Every time a new place is about to open in Brussels, we carefully monitor their posts on social media to see if there’s any mention of beer, and sometimes we even just ask which beers they will be serving. NONA didn’t need our encouragement, and one of their photos already showed a tasting of De Ranke beers, to serve in their new Neapolitan pizza restaurant. As it turns out, NONA even has two of their beers on draught! Consequently, we were pretty excited about the place, even before we had tried their pizzas.
on draught
Swafff! Brussels Craft Beer Fffestival 2017
It looks like it will be a great beer festival summer in Brussels this year, and it already kicks off this weekend with Swafff! Brussels Craft Beer Fffestival. On both Saturday the 24th and Sunday the 25th of June, more than 30 Belgian and foreign breweries will serve us their best beers in Les Ecuries van de Tram.
Chez Bobonne
UPDATE: Closed permanently…
“Restaurant – Shop – Bar – Brewery” it says in the logo of Chez Bobonne, and at first I thought that last word was just a wrong translation of the French word ‘brasserie‘, the type of restaurant. But lo and behold: on one of their Facebook photos, there was a real — albeit small — brewing installation! Not only that, but they displayed a great love for beer as well, and even before the official opening, we could see a couple of bottles of Dochter van de Korenaar pictured. A visit was inevitable…
Woodpecker
It’s almost summer, and in the past month, we even had a little heatwave already. A shaded terrace in front of a bar can be a nice spot when that happens, but it’s even better to get away from all that heat retaining brick and concrete, and find some shade under the trees in one of the many public parks of Brussels. In more and more parks, we now see buvettes (re)opening, serving cool drinks on those hot days. In the park of Bois de la Cambre, it’s the team of Woodpecker that keeps us hydrated, serving pints of Zinnebir and Jambe-de-Bois.
Copain
In Schaerbeek, the bar scene is moving at a very high pace, and just a couple of weeks ago, yet another bar opened in this northern municipality: Copain. It’s just two blocks down from 1030 Café, so the area is actually becoming quite interesting for bar hoppers who’d like to drink something else than just cheap lager or one of those abbey ales that are a dime a dozen. The subtitle “Beer, Wine & Friends” sums up the bar quite nicely: a place to enjoy quality drinks, in nice, sometimes very cosy, surroundings.
Les 3 Frères
UPDATE: Closed permanently…
It must be that the love for good beer — made with an equal amount of love — is infectious, since once again, we find ourselves in Saint-Gilles, at only a few hundred meters from ‘patient zero’, Moeder Lambic. At Les 3 Frères (the three brothers) this love for beer — especially for those made by De la Senne and Tartaruga — comes with a love for food as well, serving dishes ranging from a simple soup or croque monsieur, to tagliatelle with asparagus, courgettes and artichokes, and perfectly cooked steak.
Café Maison du Peuple
We should have known better than to come to a big bar on the liveliest square of Saint-Gilles on a Friday evening… But we just tried to ignore the plastic cups, loud music and ID-less bouncers, and focussed on the surprisingly rich beer menu of Café Maison du Peuple instead. We didn’t just discover beers from De la Senne, Brussels Beer Project and Beerstorming from — very — nearby, but even bottles and cans from Stone, BrewDog and The Kernel from abroad!
Birrabus at the Brussels Food Truck Festival
A food truck festival is already a lot of foodie fun — albeit often quite expensive — but the addition of some decent beer makes such a festival the perfect weekend activity. The Brussels edition is lucky enough to welcome the Birrabus once again. Even in the obligatory reusable plastic cups, the Italian beer pouring from the taps on the side of a schoolbus, still tastes delicious.
So if you’re going to the Brussels Food Truck Festival this weekend, don’t hesitate to take a moment to sit in one of the school benches in front of the Birrabus, and try a couple of the 18 different beers from Hammer, Lambrate, CANEDIGUERRA, BrewFist or Birranova.
Moka – Coffee & Beer
As much as we like our barley based drinks, we usually start our day with a bean based hot drink: coffee. Moka – Coffee & Beer predates the third wave of coffee by many years — or at least its traditional Faema E61 espresso machine from 1964 does — so don’t expect to be able to choose from many single origins or all kinds of fancy brewing methods. The house blend is fine, though, and by adding modern beer to the menu, however, the venue suddenly becomes a kind of place Brussels needs more of!
Théâtre Royal de Toone
A puppet theatre wouldn’t be the first place you’d look for a nice beer, would it? But hidden away at the end of a narrow alley, the estaminet attached to Théâtre Royal de Toone is serving beers from Oud Beersel and Boon on draught, and a few more interesting beers on bottle! Even though we’ve been at Toone a couple of times already, so far, we have never seen a show. But if you’re interested, there are plenty of puppets hanging around — literally — to get an idea of what you can expect ‘on stage’, three nights a week.