A bit later than we were used to, but it’s almost time for the fifth edition of the biggest and best craft beer festival of Brussels: BXLBeerFest! On the 30th of September and the 1st of October in Tour & Taxis, you get once again the opportunity to try more than 400 beers—and some meads and ciders—from 60 smaller, artisanal breweries from Belgium, Europe and beyond. From a clean glass, of course!
We stumbled upon Chez Mon Ex when Wonder Bru‘s first beer Mate Brew was launched there. With the signs advertising the Luxembourgish Battin beers outside, one wouldn’t immediately expect a craft beer bar here… As it turned out, they do really like the Brussels and other craft breweries there, and quite a few of these beers feature on the menu, both on draught, and in bottles and cans! It still has the look and feel of a neighbourhood bar, because, well, it is!
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!
Family Brews opened just a little over a year ago in the Rue des Harengs, just off the Grand Place. In such a central location, you might expect just another tourist trap, but nothing could be further from the truth! For prices comparable to the ones you’ll pay for an uninteresting industrial beer in nearby bars, here you can enjoy some local brews instead. Don’t get hung up on specific breweries or beers, just let the staff surprise you with something they think you’ll like!
It’s the end of August, which means it’s time for the biggest craft beer festival of Brussels: BXLBeerFest! For this third edition they’re once again pulling out all the stops to make this a great beer festival: clean glasses for every beer served, cold storage for the kegs, great food, and plenty of room to sit or walk around to socialise with old and new beer friends!
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.
If you’ve been to any beer bar or beer festival in the last couple of months, you must already have noticed the posters or flyers, for BXLBeerFest. In just a week— Saturday the 25th and Sunday 26th of August 2018 to be exact—the biggest, cleanest, freshest, and tastiest beer festival dedicated to artisan beer in Brussels, will take place for the second time at Tour & Taxis, and we sure hope you can all make it!
We’ve sat outside a couple of beer shops enjoying a freshly bought fresh beer before, but there are only few beer shops that actually encourage this. Luckily, Les Fleurs du Malt does—at least in summer—and it has set up a nice little terrace on the square in front of the store. This was an excellent opportunity for us to spend a bit more time on the metro to get to Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, as it turns out, for the first time for this blog.
UPDATE: After being closed for a while, it reopened under new management. We haven’t revisited it since, but it seems largely 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.
It makes so much sense to have a beer with your chips, it is just crazy nobody thought to open a craft beer chip shop in Brussels before. Bintje stepped up to the plate, and opened their chip shop in the Chatelain area of Ixelles last December. Not only do they serve two draught beers — currently both from De la Senne — with their organic chips, there are dozens more of excellent bottled and canned beers — both Belgian and foreign — to choose from, certainly a lot more than any other bar in the neighbourhood, as far as we know!