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Tag: BrewDog

BrewDog

Back to the ‘Dams

My little autumn break wasn’t quite over yet, after my Warszawa-Berlin trip, so on Friday I went to both Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

For the long stretch Brussels-Amsterdam, I used up all my Thalys points—mostly earned by filling out questionnaires—for the high speed option. Although officially the company is Eurostar now, my train was still adorned with the Thalys branding.

After my morning commitments—my trip wasn’t all leisure—I stopped at Quartier Putain for a coffee and a piece of apple pie. I’m not sure if that name would go down well in cities where they actually speak French!

By then it was time to discover the newest addition to BrewDog‘s portfolio of bars: BrewDog Amsterdam Centraal! It opened just a week before, when I was about a 1000 km east from here, so I missed the EFP opening, unfortunately… The shipload of EFPs—literally, since they had organised a communal ferry crossing for the opening—didn’t drink the bar dry though, and they even had one beer on draught I hadn’t had yet!

It was only around lunch time, but the bar was packed, the staff seemed to be well-trained, and handled the crowd well. Apart from a couple of beers, I had the Cluck & Satay Skewer. It’s always nice to have something ‘local’ on the food menu of a BrewDog bar!

Just before leaving, I also had a nice chat with franchisee Peter, who seemed to be confident he had found a great location for the bar. I can’t disagree with him: located right within Amsterdam Central Station, it will definitely one I’ll be visiting more often!

From the bar to the train platform was only a couple of minutes’ walk, and soon I was off to my next destination: Rotterdam!

The BrewDog Outpost Rotterdam was the only BrewDog bar in the Benelux participating in this year’s edition of Collabfest, so if I wanted to taste any of the beers, I had to make a stop there. Not every bar get’s all beers, but the selection in Rotterdam was great. As it turns out, it even included the highest rated beer, which was Rotterdam’s own collaboration with the Moersleutel: the K9 Chocolate Stout – Brewdog Rotterdam Outpost Collab!

After trying almost all the Collabfest beers, and a few others, it was time to go back to the gorgeous Rotterdam Central train station, and catch the train home again…

Warszawa & Berlin – Day 6

Last Full Day…

My last day in Berlin started at Town Mouse Coffee with a delicious—and just spicy enough—”Mouse Trap” sourdough toastie (with Emmental, feta, and the house chutney) and a coffee. Always nice to find places like this near my hotel!

From there I went to the Mitte Museum. I usually make a habit of visiting the ‘local’ museum of any city I visit, but Berlin is so huge, it actually made sense to learn more about the ‘Bezirk’ (borough) I’ve always stayed in. Who knew porcelain was so important for Mitte?

My next stop was at the Museum in der Kulturbrauerei, to learn more about East Germany in its communist years. I had been to a museum with the same theme last year, but this one was definitely less touristy and more educational!

For lunch I went to Burgermeister, apparently an institute in Berlin. Not bad, but definitely not the best burger I’ve had…

For my after-lunch coffee I went to Bonanza Coffee.

After a little break at the hotel to recharge, e went to BrewDog Mitte—just two new beers there—and Mikkeller Berlin. I totally forgot about the Mikkeller Running Club, which had a run right when I was there!

Last time I was there, I didn’t spend enough time in Bräugier Brewpub, so I made up for that this time.

For nostalgia’s sake—I grew up in Limburg after all—for dinner I had a classic veal döner kebap at Kebap House—”Best Döner in Prenzlauer Berg” they say themselves—which is a bit different from the Gemüse Kebap with chicken you often find in Berlin…

My very last beer stop in Berlin was at another place with a banging beer list and great service: Manifest Taproom. The perfect end of my beer journey in Berlin…

Warszawa & Berlin – Day 5

Back in Berlin

Although I managed to squeeze in four awesome bars after the hash yesterday, today was my first full day back in Berlin!

I quite fancied the chicken breast bagel at What Do You Fancy Love?, so that was today’s tasty—and slightly messy—breakfast.

I kept my visit to the Futurium rather short since it was—quite literally—overrun by school children…

In the Hackeschen Höfe I stopped for a coffee and cheesecake with an oriental twist at Ben Rahim.

It might not be typically German, but the collection at the Samurai Museum Berlin was very impressive, overwhelmingly so!

For lunch I thought to go to the newish Croissant Couture, but apparently it has only two modes: sold out, or horribly long queues! I did have a hunch this might be the case, so I had a very Berliner backup ready: currywurst at Cult Curry Mitte!

From there I went to BrewDog Friedrichshain. The last time I was there, it was quite late, and I was already a ‘few’ beers in, so I barely remembered what it looked like… Pretty much standard BrewDog though, and with exactly zero beers on draught I hadn’t had yet!

To keep the drinking speed within reason, I did a last coffee and cake stop at 19grams Boxi. Then, to tie me over until the next bar would open, I had one unplanned beer at Straßenbräu, thereby nullifying the effort of having a coffee…

My next bar—I actually planned to go to—was HOME Bar Berlin. There I had a few beers, before going to Haroun for an oriental dinner.

To finish the evening, I met up with friends for beers at Bräugier Ostkreuz, and some more at Protokoll, of course!

BRD: Beer & Running in Deutschland

My Belgian Holiday was interrupted the past long weekend, for a trip to Germany. The main destination was a hostel in Oberwesel, for the German Nash Hash—you know, drinking and running with half-minds from everywhere—but of course I seized the opportunity to make some stops along the way to visit some of the better beer serving establishments…

Thursday

On Thursday morning, I headed to Brussels’ international train station to hop on the direct ICE to Frankfurt am Main, my first stop and final destination for that day as well. At least, that was the plan… However, when I arrived in the train station, my train turned out to be cancelled, or at least its Belgian leg! There was another direct train two hours later, but when I checked with the DB staff at their information booth, they recommended me to make my way to Aachen on Belgian trains, and board the later ICE there, because it might very well suffer the same fate as my originally booked train (it didn’t…). So that’s what I did: a slow train to Verviers, and from there an even slower one to Aachen… Kudos to the NMBS for adding an extra carriage to that train to provide space for all those extra passengers!

As expected, I had to chase someone out of my seat, which I had reserved as soon as I knew I would be on this train. And just as well, since the train was fully booked by the time I arrived in Aachen!

So far, I had only seen the airport train station of Frankfurt, where I’ve had to change trains a couple of times on previous trips, so it was nice to actually see the city this time. Since I would actually spend the night in Frankfurt, I first went to my hotel to check in and drop off my bag.
Because of the two hour delay I had to cancel some planned stops, and started with the important things: crossing off one of the missing German BrewDog bars on my list, BrewDog Frankfurt. Even though the whole Beer Visa thing is on hold until the new version comes out, I had them stamp my booklet, just for the fun of it.

Then I had to get changed for a very peculiar hashing charity event: a Red Dress Run! It’s pretty self-explanatory: all participants dress up in red dresses and skirts and run trail like that, and part of the run fees and money collected on the way go to a good cause, in this case Brustkrebs Deutschland. I thought the term “dress” is a bit restrictive and doesn’t really cover everything that’s being worn by the participants on these runs, so I renamed it to “Red Unbifurcated Garment Run” for myself, while running it in a red kilt, of course!

After the run and obligatory Circle that followed, it was quite late, and by the time I had showered, changed, and made my way to the first craft beer destination that night, it was already 23:30…

Not surprisingly, when I entered Taphouse Frankfurt it was already time for last call.
After taking the tram to the last stop, it was already past midnight, and sure enough, I had already missed last call at Naïv… Luckily they took pity with me, and served me a beer after all. I should definitely revisit both bars earlier though!

Friday

After a nice breakfast at the hotel—fried Leberkäse is really tasty!—I still had some time before I would have to check out. So I went to Bunca Barista for my coffee.

Checked out and bag retrieved, it was then time to get on a train to Wiesbaden, to visit the only German BrewDog bar I hadn’t been to yet, BrewDog Wiesbaden! It was still rather quiet—I arrived only minutes after opening—but they were oh so friendly. I didn’t even had to ask them to stamp my Beer Visa, they were there with the stamp as soon as they noticed the booklet!

From Wiesbaden I had to take the rather touristy and very full MittelrheinBahn train to Oberwesel.

At the Oberwesel train station I was lucky: there was still some space in the shuttle up to the hostel, even though I didn’t book it. Once arrived on top of the hill, I checked in, and German Nash Hash could really start!

Saturday

Most of the Saturday on these Nash Hashes are dedicated to a trail, usually a bit longer than your usual weekly hash. Well, there are usually different lengths available, and such was the case at German Nash Hash too. I had registered for the ‘long’ trail, which would be between 13 and 20 km. On the definite program it was listed as 19 km, but in the end it turned out to 21,5 km, with 709 meters of elevation…

The theme of the evening party was “Bacchanalia”, so I had brought my thirty year old toga—dyed for the occasion—and the linen tunica and caligae I still had from my army reenactment days. I even brought an earthenware poculum to drink my wine from! Yes, wine, since it suited the theme better, and Rheinland-Pfalz is a wine area after all!

Unfortunately—well, it might be for the better—I don’t have any photos of this part of the evening.

Sunday

After a party like that, the Sunday run is of course the Hangover Trail. It was only 4km, with a bubbles stop somewhere in the middle.

After closing Circle it was then time to catch the train to Köln.

In Bierhaus en d’r Salzgass I had some Päffgen Kölsch vom Fass, and Himmel un Ääd (black pudding, fried onions, mashed potato, and apple sauce). I intended to go to some craft beer bars after that, but they all seem to be closed on Sundays… So I just had some more Kölsch instead!

I didn’t have to suffer any cancelled trains for the remainder of the journey, and could just take the direct—albeit delayed—ICE to Brussels.