L’Atelier

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UPDATE: Closed permanently…

From the outside, L’Atelier must be one of the most unattractive bars in Brussels, hiding its treasures behind a bland garage door, without any windows to peek into. Too often, for unknown reasons, that garage door even stays closed! If the door is open however, don’t hesitate to go inside, forget about the outside world for a couple of hours, and go treasure hunting in this Aladdin’s cave of beer, in the student district in Ixelles.

The hunting at L’Atelier will be mainly a visual affair, since most bottled beers are in fridges behind the bar, or safely locked up. The central, wooden beer list offers already a lot of choice in often lesser known beers, but for the real gems — like a whole list of barrel aged Ten Dormaal beers — you’ll have to read each and every chalkboard, since they all seem to list a couple of different beers.

The empty KeyKegs hanging from the ceiling as oversized Christmas balls and beer advertisements are nice, but for us, the main attraction usually is the locked fridge against the left wall just in front of the bar. It always seems to contain a large selection of vintage bottles of Struise Brouwers — from their Black Damnation series, for instance — a few old imperial stouts by BrewDog — still with the old branding — and some other rare beauties.

Although some of those vintage bottles will set you back more than €50, in general the pricing is very reasonable, which is not too surprising considering its location in the student district. This means it’s not uncommon to see one student guzzling a 50 cl glasses of pilsner, while an other is savouring a strong dark ale.

There are ten beers on draught, some of them changing every now and then as well. Check the blackboard opposite the wooden beer list to find out which ones are available.

L’Atelier doesn’t have as much to offer in the food department: on a previous visit we noticed cheese en crisps being served, but we couldn’t find any mention of them anymore our last time. If you want to try some of the stronger beers here, you’re better off having dinner in one of the many Asian restaurants in the neighbourhood.

Don’t forget to bring a sufficient amount of cash — especially if you want to drink something really special — since your cards are no good at L’Atelier!

    

tl;dr

Beers

  • 10 beers on draught
  • Huge, eclectic bottle list
  • A treasure chest — in the shape of a fridge — filled with Struise and other valuables

Bites

  • Some cheese and small bar snacks

 

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What have people been drinking here recently?