Bargain beer at the hostel

Posted at 4:56 pm by Patrick under Dublin + Belgium:2005

The Jacques Brel hostel in Brussels has a suprisingly good (and cheap) beer selection. The Orval pictured here was only 2.40 Euros, which is a bargain for a full service environment.

Other bargains worth mentioning:
Fruit Defendu (Hoegaarden Forbidden Fruit), 2.65
Chimay Blue, 2.80
Hoegaarden Wit, 1.40
and the ubiquitous Jupiler Pils, 1.15.

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More beer is on the way

Posted at 3:05 pm by Patrick under Dublin + Belgium:2005

While we were at the Cantillon brewery this afternoon, we saw palettes of beer ready at their loading dock.

Jean-Pierre Van Roy, the brewmaster at Cantillon, mentioned that this shipment is destined for the US, and it represented the entire year’s allotment of Don Pepe (their limited edition brew with heirloom cherries).

Yes, I bought a 750 for the beer cellar.

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$1 train station fun

Posted at 2:24 pm by Patrick under Dublin + Belgium:2005

When you think of canned beer is the US, visions of Bud Light, Natural Light Ice, and Coors might come to mind.

The options here in Brussels are thankfully more varied. Here, we are working on some Hoegaarden cans on our ride back to the hostel.

I wish more breweries back home would use cans!

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Belgica 101: Great beer, cheap

Posted at 10:22 am by Patrick under Dublin + Belgium:2005

This is one of the reasons Belgium is also known as the “Disneyland of beer” — world-class beers can be found at the supermarket.

Rochefort 8 is a wonderful Trappist ale, which until last summer was not available in Georgia. At this train station grocery store, this beer will set you back 1.34 Euros — a little better than the $6 at Green’s!

Dark, chocolatey and luscious, The 8 is a great dessert chaser (especially dark chocolate), or as an after dinner drink.

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That’s a lot of beer!

Posted at 9:00 am by Patrick under Dublin + Belgium:2005

The Delirium Cafe (in an alley off the Rue du Bouchers restaurant row) has a reported 2000 beers on its menu — the most in the world. It had clpser to 2400 today, but they guarantee at least 2000 on hand at all times.

We tried only a few of them, and there were a couple of interesting beers here: a Saison DuPont aged 1 year, a triple from a local brewery, Rodenbach Grand Cru, Andechser Dopplebock (wonderful beer), and a Czech beer that was a cross between a mead and an unhopped Belgian style ale.

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