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!
De la Senne
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.
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!
Vini, Birre, Ribelli
Even though Vini, Birre, Ribelli is primarily a wine festival — over 75% of the participants are winemakers — this still is one festival beer lovers in Brussels can’t afford to miss! The third edition moved once again to a bigger location, this year occupying the Citroën site near Yser. Oh, and no ‘sessions’, no tokens, just a fixed entrance fee and unlimited refills of your tasting glass!
Beer Mania
There are many beer stores in Brussels, but only a few make an effort to differentiate themselves from the rest. Beer Mania does so in two different ways: firstly, you can have a cold beer and a meal there, and even quite late. Secondly, they have their own beer, available nowhere else. We had visited Beer Mania already a couple of years ago, but our beer buying interests have since then moved from the mostly Belgian beers on offer there. When they announced a Finnish beer festival however, we saw it as an excellent reason to return.
Excelsior
Most of the places we’ve discussed so far, are found in the same areas: Brussels centre, Saint-Gilles, Ixelles, Schaerbeek. A little while ago we were involved in a little Twitter conversation about the lack of decent beer places west of the canal. We had to admit, apart from some breweries, we only knew of one: Excelsior, in Jette. But this bar could easily fool you with its huge Jupiler and Maes branding on the outside, and even inside, the only visible pump clip is once again on of those commercial pilsners. But once you peek into the fridges, things get a whole lot more interesting…
The Hairy Canary
“Victorian pub” it says on the terrace screen outside The Hairy Canary, and that is exactly what it looks like when you enter. The Hairy Canary is the kind op bar where you would expect the bartender to fill your pint glass, slowly pulling cask ale through a beer engine. Unfortunately — or maybe not? — you’ll rarely find English cask ales on this side of the Channel. For those of you still curious about more traditional English ales, they do serve a couple of those in bottles.
La Tana
Update: La Tana has move across the street, to Rue de l'Enseignement 27, and beer shop La Tana 2.0 has moved to the same location. [venue id= 5e27564fa292720008bc3b61]
When visiting Rome a couple of years ago, there was only one beer bar to be found in the eternal city, and just a few interesting breweries in the whole of Italy. Much has changed since then, and many Italian beers now equal or surpass our Belgian brews. However, it is still quite rare to see an Italian restaurant serving those beers. Luckily for us, in 2014 two Romans — chef Valerio and his brother — opened a tiny place called La Tana, where they serve great pastas, and beers to match.
Pistolet Original
Having a beer with your lunch — even on a normal work day — isn’t uncommon in Belgium, but finding high quality beer in a sandwich place, is. At Pistolet Original they’re not only serving some of the best Brussels beers to drink with your ‘pistolet’, they even use our beloved Cantillon gueuze as an ingredient for their latest creation, the Zenne Pistolet Cantillon!