If this is Tuesday, it must be Belgium

After 3 full filled nights in Amsterdam, we boarded a train for Brussels. We were somewhat sad to leave Amsterdam, but eager to begin the “We’re here for the beer” tour in earnest.

Thanks to Kaddee’s mom, we scored a place at the Brussels Marriott. This is way above what we would normally spend on a hotel room, but we got it with her Marriott Miles. This was important because we starting and ending our time in Belgium in Brussels.

And since we had been in the US, we had way more luggage than we wanted to schlep around Belgium. So, we had one night at the Marriott at the start of our trip, and one night at the end of our trip.

When we checked out we left the B.A. rolling suitcase with the concierge and said we would be back for it in 10 days. Ah, the good life.

First impressions are hard to shake, and the first impression of Brussels was not kind. The train and metro stations had an overwhelming smell of urine and were littered with trash and beggars were everywhere. In the half hour it took us to get from the train station to our hotel, we saw more trash, beggars and men urinating in alley ways than we ever saw in 3 days in Amsterdam.

Welcome to the capital of the EU.

So we settled into our hotel room and plotted our plan of attack on the poor helpless barmaids of Brussels. [Most of them were anything but helpless.]
Thanks to the tips I got from the Good Beer Guide to Belgium and our friends DonS and Gary from BPP.

Our first stop was Delirium Cafe, across the alley from the Jannekin Pis (photo to follow). They, apparently, hold the Guinness Book record for the most beers available: 2000.

It was a smokey, loud, dark cellar bar. Just perfect. We sat down and asked for the beer menu. I got a tri-fold table tent that listed maybe 100-150 beers. I thought that was odd, they supposedly have over 2000 beers available. They I spied “the book”. A three ring binder about 3 inches thick, filled with page after page of beer listings and description.

First, I wept.

And then, depression set in. How was I supposed to chose?

I panicked.

I ordered a St. Idesbad Triple in bottle.

Kaddee had a Rodenmocher blond on tap.

We sipped these while we thumbed through the rest of the book.

Then I realized WE NEEDED A PLAN. We had to pick beers heretofore known as the “while I am reading the menu beers”. These were 2 or 3 beers we knew we liked and were commonly available. When the (surly, far too french for my liking) waiter was breathing down our necks waiting for us to order, we could ask for one of these.

We could then read the beer menu at our leisure and decide on what the _next_ beer should be.

After a few days we realized we also needed the “emergency backup beer”.

The scenario:

We sit down, order the “while I am reading the menu beer“. As we drink that we peruse the menu and decide on the next beer. When we are ready to order our next, we tell the waiter our selection and he collects the beer menu and goes off to the cellar.

He then returns 5 minutes later and informs us that they are out of that, what would we like instead. But he has collected the menu and not brought it back! This is where the emergency backup beer comes in! It is invaluable to be able to blurt out another choice immediately.

I am telling you, drinking beer in Belgium requires stamina, planning and organization. Well one out of three will do in a pinch.

So, after Delirium Cafe, we headed to Poechenellekelder. This is an interesting pub right across the street from the Mannekin Pis. We sat outside on the patio and drank beer, had a nibble and watched all the tourists taking pictures and having pictures taken with the little pisser.

There was a large festival in the Grand Place, which is not far from the Mannekin Pis. Many people were dressed in traditional garb and there were wandering minstrals. Many of them stopped to have their photos taken with the piss boy. It was an entertaining way to pass the afternoon.

We then strolled around and headed back to the Marriott. We picked up a couple of beers from the “Bier Temple” bottle shop for the room. And fell asleep before we could drink them.

They were tasty for breakfast.