Places where you can go for a beer, without the need — or option — of ordering a meal.
Addict Bar really was a lucky find. The Jupiler sign outside wouldn’t exactly lure us in, and a flickering gambling machine in the back usually is a warning to keep out… However, when one late night a friend dragged us to her neighbourhood bar, we discovered that these guys actually love beer! Local breweries on draught, and fridges full of beers from all kinds of independent breweries!
With the name Chez Lutgarde, it is not surprising they mostly serve beers from the young Lasne brewery Abbaye d’Aywiers, better known by the name most of their beers carry: Lutgarde. You could even consider this bar the downtown taproom of the brewery. What drew us in, however, were the advertisements for some Brussels breweries you don’t see in that many other bars yet, like Brasserie Vandekelder! Once inside, we discovered that actually all the beers they serve, are from small, independent breweries, and quite a lot of them even from Brussels!
When Beer Capital Brussels opened and we briefly peeked inside, we could only see ‘big beer’ on draught. Consequently, we dismissed it as ‘just a tourist bar’ and didn’t really consider it for our blog. However, when we ended up there some time later, we discovered it actually had quite a nice and extremely large selection (1464 different beers, last time we checked their Untappd menu) of canned and bottled beers in their cellar and fridges, and even local beers Zinnebir (from Brasserie de la Senne) and Delta (from Brussels Beer Project) on draught!
Our visit to Le Wappers was long overdue, but we finally made it back to Schaerbeek for a visit to this tavern! Without even reading a word on the menu, its design by Jean Goovaerts immediately makes it quite clear: there will be plenty of De la Senne beers to enjoy!
Probably just as important as the beer, is the spaghetti served here in the evening, providing punters with a tasty and efficient way to line the stomach for a night of beers with friends.
At every beer festival you’ll find them: groups of friends playing a card or board game, while sipping on the available beers. That means there’s clearly some overlap between gamers and craft beer lovers, and for them there is Le Bar à Jeux! An excellent selection of beers, combined with a huge library of games to play, makes it easy to spend quite a bit of time there without even noticing. And when the rumbling of the stomach draws attention to the passing of the hours, there is some food available as well to keep you going!
At first glance, MangiaSempre is a shop, or more specifically, an Italian ‘bottega’. The shelves and fridge counter are stacked with high quality products, everything you need to cook up an Italian meal at home, and yes, even some beers.
But then you’ll notice the beer taps and the menu with the daily specials and sandwiches, and you’ll quickly realise MangiaSempre is so much more than just a shop! Although the terrace with Brasserie de la Mule parasols probably was a bit of a giveaway already…
We stumbled upon Chez Mon Ex when Wonder Bru‘s first beer Mate Brew was launched there. With the signs advertising the Luxembourgish Battin beers outside, one wouldn’t immediately expect a craft beer bar here… As it turned out, they do really like the Brussels and other craft breweries there, and quite a few of these beers feature on the menu, both on draught, and in bottles and cans! It still has the look and feel of a neighbourhood bar, because, well, it is!
The latest taproom that opened in the Brussels region, is a bit special. CoHop is not just a brewery, but actually a cooperative of a couple of former gypsy brewers that had been around for a while already, and… CoHop! They all share a 20hl brewing installation and 13 fermenters together—taking turns brewing—and a nice mezzanine taproom with 24 taps, on the historic Arsenal site in Etterbeek.
There was still one brewery with a proper taproom we didn’t write about yet, and that was Brasserie de la Mule, in Schaerbeek. And what a great taproom it is! A long bar to sit at—rarely found in brewery taprooms—and a great walled Biergarten. The use of the German word here is very much intentional, since they really like their German style beers here! And the best way to serve a German wheat beer is of course in a large (0,5 l), curvy Weizenbierglas. Bring on the next heatwave, here is the perfect place to cool down and, uh, ‘hydrate’!
The clock once again switched to summer time, the days are longer, the terraces are open and usually quite full. June already started, this means the beer festivals are upon us, and finally again the full lineup! In this blog post, we’ll go over the beer festivals and events that are already known to us—even if just a little—and we think will be worth going to, so you can put them in your calendars already, and ask for the necessary days off from work…