Day Three in Antwerp

We statred at our usual place at our usual time. Nothing like consistence. Today, they had the Het Anker Cuvée van de Keizer Blond on tap. A very enjoyable beer although it doesn't as much of the house anise flavor some of their other beers do. I don't think I've had this before and I will look forward to trying it again.

Dirk and some of his friends have a long running period column in a local newspaper where they do a blind tasting of a selection of beers and report the result. One resent one was of Whisky Infused beers (that is, beers with Whisky added). There actually was a tie between Het Anker Cuvée van de Keizer Whisky Infused and Wilderen Cuvée Clarisse Wild Weasel Whisky Infused but the ground rules with the newspaper said there had to be a winner and the Clarisse won in a taste off.

This was actually.a gift from Dirk so he sat down and drank some with us. I usually don't include photos of people here, but since we had a group photo, why not.

The Cuvée Clarisse was interesting -- there was a strong alcohol note, which you'd expect, but not a lot of Whisky flavor. I find the Cuvée v/d Keizer version to have too much Whisky flavor so this was a good think. I don't think it will find its way into my regular Belgian rotation but it was an enjoyable beer.

I realized I hadn't and the Rodenbach Vintage yet, so I corrected that.

Nothing really much to say, it was classic Rodenbach and very enjoyable (if you like Rodenbach, that is)

A visit to the Kulminator isn't really complete without some sort of multi year tasting, so we had Leen chose four years of Stille Nacht. She came back with 2018, 2012, 2006 and 1999

Surprisingly, the 1999 was the sweetest but it was also my favorite. For me, the 2012 was second, the 2018 third and the 2006 was my least favorite -- it didn't seem to have much going on except oxidation. That is not to say it was bad -- it was a nice beer but I liked the others better. The group was split, with some preferring the 1999 and others the 2006. Go figure...

It was an enjoyable afternoon and we didn't really want to leave so we had another round. I had the Malheur 60 again -- nicely bitter to balance the sweetness of the Stille Nacht.

We said our good byes and heading down to Mechelseplein and caught the number 4 tram and after a short walk found ourselves at Special Belge Taproom.

When I was last here -- nearly two years ago -- the brewery was sitting on a shipping pallet in the middle of the main room. I am happy to report it been installed on the upper floor and they are brewing some of their own beers. They've also increased the taps from 12 to 18. Improvements all around.

They now have a video board showing the taps. 

It is always polite to try the house brewed beers so we ordered both the Tourist #3 (a saison) and Tourist #4 (an amber ale)

Everybody seemed to like the saison better. Even one of owners said they sort of missed the mark with the amber. It was a well made beer (no technical flaws) but was just not as interesting.

The electronic board doesn't list the brewery but their online menu does and I learned the Twisted Kipper was from De Kromme Haring of Utrecht -- one of my favorite Dutch breweries -- so I ordered one.

It did not disappoint. It was a nice IPA, maybe a little maltier than some but not overly so. A good beer to finish on.

We decided to head back to the hotel, but I'll leave you with some tank porn. The brewhouse is on the upper level and I didn't climb the stairs to get a picture so you'll have to make do with this.

 Back at Centraal Station we headed for a Vietnamese restaurant I'd enjoyed before, but I remembered the location wrong and thought it had been replaced with a generic Chinese restaurant. I was wrong -- the Vietnamese one was farther down the street. We ended up back at Mixor Kebab for another delicious kabab.

Day Two in Antwerp

 An uneventful morning found me at the Kulmator just before noon. There were four of us and we all ordered an Orval

This one was about 2 years old, which is about how the ones we get in LA are. I had hoped for slightly newer, but Covid has messed up all kinds of things. When you are closed for a better part of a year you likely are not buying new stock. Anyway, it was a delightful beer.

As the others wondered in, they too were required to order an Orval as a first beer.

We decided to share a large bottle of Het Anker Cuvée van de Keizer. This was from 2018

It is a nice beer but even at 3 years old it was on the sweet side. I'll have to try and older one if I get a chance.

They also had Chimay Grande Reserve on draft, from 2017. I like the bottle version better (maybe because it is usually served warmer) but this was nothing to complain about.

We decided to head up to The Northerner, a relatively new pub that has great promise. It is a short ride on Tram 7.

It is down a narrow street, so hard to get a good picture of the front. This is the street.

The have eleven taps, nine of which are relatively fixed, one coating tap from Brussels Beer Project and a general rating tap. Both of these were New England IPAs, and even though they were from Belgian breweries, I didn't come all this way to drink NEIPA (pronounced "Nee-pa" here an in many European countries :) )

You can't go wrong with a Saison Dupont.

The food menu is a bit limited, cheese and meet snack plates and such. But they do serve a regular Croque  Monsieur and one made with pulled port and BBQ sauce. I ordered one of those and not only was it delicious, it was huge.

I followed it up with a Brasserie de la Sense Jambe de Bois Tripel, another long time favorite.

One thing I like at the Northerner is they have a board listing bottles that will soon be gone.

It was time to move on so we walked back to the tram stop and caught the number 7 tram again and soon were at Dr Beer

This is another relatively new place (2 years or so) that has great promise.  They have 8 taps and a huge bottle selection. All the bottles can also be sold to go. The have a large selection of beers from Brouwerij De Dochter van de Korenaar -- don't know if that is a play on their name or because they are a good brewing making lots of interesting beers.

I chose the Dochter v/d Korenaar Finesse, which they describe as a Tripel but it really is more of a strong Amber ale, I think.

In any case, it was very tasty.

I was about to order the Dochter v/d Korenaar Belle-Fluer IPA when my brother said he was having trouble staying awake and was going to head back to the hotel. Since he is my little brother I thought it my duty to make sure he made it back. It is not because I too was tired and drifting off, no sir. I was strictly my duty to my brother. And if you believe that I have bridge I'd like to sell you...

First Full Day in Antwerp

No visit to Antwerp is complete without having the local beer De Koninck. So we stopped at Oud Arsenaal for a bolleke. As delicious as I remembered.

The taps are pretty much unchanged. As always, a great bottle selection.

The inside is as I remembered, except for the bicycle hanging on the wall...

We were sitting outside -- it was a tad chilly but not so much so that we didn't have another beer. I chose the Arsenaaltje, the house beer brewed by Brouwerij The Musketeers.

We then walked over to you know where...

I decided to do the lambic tasting. Eight 12.5cl glasses of lambic. One is missing from the picture, the 

Here are the details. In picture they go from 16 to 8. Missing is #12 Jasmiijnlambiek.

They were all very good. The Rozenlambiek (Rosemary) was the most interesting, but I'm not sure I could  drink a bottle. The Jasmiijnlambiek (Jasmine Tea) was also quite different, very earthy.

I like triples so I asked Leen to pick me one and she brought the Name Tripel, and old favorite and it didn't disappoint.

Staying on the theme, I ordered a Het Anker Gouden Carolus Tripel, another favorite.

It just arrived and wasn't on the menu yet, but we were allowed to drool over the new Rodenbach Red Tripel. I understand only a small amount was made so it is likely to be pricy.

 

Someone wanted an old beer, so we got a Bornem Dubbel from 2000. Nice sherry, but not much "Dubbel" left (which was expected)

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We had a dinner reservation at Billies Bier Cafeteria so we wandered over.  I understand why the do it, but I am in Belgium to drink Belgian beer (or at least BeNeLux beer) so a little limited on the selection, but some great beers.

I chose the Lupulus Tripel. I had had this in the past and enjoyed it, but this one was not as good as I remembered.

I ordered some deep fried mussels to tie me over until the main course came. There were good, but I prefer the steamed, even if they are more work.

To go with dinner I ordered a Scheldebrouwerij Zeezuiper Tripel. A very nice beer.

Dinner was Stoofvlees (Beef and onion stew) and it was very good. It is game season so they had a venison stew and roast pheasant, which the others said was very good.

 The liter of lambic I drank earlier in the day caught up to me and my stomach was starting to rebel, so I called it an early night. The rest of the gang went on to De Ware Jacob for a night cap...

Arrived in Antwerp

It was a hard flight, no fun wearing a mask for that long a time. But we all arrived safely. We checked in the hotel, dropped our bags, caught a quick lunch and heading for the Kulminator. We were the only ones there.

 

 

 

I ordered the Malheur 60 Blond, getting it confused the 6. It is a 10% abv beer with 60 IBUs. Very bitter and very good. So much for easing into the day.

 

 

The Het Anker Cuvée van de Keizer Blond was out, so I went with the regular version, a long time favorite. It didn’t disappoint, though it was a bit on the sweet side. Don’t know if it was that vintage or my memory had faded.

 

 

In addition to the lambics on the board, there are a few more that you can order.

 

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One day I will start with the full sampler.

 

 

Time to try some new (for me) beers. I had read about the Rochefort Triple and that seemed a good place to start. I’m not sure what I expected, but I was supposed. I really enjoyed it and look forward to when we can buy it at home.

 

 

 

Some have never had the Westmalle Extra (the 4.8% “Monks Beer”) that monastery recently released to the public. Turns out the Kulminator also had a four year old one, from the days you could only get it at the monastery. Seemed like a comparison was in order.

 

 

The four year old one held up very well. The two beers were nearly identical, with just a bit of oxidation on the older one.

 

Being jet lagged is like being a shark — you have to keep moving or it is all over. So we decide to walk up to De Ware Jacob

 

 

 

The taps were as expected.

 

 

The guest beer as out, but that only effected our second beer.

 

 

I was having some camera issues, so the foam had settled a bit. That is on me — the pour was perfect.

 

Guy (the proprietor) mentioned he had the Chimay “Green Label” — the recently released version of their 150th Anniversary beer of. a few years back. I had to have one.

 

 

It did not disappoint, nicely hoppy and spicy and too easy drinking for a 10% beer.

 

Some of the others had the Tynt Meadows English Trappist, which also is very good. But I forgot to get a picture.

 

I had reached my limit, so I said I was headed back to the hotel. It was contagious, as everybody else decided it was time, too.

 

On the way, I stopped at my favorite kebab place in Antwerp, on Koningin Astridplein. It too, did not disappoint.

 

 

Pretty soon the rest of the group showed up for kebabs as well. There was some talk of them having a nightcap at Beerlovers, but I passed.

 

Beer Trip About to Start!

After 19 months on the bench, I'm headed out to Antwerp, Düsseldorf, Bamberg and Berlin with a group of friends.

We already hit one snag as one person had to make a sudden hospital visit (not COVID and he is fine) -- hopefully he will be able to join us mid trip.

And now there is another snag. Belgium requires one to fill out a "Passenger Locator Form" within 48 hours of one's arrival, stating where you've been for the past two weeks, where you sat on the plane and where you are staying (for contract tracing). In order to fill it out you give them a mobile number and they text you a PIN code. All very modern, except it appears the service they use to send texts to US numbers is down!

I managed to get the form this morning, but the others have had no luck (using multiple numbers). I managed to get another PIN by using my German mobile number. If worst comes to worst I guess I'll try using that number for everybody.

The joys of travel in the pandemic age.

Watch this space...

 

Last Day in Dublin

I finally headed out to check out the new BrewDog Dublin Outpost in the Grand Canal Docks area. I ended up tacking a taxi as there is really no convenient bus route. I used the FreeNow app (formerly called MyTaxi — a much better name) which made the whole thing as easy as using Lyft or Uber. From the door of BrewDog you can look across the Liffey to the 3 Arena — you just can’t get there. Supposedly a foot bridge is planned, which will make it a bit easier to get to BrewDog.

BrewDog has its own building right on the waterfront. They spent a Euro or two on this setup.  The place is huge, with bars on two levels and a large patio for when the weather is nicer.

The brewery is operational (first batch in the tanks) but they don’t yet have permission to sell, some confusion on the paperwork.

They had seven guest beers but only two were Irish and one I’d had before (Of Form and Fury) and the other was 10% so ordered a BrewDog beer.

I went with a Jet Black Heart Stout, figuring it was at least an Irish style stout. It was nicely roasty.

The food going by looked good (and I had many recommendations to try the wings) but nothing was hitting the spot so I ordered another beer, this the Brew Gooder Lager. It was well made but a bit boring. Probably should have expected that, but I wanted to try it.

The brewery is at the back. Some tank porn for your enjoyment...

I wanted to make another stop at the Porterhouse so I  fired up the FreeNow app and was soon there.

I ordered an Oyster Stout and a plate of oysters to go with it, but was informed they had no oysters today. They suggested the mussels but that just didn’t seem right.

I ordered the Seafood Chowder instead, which had a couple of oysters in it (though cooked).



I had another Oyster Stout, but I won’t bore you with the picture. I headed out to my next stop and got a nice picture of the River Liffey

I as was walking, I passed Sin È. You can see the Sierra Nevada sign — they had three Sierra Nevada beers on tap, so I guess it is a favorite.

They had a house Pale Ale, brewed by Trouble Brewing, so I ordered that, as it would be rude not to have. A nice beer, well worth the stop.

Just about around the corner is The Legal Eagle, my destination.

It is primarily a restaurant but there is a bar and you can just go have a beer (or a coffee for that matter). They have upped their tap list since I was there a two years ago. Something for everybody.

I ordered the Whiplash Bowsie Brown Ale. This was one of the beers that was out at the Brickyard the other day, so I was glad to have a change to try it. A nice beer.

I was still a bit hungry, so I ordered a Scotch Egg and their Ploughmans.  Lots of fruits and vegetables, of which I have not been eating as I should. BTW, that is not my finger, the cheeses were being explained to me as I took the picture.

One last beer, probably my last in Dublin this trip. It was a tough decision but I went with the Kinnegar Scraggy Bay IPA over the Trouble Dark Arts Porter as I hadn’t had that one this trip. It didn’t disappoint. It is a little less red in real life.

It was then back to my hotel to pack and get ready for my early morning bus to the airport. All in all a successful trip. Didn’t get to all the places I wanted to but visited most of them.