Hunt for Westvleteren

Woke up, had free buffet, with great difficulty managed to book a hotel in Amsterdam (Casa 400) for the last nights of our stay. Headed over to tonight's hostel to drop off our luggage. Abhostel is the name of the hostel, and it's really really awesome -- it's a converted apartment building, or something. There's a really nice common room, and the proprietor (Bridget) was super nice, showing us around and giving us the tour and generally making us feel comfortable. Though she was surprised that we managed to book the hostel for only one night; they usually only accept two or more nights.

We did laundry around the corner and headed downtown. We rented bicycles at Antwerpen-Centraal and rode to the center of town, where there was an excellent sandwich shop (recommended to us by one of those Use-It maps), Diksmuidse Boterkoeken. For very cheap they will sell you giant sandwiches with whatever you want, and they make their own bread, so it's really really good.

Then to the comic shop, which was an interesting mix of English and Dutch graphic novels, as well as an art gallery upstairs.

Bridget from the hostel also recommended a pair of guys who run a restaurant out of their home in Antwerp. She gave us directions. It's called "Our House" and it was everything she promised, really good vegetarian food (I think stuffed zucchini) and the people were very nice and talkative. They served drinks and dinner on their patio, with cats running around, and we got talking to the five or six random other people there. It was lovely.

Finally, after dinner, we went to this famous bar in Antwerp called Kulminator. They have a giant beer menu with lots of aged stuff. Highlight here was a vertical Orval tasting (2010, 2005, 2004) as well as meeting Vincent, a very knowledgeable beer critic who recommended some really good stuff. While we were there, we noticed that they had Westvleteren behind the bar, but it wasn't on the menu. Furthermore we saw some red-capped unlabeled bottles in the same style. Suspicious, we asked Vincent. He showed us the secret Westvleteren menu behind the bar! You have to do the seven items on the menu in order, and it's quite expensive, but at the end you get to open a bottle of the Westvleteren 6 -- now, Westvleteren is one of the most sought-after breweries in the world, and the 6 hasn't been made there for 11 years. This is a unique opportunity! We HAVE to do it! We get really excited about it, but it's getting late, so we make Vincent promise to meet us there tomorrow, when it opens at 5pm. We'll drink the Westvleteren menu with him before we leave to Amsterdam. He says "okay" and we shake hands and leave. Crash at the hostel.