Tag: food

My Belgian Summer Holiday – Ghent

Published on 9 August 2023

One of the last destinations with my Off-Peak Unlimited train ticket, was Ghent. I originally planned to go there on a Thursday, but I was unexpectedly called in to work, but this Wednesday was the only full free day I had, and all the bars I intended to go to, seemed to be open.

However, I didn’t check the museums, and as it turns out, Wednesday is a closing day for most museums in Ghent… So after walking to STAM, the city museum of Ghent, in vain, my first stop was then Koffeine, for some coffee and cheesecake.

A bit earlier than planned, I then continued my sunny and scenic walk to Dok Brewing Company for my first beers of the day. This taproom was actually the only one of my beer stops open this early, so I took my time to enjoy my beers, while waiting to move on to the a new bar.

Well, Café De Welkom might be new, but it used to be Brouwbar before. Now it is kind of the city centre taproom of Dok Brewing Company, and they completely overhauled the place. There are considerably fewer taps with beer here than in the actual brewery taproom, so if you’re keen on trying new beers, it’s best to go to the centre bar before you head over to the docks…

For dinner I went to Faja Lobi, originally a Surinamese restaurant, but over the years several cultures and styles have influenced the menu. But put anything with peanut sauce on the menu, and I’ll have that! So I had the chicken satays with spicy peanut sauce, with rice and salad. The drink I had with it was dawet, a quite tasty coconut milk based drink.

I then passed by Huzaar, which would have been another new bar for me, but it was unfortunately closed for some reason, so that discovery will have to wait until another time. Inevitably the next and last bar then was Bar Beenhouwer, with a banging beer list as usual!

From there I walked back to the station, to go home. Just one more mini-trip to go!

BRD: Beer & Running in Deutschland

Published on 6 August 2023

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.

My Belgian Summer Holiday – Bruges

Published on 25 July 2023

So today I went to Disneyland… Oh wait, no, to Bruges! Although the amount of tourists didn’t differ much… Seriously, when I got off the train, hordes of tourists went the same direction, like they wanted to get on the same ride as me…

Somehow, I did manage to shake most of them off, and I had a relatively tourist free coffee and cake at Li O Lait.

After that, my first stop was at the Gruuthuse museum, home to majestic tapestries, colourful stained-glass windows, elegant wooden sculptures, historic lace, Burgundian manuscripts and Chinese porcelain. Most interesting of all, were the private access way to the adjacent church, and the loggia with a great view of the city.

The Volkskundemuseum (Folk Museum), gave some insights about ordinary daily life in Bruges in the 19th and early 20th century.

After that little trip to the past, the first been stop was at De Garre, which was remarkably hard to find, especially considering I had been there before!

Easier to find, and definitely less touristy—but stil fully booked—was Café Rose Red, where they always have some interesting beers on the menu.

After that I went underground to have some beers at Le Trappiste.

By that time I really needed to eat something… My originally planned venue, and even my first backup turned out to be closed, but prepared as I usually am, I had a second backup—Cropains— where I had a tasty chicken and bacon wrap for dinner.

Then there was still one place to visit, one that had been on my list for quite a long time: De Kelk. Their beer list is excellent, and I could easily have spent the rest of the night here, but I didn’t want to risk stranding somewhere in Flanders… So after having some of the best beers on the menu, I made my way back to the station, and home.

My Belgian Summer Holiday – HOPZ!

Published on 22 July 2023

So I originally didn’t plan to post something about this day trip to a beer festival. However, this festival—HOPZ!—turned out to be quite different from many others…

For starters, it was a bit further away—all the way in Hamont, the very end of a train line—necessitating a train change, which can be quite risky… (I might post about my Van Moll Fest adventure after all, to illustrate this point)

But secondly, it wasn’t the kind of beer festival where you meet the same persons you meet at every beer festival. I actually didn’t see a single familiar face! Some of the attending breweries were familiar though, but from at least half of the breweries present, I hadn’t tried a single beer yet.

Most of the breweries present were Belgian, although there were some Dutch breweries and one German brewery as well.

Quite a pleasant surprise was their glass cleaning policy: just go back to the bar where you received your glass initially, and you’ll get a freshly cleaned and rinsed glass each time you hand in your dirty glass!

They published their beer list well in advance, so I knew there would be plenty of new beers to try. Most of the beers on my list were above 7% ABV though, so it was quite a challenging list to get through…

With the help of some snacks, I did survive it though, and eventually successfully got on the train I intended to take. I even managed to not miss the train change in Antwerp Berchem! Having a peanut sauce soaked dinner probably helped…

My next day trip: Bruges!

My Belgian+ Summer Holiday – Lille

Published on 20 July 2023

So today’s trip was to Lille, called Rijsel in Dutch, or in this case more correctly, in Flemish. Because although technically Lille is not in Belgium—hence the “+” in the title of this post—it’s in Flanders nevertheless. Lille is in French Flanders to be exactly, which used to be a part of the historical County of Flanders. While it has been a part of the Southern Netherlands for a while, it eventually ended up as a part of France in 1659.
However, to some extent, apparently Flemish is still spoken here, although I haven’t seen or heard any proof of that on this trip…

My Off-Peak Unlimited train ticket was of course not valid for the border crossing, but the international add-on was only a couple of euros extra. With a fifteen minute delay—vandals messed up the signalling system—my train arrived in Lille-Flandres, a train station that was way bigger than I expected!

My first stop was of course at a coffee bar, Coffee Makers in this case, for an espresso macchiato and some banana bread.

Since my Museum Pass isn’t valid here, and I hadn’t been in Lille as an adult yet, for as far as I can remember, I just played tourist for a while. Of course, I had to visit the citadel of Lille as well. This fortress was built between 1667 and 1670, designed by Vauban, a French military engineer, apparently considered the greatest engineer of his time. Unfortunately, it’s closed to the public, because it is still in military use: it’s home to the Rapid Reaction Corps-France. From the outside, it doesn’t look like much, but just check out what it looks like from above!

From there I strolled past the future location of BBP Lille. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but it’s a really nice building!

My first actual beer stop was at Beer Square, right next to the quite peculiar Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-la-Treille: modern in the front, old everywhere else.

Even though it was still quite early, the high ABV beers I consumed necessitated a food stop at Friterie Meunier. Their specialty is all kinds of croquettes, and they were tasty indeed!

The next beery stop was then the hôp[i] microbrewery. I loved their beers, the selection of guest beers, and the art on the walls!

After a short stop at La Ressourcerie, I then went to the highlight of the evening, La Capsule. I could easily have spent the rest of my evening here!

I didn’t want to risk missing my train home though, so I went back to Lille-Flanders train station, only to find my planned train had been cancelled…
There was a train to Mouscron however, and from there, it was a direct train to Brussels!

That’s another adventure in the bag, next up: the Hopz beer festival in Hamont-Achel! (Although I doubt that warrants a blog post, since I won’t see much apart from the beer festival itself. The next post will probably be about Bruges!)