’t see it advertised anywhere else, so I made the right call.

The 8 was, unsurprisingly, also very good. Dubbels and quads tend to be very similar – I sort of see dubbels as turned-down quads, or quads as amped-up dubbels. This was the case here, with the two beers a lot more similar than they were different. That went for the booziness too – the two bottles were about the same age (the cap on the 8 read 21.01.14), and like the 12 before it, the 8 was a bit hot. It was still a great beer, though, and I would love to get my hands on a bottle or 4 to age.

Westvleteren 8

Westvleteren 8 cap

I would have loved to spend a few more hours at Cambrinus to fully explore their menu, or simply to stare at the hundreds of bottles behind the bar. But with the meal finished and the two bottles of high-octane beer in me, it was time to explore Bruges.