When a tasting involving one of the newest Brussels breweries popped up on our Facebook feed, we couldn’t resist and headed to l’Amère à Boire, where the event was about to take place. We had visited this bar in the Flagey area a couple of times before, so we already knew the beer list would certainly warrant an appearance on this blog.
Martijn
Le Coq
Le Coq is one of those bars you would easily walk by without giving it a second glance, and you would probably not even consider the possibility they could have some excellent beers in there. This probably explains the lack of tourists, which is quite nice, especially for a bar so close to the Bourse.
But they actually do have a proper, well balanced beer menu here, and even regularly propose a couple of new beers for their patrons to try!
KICK tap’ASS
UPDATE: Closed permanently…
The Rue de Laeken doesn’t seem to be the best of places to open a bar for some: geek bar Schrödinger’s Cat didn’t last very long, and Tapas Soif? didn’t remain open for very long either. However, the latter has risen as a phoenix — apparently there even was some actual fire involved — with a little help from crowdfunders, and is now serving Belgian tapas and beers again under the name KICK tap’ASS. Time to go back to try the tapas we missed out on during its previous incarnation!
Scott’s Bar
Scott’s Bar is a place we’ve been visiting every once and again for a while now. They have a nice beer selection, it’s quite nearby for us, it’s often open when other places are closed already, and when it’s sunny, the terrace is great – if you’re not bothered too much by this typical example of Brussels facadism!
Not too long ago, they installed an open kitchen next to the entrance and expanded the menu, so it was about time for us to try some food there as well.
Barboteur Beersdays #1
We started this blog with an article about Le Barboteur – Bièrothèque a couple of weeks ago, and already this weekend — Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 May — they will be celebrating their first birthday. They’re doing this in style, organising a beer festival with an impressive list of attending breweries. It looks like the first edition of these Barboteur Beersdays is set to become an event not to be missed!
Le Bier Circus
Le Bier Circus is one of those places you’ll find in a lot of tourist guides, offering exactly what a tourist would expect: typical Belgian dishes on the menu, and lots of Belgian beers to choose from. Coulrophobes be warned though: this place is full of clowns, as you would expect in a ‘circus’!
BALLEKES
Apart from carbonnades flamandes and stoemp, there are few dishes as Belgian as meatballs in tomato sauce. At the recently opened BALLEKES restaurant they do meatballs very well, but not just with tomato sauce! Other options you’ll have to try, are a cherry sauce, a mushroom sauce, a sauce with sirop de Liège, a trappist beer and chicon sauce, and a regularly changing special.
Dynamo – Bar de Soif
Dynamo – Bar de Soif is one of the more recent additions to the Saint-Gilles beer scene, but oh, what a welcome one! Bravely, they specialise in English beers, mostly from young breweries in London, where the owners of Dynamo seem to be well connected. So don’t expect the lukewarm, flat ‘real ales’ often served in the more old fashioned English pubs, but rather the fresh, tasty beers from the newest generation of brewers!
L’auBIÈREgiste
Update 1: There has been a change of management and name (now Ramdam).
Update 2: There has been another change, and of and concept as well now (now Clair Obscur), so the bar as described here, does no longer exist…
A bit hidden behind the Trinity church, at the border of Ixelles and Saint-Gilles, you can find a quaint, cosy bar, named L’auBIÈREgiste. The name of this bar is a play-on-words, putting bière in the middle of the word l’aubergiste – innkeeper – thereby shortening the popular phrase “A beer, innkeeper!” to just one word. However, in a bar with an offer like they have here, asking for just “a beer” will not suffice!
CHEZWaWa
Food places keep popping up in Brussels all the time, introducing cuisines from all over the world. We’ve seen Mexican or Tex-Mex on some restaurants before, but so far, they haven’t been able to impress us. Cali-Mex, or Californian Mexican however, was new to us, and I believe to Brussels.
After having tried this Cali-Mex food for the first time at CHEZWaWa, we’d say: welcome, and bring on the giant burritos, the soft tacos, and the hot salsa!