Den Optimist, Langestraat, Bruges, Belgium
Archive for the ‘Belgium’ Category
Great pub names #1: The Optimist
Friday, April 9th, 2010Pre-emptive stash raid
Thursday, March 18th, 2010
Because we want to be in gear when Stash Day is formally announced, we’ve started picking off some of the bottles we’ve acquired but deemed too special to actually drink.
First up, Cantillon Lou Pepe Framboise 2006, which we bought at the brewery early last year.
The Lou Pepe beers are a sub-range which, as Cantillon put it:
…deviate from [the usual Cantillon] principles. The Gueuze Lou Pepe is made with two years old lambic beers with a mellow taste, often coming from barrels in which only wine has been kept before. In July, the same kind of beer is used to make the Lou Pepe Kriek and Framboise. With these beers too, the fruits are soaked in barrels coming directly from Bordeaux… The second fermentation of these particular beers is not caused by the addition of young lambic but of a sweet liquor… The Kriek and the Rosé de Gambrinus contain 200 g of fruits per liter on an average, while the Lou Pepe beers contain about 300 g.
It fizzes violently at first, creating a huge mousse-like head which disappears almost immediately, leaving in the glass something that looks like red wine. It smells of… Now, the euphemisms are usually barnyard or animal related, but let’s be frank here: it smells a bit like poo. Once we’d got over that, however, we found a fairly gentle tasting, sweetish beer.
We enjoyed it but, frankly, not as much as the super-sour, popping candy of a beer that is the standard Cantillon Kriek.
The receipt says it all
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Has Gouden Boom gone… boom?
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
While in Bruges, we found ourselves near what we think ought to have been the the Gouden Boom brewery, responsible for Brugse Tripel and Brugse Tarwe amongst other beers. What we found instead was a demolition site. The gleaming copper in the picture above was atop the one remaining tower and exposed to the elements.
Does anyone know what’s going on…? The beers were certainly still available all over town.
De Garre, Bruges
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
De Garre, a stone’s-throw from the market square in Bruges, comes across nonetheless as being aimed more at locals than tourists. The menu is in ‘Nederlandse’ only, for one thing. That’s not to say it’s unwelcoming for English speakers or tourists, though.
De Garre tripel is the house brew. It’s a very spicy, alcohol-fuming beer which was almost too boozy and raw, but very welcome on a stormy night.
We also took the opportunity to complete the Struise cannon with Rosse which was, sadly, a bit of a dud — sweet rather than spicy and with a vaguely cardboard-y off flavour.
Round three included Deugniet, which tasted like lemon barley, and Hopus from Lefebvre. Hopus is advertised widely and comes with a very elaborate presentation — the beer is in a tall stem glass, the dregs in a shot glass, with a stern warning from the waiter that the yeast is ‘powerful’ and might ‘mess you up’. It tasted a lot like a cask ale, maybe because of the bottle-conditioning and the earthy yeast flavours. From something at 7.5%, however, you expect more than to be reminded of a 4% British session ale.
Actually in Bruges
Monday, March 1st, 2010
We’ve just come back from a long overdue weekend in Bruges. Summary: why have we been settling for Brussels for so long when a city this beautiful and this friendly was only another hour away?
On Friday, after a longer-than-necessary train journey (Eurostar’s been up the creek since the big train crash near Brussels a few weeks ago) we were ready for a beer, and so went straight to Cambrinus Bierbrasserie. It was cosy, busy and with a huge menu of well-chosen beers. As one punter said to us: “You English guys like beer, right? Well good luck because here, we got four hundred of ‘em!”
They have two house beers, blond and bruin, which both tasted like bang-on exemplars of those ‘styles’. They weren’t challenging, but nor were they at all unpleasant. How do the Belgians do it so effortlessly?
Next we moved on to offerings from De Struise, appealing both because of the reputation of the brewer and the need for something coming in at under 6% to keep us in the game. Kloeke Blonde had that dusty hop flavour we associate with Poperings Hommelbier, but was slightly sour, and very interesting too. Struise Witte certainly wasn’t a Hoegaarden clone — it had pear and/or pear drop flavours, and was also rather dry.
And, finally, Pannepot was flavour of the month a year or so ago. Late to the party, as ever, we decided to give the 2008 edition a go. Wowzers. This was like a very fruity stout with an intense, slick creaminess and no sharp corners at all, despite its strength (10%). Proper dessert beer and a great way to wrap up a long day.
There’s more on Bruges to follow in the next week or so.
Get your dranken geers round this lot
Sunday, January 17th, 2010
At 9am, Brussels is full of trucks delivering beer to bars and restaurants.
A truck full of Duvel, Orval, Troll, St Bernardus and Bush beers.
The man driving this truck actually did look like the cartoon on the back.
Kerstbiers at the Poechenellekelder
Monday, December 7th, 2009
We’ve just got back from a week away in Germany. On the way out, we spent a night in Brussels checking into our hotel not long before 10.30 pm on a rainy Tuesday night. That gave us just enough time to dash to our favourite pub, the Poechenellekelder, to try a few items from their very extensive Christmas beer menu.
Tsjeeses by Struise caught our eye because of the mysterious name which became less so once we said it aloud and saw the label, which features a cartoon of a very stoned Jesus with smoke curling from his mouth and ears. Tacky branding aside, it was a perfect Belgian blonde and absurdly drinkable at 10%. Not too sweet, not too bitter, definitely spicy but nothing you could pick out. Everything was in balance. It reminded us what we love about Belgian beer.
Palm Dubbel was less exciting, but certainly not unpleasant. It reminded us of Leffe Radieuse, with the same kind of fruit flavour which makes you wonder if cherries have been added somewhere along the way.
Zinnebier Xmas (Brasserie de la Senne) reminded us of Fuller’s London Porter but was much easier to swig — less intense and with a lighter body. Roasted grains mixed with sour-fruit aromas. Fabulous.
Forestinne Nordika from Brasserie Caracole was the last we could squeeze in as the bar emptied and bills were paid. Luckily, it was also a hit, with a powerful sweet orange-peel aroma and flavour that we loved. There was more fruit than spice and we guessed from the colour that it had been made with something like English pale ale malt as the base.
All in all, a successful start to our trip.
Still to come: we find a brewery making stout in Cologne; catch ourselves ticking mulled drinks; and find a surprising amount of decent beer in Northern Germany.
Beers we have hated
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
The first time we had Chimay Tripel was on a trip to Brussells in around 2004. We were interested in beer, but not yet obsessed, and ended up in the Leffe Cafe because it was the only place that we stumbled on that looked vaguely welcoming.
We worked our way through the menu, trying such exciting beers as Stella Artois and Leffe Brune, before getting to the Chimay. We knew it was supposed to be something special, so had high hopes for a transcendent moment.
And we hated it. We found it literally undrinkable. It tasted of nothing but alcohol, and smelled like lighter fluid. It made our eyes sting. How could people enjoy beer that strong!?
For some years, the idea lingered in our minds that it was foul. Fortunately, we did give it another go, and learned an important lesson: our tastes can and do change over time.
A La Becasse, Brussels
Sunday, June 14th, 2009
We’ve been to Brussels loads of times now, but never made it to A La Becasse, famous for serving sweetened lambic in earthenware jugs.
We put that right on our most recent trip to Germany — we had a quick stopover in Brussels and fancied a sour hit. It’s a nice little place, friendly staff and very handy for the Grand Place. The lambic comes courtesy of Timmermans, and it is indeed sweetened and served in jugs. It tastes not unlike sweet scrumpy cider, and is very refreshing, albeit not that exciting. The lambic blanc is more interesting than the sweet lambic, as there is definitely more spiciness.
It wasn’t enough to quench the thirst for sourness, though, so we also ordered a bottle of Iris from Cantillon for the next round. Oh, wow. We’ve had this before, but forgot just how wonderful it is. Because it’s dry-hopped, you get an amazing aroma, like an American IPA, at the same time as the sourness takes over your tongue, and then a complex fruity aftertaste.
We vowed to stop off at Cantillon on the way back and stock up.
