There are plenty of bars in Brussels with a foreign touch — or more than just a touch — but only some are truly international. And by that I mean a bar where you can find beers from all over the world, but very local beers as well, and where you can hear the corresponding languages spoken. At The Black Sheep, the Lanterne from the Ixellois brewery L’Ermitage, pouring alongside the IPA from the American brewery in Berlin Stone, illustrates this perfectly.
bottled
L’Atelier
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.
Cantillon
For the first anniversary of our blog — today — we wanted something special. And what would be more special than the mekka for the beer tourist, the Cantillon brewery? Only open five days a week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday) and just until five o’clock in the afternoon, and very busy at times, you’ll have to plan your visit to the brewery-cum-museum carefully. However, an impressive list of Cantillon beers, some of which you thought would be long lost, will be your reward!
La Biche
We’re quite used to finding beers from one or more of the Brussels breweries on the menu of a bar, and as we’ve said before: it’s a good indication someone put some effort in the beer selection. Even if the rest of the (online available) beer menu is not that exciting at all, it always makes us curious to see if there are any interesting guest beers. When we spotted Stone IPA on the Facebook page of La Biche, a visit was unavoidable. However, what we then spotted on the guest beer menu above the bar, was above all our expectations for this little neighbourhood bar!
Wiel’s Renard Noir
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.
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.
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.