Craft beer and live music make for a great combination!
I thoroughly enjoyed being at Razernij again, a beer and music festival I had only been able to visit once before. Usually it coincides with BXLBeerFest, but since that sadly was eventually cancelled this year, it freed up some of my time to spend an afternoon in Rumst.
I brought my own version of a ploughman’s platter, to soften the blow of the alcohol a bit. It helped… a bit!
Every once in a while, I run out of frozen meals—prepared by myself earlier, of course—and even Too Good To Go can’t provide me with a suitable meal in time for an upcoming night shift. In those rare cases, I do like a good delivery dinner, but the amount of disposable packaging it usually comes in, can be a real turn-off…
Luckily, SwapBox is now active in Brussels as well, and my favourite Korean fried chicken supplier—Nom Pow—is one of the participating restaurants!
After I’m done, I simply take the bowl home to clean it, and as long as I hand it in a at one of the participating restaurants—so not necessarily the one where I ordered the dish—within two weeks, it won’t cost me anything extra.
The order did still come in a disposable paper bag, though, so I do hope SwapBox will soon add delivery bags to their lineup as well, to make a food delivery truly zero-waste!
The napkin and chopsticks are my own, by the way, and both probably well over thirty years old!
While I’m still awaiting my second vaccination, I continue discovering places in Belgium I haven’t been yet. One that had been on my to-do list for a long time, was the Archéosite d’Aubechies-Beloeil, a site with some archaeological reconstructions from the Neolithicum until the Roman era. I was of course most interested in the latter bit…
So, after an hour on a train, fifteen minutes on a bus, and then another twenty-five minutes on foot, I was finally there!
The outside of the buildings looked nice enough—the temple really reminded me of the time I worked as a volunteer ‘archeotolk’ at Archeon—but unfortunately the inside mostly seems to have been adapted for modern use, like exhibitions and events.
If I ever have a garden, I definitely want a summer triclinium like that!
I’ve started running a little over a year ago, but didn’t have an opportunity to participate in any events: the 20K of Brussels was postponed, then cancelled, and even the ‘corona safe’ Run for Nature in the Sonian Forest was cancelled last minute…
When Brewery Run popped up in my timeline, I just had to do it! Travelling to the Netherlands for one of the ‘live’ versions still wasn’t an option, but at least I could do the ‘Virtual Edition’ right at home, in Brussels. So I ordered a ‘ticket’—which included some Dutch beers and a medal/bottle opener—and set out a nice 10K route, visiting eight of Brussels’ breweries.
When in 2020 all bars had to close their doors mere days before Saint Patrick’s Day, I didn’t celebrate it at all. For this year’s edition it was already clear well in advance that celebrating in pubs again wouldn’t be an option… At least I had time to prepare for an alternative this time!
I started the day with a walk—in my saffron kilt—past a lot of the Irish and Celtic pubs of Brussels. Even Manneken Pis was dressed for the occasion!
When I was back home, I started cooking a traditional Irish dish, that would hopefully also provide enough sustenance for the beery night that would ensue: colcannon. I even poached an egg for the first time!
The main event of the evening however, was an online Saint Patrick’s Day celebration which I co-hosted, on the Discord server I set up for my beer blog. For this occasion I sourced some beers from a couple of different Irish (Third Barrel, Galway Bay, Stone Barrel) and Northern Irish (Boundary) breweries, and the only Irish dry stout by a Brussels brewery: Stouterik!
Sláinte!
