Went to Belgium this weekend with some friends and had an awesome time. ‘Twas me, Davide, Stephan, Marc, Gamze, and Katia. I met Davide in the language class back in March, and Stephan and Marc through Gamze, who is Stephan’s girlfriend and works at the international office. Katia is Davide’s friend from his building. We left Darmstadt on Saturday morning and made it to Brussels by around 10:00 for our first stop of the trip at the Cantillon Brewery. It’s the last traditional lambic brewery in Brussels. Lambic beers are made by leaving the wort open to the air and allowing natural yeasts to waft in and ferment it, rather than adding specific, carefully crafted yeasts as most brewers do. Once that finishes it’s pumped into barrels, where a spontaneous fermentation process takes place, and left there for three years so that all the sugars are transformed. It’s known as a “wild” beer and has a more earthy or fruity taste. Oh, and it is brewed only in Belgium. We took a self-guided tour of the brewery and then sampled the beer. First the gueze, which is a combination of 1-year, 2-year, and 3-year lambics. Although it’s technically a beer, it was much more akin to wine. More acidic than I’d expected, but the flavor was good. The second was the kriek, made by fermenting lambic with a type of Belgian cherry. This one was less acidic than the gueze, but I didn’t like the flavor as much. Overall, not something I would probably choose on my own, but definitely a great experience as far as the culture of an area goes.
After that we got back in the cars (don’t worry – the drivers only took a couple sips) and headed for Bruges. I had intended to watch “In Bruges” before the trip, as I’ve only seen the first half hour or so, but I didn’t have time. Bruges was nice, though far more touristy than we’d expected.
We got some lunch, Marc got a jacket (he only had a t-shirt and had been looking for a jacket anyway), and we walked around the city a bit. We ended up walking longer than we meant to, actually, which resulted in us cutting it very close for getting to Westvleteren abbey on time. Before I get to that, though, an explanation of Westvleteren:
Westvleteren Brewery was the main point of this trip. Westvleteren is one of 6 Trappist breweries in Belgium, and one of only 7 in the world (the seventh is in the Netherlands). Trappist breweries are run by monks and are the only ones allowed to label their beer with the “Authentic Trappist Product” logo. You can find 6 of these 7 breweries’ beers at pubs or liquor stores, and some of them, such as Chimay, are quite famous (and quite good, I might add). The one you cannot find at any pub or store (at least not legally), is Westvleteren. This beer is sold only at the abbey and at the abbey’s store located directly across the street. When one buys it, he agrees not to sell it to any third party. Westvleteren brews three beers – the Blond, the 8, and the 12 – but the 12 is by far its most famous and well regarded, and has been rated “Best Beer in the World” multiple times. Because it is so good, there is of course a “black market” for it on ebay and elsewhere. A quick search found that one bottle of the 12 goes for around $40 on ebay, whereas one crate at the abbey is 50 euros for 24 bottles (around $2.50 per bottle). Also found someone selling an oil painting of the Westvleteren 12 bottle cap. Basically, people really like this stuff. I have to say that the difficulty involved in obtaining it probably adds to its quality a bit. You cannot simply go to the abbey and pick some up (I use simply loosely here, as Westvleteren is located in a rural part of northwest Belgium). Nay, you must reserve your beer ahead of time. The only way to reserve it is to call the brewery on their dedicated “beerphone” during any of the three-hour time blocks listed on the website. The line is constantly busy; one can call for the 3 hours straight and not get through. If you do get through, you are limited to one crate of beer, they give you an appointment for picking it up, and you give them your name and the license plate number of the vehicle you’re going to use to pick it up. Only one name and license plate number per order per month, and the phone number you used to call is banned from calling the brewery again during that month. We were fortunate enough to reserve two crates because we had two cars and two people calling. Our appointments were at 16:00 and 16:45 on Saturday, and the brewery closed at 17:00.
Getting back to what I was saying before – we wandered around Bruges a bit longer than we meant to, to the extent that we were not sure we would make it to Westvleteren in time. If I had said that before you would have perhaps thought, “Oh that sucks, but not too big a deal, right?” Now you understand just how big of a deal that would have been. Marc and I were a bit more stressed out than the others, for they had the GPS in their car and knew how much longer until we arrived. Marc and I did not. We were just driving along behind them watching the minutes tick away. Towards the end, when it started to look like we might be getting close, I put on “Carmina Burana” to add another 10 points or so to the epic value – the Burana never fails in that department. After a few (very stressful) wrong turns and slow trucks ahead of us, we made it…..
At 16:52……
8 minutes before the brewery closed.
We parked the cars and literally sprinted between the buildings trying to find which one was responsible for beer distribution. We found it, and, gasping, asked the guy working there if we made it in time (it was 16:52, but we wanted to be sure). He said we did, and checked our names off the list. We loaded the two crates into the cars, and took a deep breath. Then we went to the brewery store/bar and a few of us bought a glass of the Westvleteren 12 so we could taste exactly what we had just gone through so much trouble to obtain. I think we all had this fantasy that it would somehow turn out to be awful. Thankfully, that was not the case. It was indeed delicious. Quite delicious.
Back in the cars once again to head to Brussels for the second time that day. (Never thought I’d say, “Off to Brussels for the second time today.”) We checked into our hostel, and then while the others showered and got settled, I left to meet up with Katie and Darcy who were in Brussels for the day on their day off from the WWOOF farm. Also met PJ, their couchsurfing host who had spent the day showing them around the city. We watched the England vs. USA World Cup match on a big screen in a pub-type place, and PJ and I discussed the Westvleteren brewery and Belgian politics. Cool guy. After the match we met up with the rest of my friends, got Belgian fries for dinner (really good), and then went to a pub to hang out. Really great night. Back to the hostel for some much-needed sleep. The hostel was great, by the way. We booked a 6 person room, which in most hostels would consist of 3 bunk beds and maybe a private bathroom. Instead we pretty much got a whole flat. It was two levels, the main one and a loft, complete with a couch, kitchen, clean bathroom, and an entire separate bedroom. And the beds were comfortable! Really lucked out on that one.
Got up Sunday morning and headed out to explore Brussels. We originally intended to check out Brussels in the morning and early afternoon, then head to Antwerp, and then to Aachen, Germany to watch the Germany vs. Australia match with Stephan’s friend. We ended up not going to Antwerp and just staying in Brussels longer. I liked that because although it would have been cool to see another city, it would have been just a checkmark on a list because we would have seen less of Brussels than we did and probably hardly any of Antwerp. Won’t get into too much detail about Brussels – lots of walking and sight-seeing. I really liked the city. It reminded me of Boston in terms of being somewhat dirty, but in an endearing way. This should probably go without saying, but, yes, we got Belgian waffles and they were just as delicious as I’d hoped. We saw the EU Commission and Parliament buildings as well as many other historic Brussels buildings. The day was great except for one major thing – Katia either lost her wallet or had it stolen from her (note that that’s Katia, not Katie). Not sure which. Regardless, she was out 500 euros cash (!!!!) and had to block all of her cards. So terrible. She spoke with police and got an official report, but so far nothing’s turned up and none of us expect that anything will, unfortunately.
In the evening we left Brussels and drove to Aachen. We met up with Stephan’s friend Frank at the World Cup “Public Viewing”. I had expected a bunch of people sitting around a public square watching the game on a big screen. I very much underestimated things. It was a huge crowd, and getting through it was like at a concert, complete with lots and lots of pushing and jostling. I ended up behind a bunch of ridiculously tall people (seriously, unusually tall) and had to constantly move around to see past them. I was able to see better as the game went on and the crowd shifted. It was still completely awesome despite not having the best viewing spot. When Germany scored, which they did 4 times, the crowd went insane. So great. It was a slow process driving out of town after the game was over, but it was also really fun because everyone – seriously, everyone – was honking and yelling and blowing horns the whole time. Marc and I cruised along, honking here and there, windows down, blasting The Black Keys’ “Rubber Factory.” An excellent end to an even more excellent weekend.
As usual, here are the Facebook albums: Part I and Part II.
- Johnny
