UPDATE: Closed permanently…
Nothing about Bélier Bar exactly screams craft beer bar: the modest number of six, unbranded taps could be pouring anything, and the amount of spirits on the shelves behind the bar, would rather give you the impression this is a cocktail bar. They do cocktails indeed, but once you discover the beer list, you’ll immediately see that those are not their only strength!
The biggest drawback of Brussels’ currently open taprooms, is their limited opening hours. We can imagine it’s hard to combine a bar-like environment with a working brewery, but luckily l’Ermitage found a solution: open a separate bar a kilometer and a half down the road. L’Ermitage Saint-Gilles is open seven days a week, every day from 4.30 PM, so there’s no reason any more to go without your preferred l’Ermitage beer on draught when the craving hits you!
Uccle has not really been craft beer central so far, or actually central anything… The opening of Beergium however, has finally made this part of Brussels a more attractive beer destination, and on top of that, the perfect stop in between lambic brewer and gueuze blender 3 Fonteinen, and the centre of Brussels. Don’t worry if you never make it out of Uccle though: in addition to the numerous foreign beers on offer, there are plenty of 3F bottles in Beergium‘s fridges as well!
It’s been a while since we had an excuse to visit Schaerbeek to report on a new beery destination, but the Python Beer Cellar finally lured us back to the city of donkeys!
The modern looking bar—but with just a touch of curly nostalgia—is quite a walk away from the other beer bars in Schaarbeek, therefore serving a completely different herd of customers, who can—and should—make this bar their own.
UPDATE: Closed permanently…
We’ve discussed a couple of buvettes and guingettes in parks before, but the hot and sunny weather forces us to drink outside again… Not that we mind! This time, we visited Bar Eliza in the Elisabethpark, a bar quite unlike the other park bars we visited so far. For starters, Eliza isn’t exactly in it for the money, but it’s ran by a couple of local foundations, of which you might already recognise community centers De Platoo and De Zeyp as organisers of the Plazey festival.
UPDATE: After being closed for a while, it reopened under new management. We have revisited it since, and it seems mostly unchanged.
Once again, we found ourselves in the Marolles, right next to the location of the famous flea market, this time at CHAFF. While the band was getting ready to play later on that evening, we picked a table on the first floor to have a couple of local beers—almost every brewery in Brussels was represented with at least one beer—and something to eat. Despite the large choice of rather healthy looking dishes, we decided to go for the burgers.
UPDATE: Closed permanently…
We’ve had ramen and gyoza before, but we had no clue what donburi, kara age, or onigiri were, when we first read it on the menu of Kumiko. Although the food menu is definitely Japanese, you can’t simply call the place a Japanese restaurant: there is a cellar bar more suitable for drinking than eating, and a nice courtyard terrace. There is some Japanese macro beer available, with the brewery in the same block, a Brussels Beer Project beer would be the obvious choice here, unless the CraftWorks beer tickles your fancy more.
Dekkera, “la bièrerie du quartier Wiels“, is the first venue in Forest appearing on our blog. The reason for this is simple: in Forest, Dekkera probably is the first and only beer bar — and shop — not serving and selling ‘big beer’, but exclusively local and other Belgian craft beer. Of course, that that is exactly what we like to see!
Most beer lovers familiar with foreign beers, already know BrewDog, or at least have heard of it. The sometimes controversial Scottish brewery doesn’t only brew beer, it also runs a few dozen bars. Already quite a while ago, BrewDog Brussels opened right next to Central Station, but a recent change is finally turning it into the beer geek mecca it should have been from the start. The hoppy beers BrewDog is known for, are now fresher than ever, the Buffalo wings hotter than ever, and the staff is more passionate than ever. If you haven’t done so recently, now is the time to (re)visit BrewDog Brussels!
It only opened a couple of weeks ago, but GIST seems to be well on its way to be a prime spot in the Brussels beer landscape. Not only are there sixteen normal draught taps to pour just as many different beer styles at any given time, but two beautiful beer engines for cask ales as well. We’ve seen similar beer engines in Brussels to dispense lambic beers, but as far as we know, this would be the only place where they will actually be used to pour British (style) ales! And that in a city that actually has a couple of British pubs…