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Tag: hostel life

BRD: Beer & Running in Deutschland

Published on 6th 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.

24 Hours in Amsterdam

Published on 11th October 2022

For an exam I might tell you more about in another post, I needed to be in Amsterdam last Friday morning. To avoid getting up very, very early to be there in time, I decided to already travel to the Dutch capital the day before, and spend the night there.

So after I fulfilled my work obligations in Brussels, I packed my bag, and headed to Brussels-South railway station, to catch my Thalys to Amsterdam. After arrival, and waiting thirty minutes for a tram that was supposed to come every six minutes, I could finally check into my hostel, CityHub. As you can see, the ‘rooms’ are quite special!

Bag dropped, I headed to a nearby Indonesian restaurant, Café Amoi. Boy, do I miss ‘Dutch’ Indonesian food in Brussels! I had the satay ayam, with some nasi goreng and a krupuk mix. And extra peanut sauce, of course!

After dinner I went straight back to the hostel to study a bit more, and get rested for the next day. I even resisted the temptation to have a local beer from the self-service tap in the hostel!

Friday started with my pre-booked hostel breakfast at The Breakfast Club. The exam itself only took about an hour and a half, so soon after I was looking for coffee already, which I found at Monks Coffee Roasters.

Then it was time for one of those Dutch staples, a ‘broodje kroket’. Although you can get them ‘from the wall’—yes, like a huge vending machine for hot snacks—one of the best places to have one remains Eetsalon Van Dobben. Since I thought it was still a bit too early to start dinking beer, I then played tourist for a bit, and bought ‘some’ liquorice to take home…

Although I was actually on my way to another coffee place, when I passed Het Lagerhuys, I couldn’t resist, and already had a first beer there. I did manage to get to Hummingbird for that coffee afterwards, though!

By then it was was—in my opinion at least—late enough to taste some more beer! The first stop was at Foeders, since that bar was the furthest from the centre. I love peeling and eating the peanuts there! You can usually tell by the amount of peanut shells on the floor how busy it has been so far, but that day, I was obviously the first to have had a crack at it.

From there I went to the Beer Temple—where I also had some ‘bitterballen’—Proeflokaal Arendsnest—with some ‘borrelnootjes’—and Bierproeflokaal In de Wildeman.

After all those classic bars—not much seems to have changed in the Amsterdam beer scene—it was already time to slowly make my way back to the station. However, I still had time for a final Surinamese dinner at Kam Yin!

FyneFest Trip – Day 2

Published on 2nd June 2022

Glasgow

My second day in Glasgow started with a hearty breakfast—including haggis—at Euro Hostel, followed by a long overdue visit to the Gallery of Modern Art. But yes, de duke of Wellington in front of it is still wearing his traffic cone, in case you were wondering.

After a coffee and biscoff brownie at Gordon Street Coffee, and a long walk, it was time to discover a new place: the Clydeside distillery. New, but just old enough to already have their own whisky, which—as you probably know—has to be matured in oak in Scotland for at least three years, to earn that name.

A quick stop at the Riverside Museum, and a short ride on the Glasgow Subway, and is was time for a bit more CRM: the Mackintosh House in the Hunterian Art Gallery. There I learned that coincidentally, it was a MacLaren—professor of art history Andrew McLaren Young—who saved the interiors when Mackintosh’s house was demolished.

By then it was well past beer o’clock, so a couple of cups (sic) at Inn Deep soon followed. After a nice walk along the Kelvin, I inevitably ended up at my home away from home, BrewDog Kelvingrove, which since the closure of BrewDog Rome, must be the BrewDog bar with the best view again!

FyneFest Trip – Day 1

Published on 1st June 2022

Helensburgh & Glasgow

After arriving in Glasgow and dropping off the luggage at Euro Hostel, I went straight back on the train again, to Helensburgh. As a Charles Rennie Mackintosh fan, I went there to visit the Hill House, of course.

Back in Glasgow, I had a donut with coffee at Tantrum Doughnuts, and then another coffee at Riverhill Coffee, since it was right next door. By then I thought it was already late enough for some beers, at the Drury Street Bar & Kitchen, and at The Raven.

After a pie for dinner at the Babbity Bowster—and a pint of Jarl—I wanted to go to Blackfriars bar, but unfortunately it seems it hasn’t survived the pandemic… The rest of the evening was then spent at BrewDog Merchant City, which had quite a few very interesting guest beers on draught.