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!

We’ve been to tap takeovers there by Siren Craft, Brew By Numbers and Beavertown — undoubtedly missing a couple of others — and even though none of these breweries were new to us, there were always at least a couple of beers on tap we hadn’t tried before! In between tap takeovers, you’ll usually find beers from aforementioned breweries on the tap list, next to beers from other English breweries, like Partizan Brewing. Last time we were there, there was even some American beer on draught: the brown ale from the  Brooklyn Brewery, although even this one was mimicking an English style.

Of course, you’ll also be able to drink some Belgian beers at Dynamo as well: Brussels breweries De La Senne, Brussels Beer Project, and of course neighbour Beerstorming, next to some some others, have found their way to the beer cellar, to be poured from one of the 18 taps. Those taps are quite advanced, by the way: each one is fitted with its own flow regulator, which makes it easier to pour some of the more foamy beers.

Dynamo not only organises tap takeovers: there have been a couple of beer and food pairing events as well. One of these pairings was with chocolate, an other one we sadly couldn’t attend, with cheese. Luckily they’ve taken the lessons learnt there to heart, and the bar now offers quite an extensive cheese menu, which for each cheese even includes suggestions for which beer style to pair with it.

By the way, if you’re stuck with a wine loving partner or friend, there’s some good news for you: the wine selection appears to be quite interesting as well, so you can both enjoy your drinks at Dynamo!

Saint-Gilles seems to attract all kinds of great, beery initiatives, for some reason, and Dynamo certainly is one of them. English beer hasn’t received a lot of love from Belgium so far, but Dynamo could really help turning this around. Take your seat on the new terrace before it’s full!

tl;dr

Beers

• 18 keg pumps with mainly English and Belgian beers

Bites

• Big selection of cheeses, with pairing suggestions

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What have people been drinking here recently?