Day 9 - Brussels

Water & OJ €10
Croissant €1
Pizza (for 3) €36
Chapître Bar (for 3) €20
Train to Brussels €8
Hostel (for 3) €80
Dinner in Brussels €17
Marionette Bar (for 3) €50
Water & filter paper €2

 

Woke up and it was almost 10am on the 10th, the beginning of the second 2-hour Westvleteren window. Started dialing without much hope -- but a glimmer, because this time we had a real land phone instead of the Skype one. I was surprised to learn that it was faster to manually redial the number than to press the redial button. I dialed perhaps 300 times before I finally got through at 10:54. I could barely believe it. Reserved a crate of the 12, for pickup... on August 18 at 14:45. Oops. That's after we're going back to the states. The guy wouldn't budge on the phone. Oh well. We had expected this to happen, but there are reports of people just going to the monastery and getting beer anyway, so we decided to try that and hope the monks would be helpful.

So now it's time to rent a car. Heading down the hill with our luggage, Neil twisted his ankle bad and didn't want to walk on it.

And Namur, for some reason, has no fucking cars for rent. Not a one in the whole city, said the Hertz representative, after he made us wait 30 minutes before he even showed up at his desk. We had been planning to rent a car and drive to a lot of monasteries, but apparently that wouldn't be possible. So over pizza we make a new plan. And beer -- there was a nice bar we walked by that was closed yesterday, but today it is open, called Chapître. This is a great bar with an excellent selection. We all tried new stuff, mostly local stuff we couldn't get outside Belgium, and it was all lovely.

 

Time to take the train to Brussels; the new plan is to get a car tomorrow. Checked in at a hostel; we had to search for the "Hostel 2-Go-4" near Bruxelles-Nord (the northern train station) to check in, even though our actual hostel (Hostel Grand Place) was much closer to Bruxelles-Central. And it was raining. So Tim and I went racing around the neighborhood until we found free wifi to look up 2-Go-4, because the taxi drivers had never heard of the place. And it's not exactly a hard-to-find hostel. Not sure why the taxi drivers were so useless.

Check in went well and we loved the room we were assigned; it was a private 4-bunk which didn't have a 4th roommate, right in downtown Brussels, and the price was extremely reasonable. A boring dinner was followed by an excellent bar called "Poechenelle Kelder" meaning "puppet cellar" which had the best selection of gueuze and lambic I had seen yet. And the bar was themed around puppets, mannequins and so on. It was really cool.

 

 

Karmeliet Tripel A good tripel, seemingly drier than most.
Dupont Saison Dupont Bio Noticeably different, perhaps slightly hoppier than the regular Saison Dupont.
Dupont Blanche du Hainaut A lovely spiced wheat beer, well balanced.
du Bocq Cuvee Li Crochon A good but unexciting dark ale. Not quite as fruity as a dubbel.
Huyghe Biere du Corsaire A decent tripel, nothing to write home about.
Caracole Nostradamus A truly awesome dark ale. Try this if you get the opportunity. I can't describe it.
Slaghmuylder Witkap Stimulo A beautiful blond/wheat beer, extremely pleasant.
Ellezelloise Hercule Amazing Belgian stout. Another must try if you find it.
Ellezelloise Quintine A solid pale ale, but not exciting.
Boon Gueuze Doesn't compare to Cantillon, but good nonetheless.
Silly Scotch Ale Served in a ceramic mug; I don't remember how much I liked this.
Cantillon Iris Dry-hopped gueuze. Obviously awesome. Not much to say.
Cantillon Grand Cru Bruocsella Straight 3-year lambic. Slightly acetic, quite sour, delicious, but not something I usually want.

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