In the land of Beers

Belgium is after all the land of beers. I've never been a beer person and 2 months ago when I stepped into Belgium to spend time with my partner, I've been converted. Maybe not totally converted because I still like my wines, champagnes and whisky. I'm just adding another drink to my list.

I was in Brussels a few days ago and I've never felt more relaxed in exploring a place like this in a long time. Everytime I go on a trip, I was always in a rush to visit as many places as possible. This time, we are just wandering around and looking for a nice place for beers and food. Belgium might be the land of chocolates because there is a chocolate shop almost every 100m you walk in Brussels but it's also a land of beers. The variety of beer that they have is uncountable.

Following a recommendation from the net, the Delirium Cafe which is just a short walk from the historical square is a beer cave with 2004 variety of beer from all over the world but mainly from Belgium.

There are 2 floors to the beer bar. the ground floor serves a variety of beers from the draught and the floor below serves the largest variety of bottle beers. Just looking through the beer menu takes me 10 minutes and deciding which bottle to order takes another few minutes. The menu is thicker than the average magazine with description of the beer and price.

Finally Luc decides to try a bottle of the Liefmans Goudenband and I wanted a Struise Mikkeller but they were sold out. However the beer specialist suggested that I take Elliot Brew which tasted like the one I wanted initially and it's also brewed by the Struise Brouwers. Both the beers tasted really good and the Elliot Brew is a crafted beer that was rated 99 points by Ratebeer.

Address: Impasse de la Fidélité 4, 1000 Brussels

Phone:+32 0)2 514 44 34

Hours:

Saturday hours 10:00 am–4:00 am

I think I am really going to miss Belgium. Not only I will miss my partner but also the good beers at such affordable prices. You have no idea how I wished that we can enjoy the same beers at the same prices in Malaysia. It's such a shame that we, consumers have to bear such high prices due to alcohol import duties.

The variety of beers I've tried during my 2 months stay.

Beers and Geuze that I've tried and like.

The trappist beers that I've tried. Of course not all trappist beers are good. Some are extremely sought after like the Westvleteren (i've written here) and some are just not to my taste (Benno from Austria).

This is one of the Geuze tasting that we had at home with some friends over BBQ and it was fun. We tasted the beer like we would with whisky and this is the best way to find out our favourite geuze.

As I am going to leave to Paris for my flight to Singapore in a few hours, this post is dedicated to all the yummy Belgian beers I've tried. I will never look at beer the same way again. As of now, I am starting to help my partner to collect more beers for cellaring. Cheers!