tapas

Chez Lutgarde

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front view of the Chez Lutgarde bar in Brussels. There are two parasols and four outside tables. The name "Chez Lutgarde" is in red.
© Hannah Casier

With the name Chez Lutgarde, it is not surprising they mostly serve beers from the young Lasne brewery Abbaye d’Aywiers, better known by the name most of their beers carry: Lutgarde. You could even consider this bar the downtown taproom of the brewery. What drew us in, however, were the advertisements for some Brussels breweries you don’t see in that many other bars yet, like Brasserie Vandekelder! Once inside, we discovered that actually all the beers they serve, are from small, independent breweries, and quite a lot of them even from Brussels!

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Bar Eliza

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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.

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Chez Richard

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In a fancy area like the one around the Sablon square, one would expect a champagne bar rather than a beer bar. Now, we wouldn’t really call Chez Richard a beer bar, but it did manage to surprise us nevertheless. First of all: they have Jambe-de-Bois on draught. That’s a good start, but not too uncommon anymore nowadays. Noticing BrewDog‘s Punk IPA on the menu made us happy, only to be disappointed when we were told it was temporarily out of stock. The unexpected alternative offered however, made more than up for the discomfort: Cali from Tiny Rebel!

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Brasserie 28

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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!

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Peck 47

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The Kiekenmarkt or Rue du Marché aux Poulets received a makeover in 2012, making it car-free and therefore much more attractive for everyone, but businesses in the food and drink industry in particular. Sure, Corica en Celtica fared quite well already, when there was only a three tile wide pavement in front of their doors, but the street’s renaissance attracted some new entrepreneurs as well. We already told the success story of Bia Mara, but a couple of doors up the street, Peck 47 has become a food and drink hot spot as well!

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KICK tap’ASS

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UPDATE: Closed permanently…

DSC_0561The Rue de Laeken doesn’t seem to be the best of places to open a bar for some: geek bar Schrödinger’s Cat didn’t last very long, and Tapas Soif? didn’t remain open for very long either. However, the latter has risen as a phoenix — apparently there even was some actual fire involved — with a little help from crowdfunders, and is now serving Belgian tapas and beers again under the name KICK tap’ASS. Time to go back to try the tapas we missed out on during its previous incarnation!

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