The Marolles… A wonderful part of Brussels, mixing old and new, craft and commercial, and this goes both for the beers and the furniture and other objects sold in this part of town. Wiel’s Renard Noir — in the middle of d’Huugstroet (High Street) — is very much in touch with its past, with its old photos, paintings, and relief tiles with religious scenes, while serving twenty-first century ales to young hipsters and old geezers alike.
Martijn
Brasserie 28
UPDATE: Seems to be closed. A note said for renovations, but they hadn’t been open on the advertised hours for months before…
The former post office in the Central Station is finally in use again! Not for any postal needs of course — who still sends letters these days? — but for a bite and and a beer. Brasserie 28 will — eventually — not only serve 30 different draught beers and even more on bottle to consume in the bar, but everything is — or very soon will be — available to take away. Having a “train beer” when travelling from Central Station suddenly became interesting!
Brussels Beer Project
It’s quite nice to have a brewery with a little shop only a few minutes’ walk from home, to provide us with a steady supply of freshly bottled beers. Add a real taproom open in the evening — actually quite a rarity in Brussels — and growler filling station, and visits become more frequent and lengthy. The one thing saving us from spending too much time and money at Brussels Beer Project, is that they’re not open every day: only on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, from 2 to 10pm. When you happen to be in the neighbourhood within those hours, don’t hesitate to have a seat on one of the beer crate stools with the hissing malt bag cushions, and taste their newest experimental brew, or one of the guest beers.
Merlo
Now the last Winter Wonder chalets have finally been taken down, it’s once again possible to see café Merlo from our doorstep, and in a time when long journeys by tram and metro are undesirable — some bloggers have to spend a bit more time studying for exams now — a quick visit to our near-neighbours was almost unavoidable. ‘t Verzet‘s Super NoAH turned out to be the Beer of the Month on bottle, so we crossed the Vismet for a hoppy nightcap.
Peck 47
The Kiekenmarkt or Rue du Marché aux Poulets received a makeover in 2012, making it car-free and therefore much more attractive for everyone, but businesses in the food and drink industry in particular. Sure, Corica en Celtica fared quite well already, when there was only a three tile wide pavement in front of their doors, but the street’s renaissance attracted some new entrepreneurs as well. We already told the success story of Bia Mara, but a couple of doors up the street, Peck 47 has become a food and drink hot spot as well!
Café Bizon
Café Bizon was one of the very first bars in the centre of Brussels I frequented, even before I lived there. The reasons were simple: great — often live — blues music, cool and quirky interior, multilingual staff, and Guinness on draught. Even then I didn’t like lager, so the stout was a welcome alternative, and so the Guinness was my drink of choice. It’s still there — always served with the Irish shamrock drawn in the foam — but the beer list is actually a lot more interesting than that!
Saco Pizza Bar
We’ve already taken you to a real Italian restaurant with this blog, but so far, we hadn’t yet mentioned the Italian fast food par excellence: pizza. There are dozens of pizza places in Brussels, but as often is the case with fast food places, serving good beer is rarely a priority there. A happy exception to this rule is Saco Pizza Bar, serving both great pizzas, and an excellent selection of Belgian beers.
Houtsiplou
Burgers and beer are an excellent combination, we have mentioned that before. Not everybody likes burgers though, or at least not all the time. Luckily, at Houtsiplou the menu consist of more than just burgers, offering a range of classic Belgian dishes and some others as well. Your dining partner prefers beef carpaccio over beef burgers? No problem here!
Le Murmure
It had been a while since we last visited the Flagey area for a drink, but Le Murmure still looked pretty much the same as last time we were there. And that’s quite quirky, with its copper pipes curling through the space over our heads, and colourful wall paintings. More importantly however, the De la Senne beers were still pouring from its taps, and quite a few gems from Belgium and abroad adorned the bottle list.
Brasserie de la Senne
UPDATE: Moved to Tour & Taxis, and added their Zennebar taproom!
On this blog, we’ve mentioned Brasserie de la Senne several times. For us, it’s always a reassurance to see their beers on draught in a bar, and a good indication somebody made at least some effort to put together an interesting beer list, including a selection of local products. It was high time we headed to Molenbeek and paid the brewery itself a visit!