Belgium: Day Four (Antwerp)
Yes this holiday was in August and I'm still writing it up. What's worse is it's stopping me drinking Belgian beers as I don't want to get too far behind. I was hoping to get up to fifty this year; it's not like I've not got the beer, I'm just not drinking it. Don't worry, I'm drinking other stuff. [Yep, I'm so crap it's taken me weeks to finish this post. I did indeed hit the fifty mark in 2009 so I'm stupidly behind on this.]
So, day four of our holiday and it was a day out in Antwerp. When planning things I had thought of spending a few days in Ghent and then a few in Antwerp but after seeing how easy it seemed to get between the two we decided it would be less hassle to just stay in one place and get the train. Which is what we did, turning up at the city's impressive train station, getting the underground into the centre and admiring the ancient cathedral, town hall and "old town" before getting down to the serious business of beer.
38 - Dupont Saison Dupont
The classic example of a saison, the light beer drunk by agricultural workers in the south of Belgium and analogous to the French biere de garde. I split a large bottle with pingopark in a fine courtyard bar over lunch, which was so good we ended up there again later for more food. A hazy orange beer with a goodly amount of hops but in a quaffable way. A bit spicy with a dry lingering finish. Bloody nice and another great beer for a hot summer's day, which it was. A mere 6.5% so I reckon it almost counts as a session ale as far as Belgian beers go, and you could do a lot worse than spend an evening on this.
I'll skip the travelogue bit as we wandered around the city, though I'll put in a picture of this rather dodgy looking statue. Make of it what you will.
39 - Rochefort 8
This Trappist beer is one of those that's meant to improve with age, so I've been keeping a bottle for a while. However, as soon as I walked into the Oud Arsenaal bar and spotted their specials board I knew what I was going to drink. A three year old version, and cheaper than an unaged one would be in many other bars.
A dark, murky brown beer with tastes of figs, dark fruits and nuts; a very Christmassy sort of taste really. It's 9.3% but the ageing had really rounded the taste out and got rid of any alcohol harshness. Absolutely lovely. A couple of weeks after drinking this I persuaded Claire fishlifter to have one in The Evening Star in Brighton which was an interesting comparison. Very good, but not a patch on this, which was superb.
40 - Proef (for Drie Fonteinen) Beersel Lager
While drinking my Rochefort I had time to peruse the bar's beer list and most impressive it was too. Not huge in number, though certainly not shoddy, but there was a lot of really good sounding stuff on it, all very reasonably priced.
I decided to stick to the list though and went for this beer, though I was fairly sure I was foregoing more interesting pleasures for it.
Proef is a modern brewery that specialises in brewing beer for other people. If you want to make a beer you can rent the place out and brew it. There are several "breweries" who don't have their own facilities but make all their beers here, such as Slaapmutske, which are a bit of a favourite of mine. In fact the beer I'm drinking while I'm writing this was brewed there, despite nominally being from a Danish brewery (Mikkeller's It's Alive!).
Drie Fonteinen, on the other hand, are a fantastic lambic brewery. But the sheer oddness of lambics means that a brewery that focuses on them doesn't have the right equipment to make more "ordinary" beers. Hence they use the Proef brewery to brew their lager.
As to the beer itself, I was pleasantly surprised, many lagers not exactly grabbing me. If I'd not known I'd probably have guessed this was a Belgian Blonde, and one with more flavour than Leffe Blond at that. A lot more body than many lagers and a reasonable hoppiness along with a bit of sweetness. Not bad at all. Though give me one of their lambics any day.
This was a real find as a bar though; I could quite happily spend a long time in this one. When I was leaving I thanked the landlord and congratulated him on a fine establishment. He shrugged, "It's just a hobby".
41 - Dupont Bons Voeux
The next bar we hit was another one I want to go back to and spend a long time in. We were in a bit of a hurry when we made it to Kulminator and I really didn't do it justice. I had to abandon properly perusing their beer list and instead went for the second Dupont of the day, this time on draught. Avec Les Bons Voeux De La Brasserie Dupont (With the best wishes of Dupont brewery) to give it its full name this barley wine was originally brewed in 1970 as a Christmas present to the brewery's best customers. Nice, but I don't seem to have made any notes on it and it was a while ago that I drank it. I think I was somewhat distracted by that beer list that I mentioned.
What this bar specialises in, rather than just sheer number of beers, is aged beers. You can get, say, a large bottle of Chimay Blue dating from any year from the mid-80s. Lambics from breweries that no longer exist but are probably divine tasting by now. And so on for many more.
Coming back from the toilet I noticed the window into their cold storage room. To borrow a quote I overheard someone use about The Rake recently, "It's like a sweet-shop for beer".
I definitely want to go back to Antwerp and spend a lot of time in the Oud Arsenaal and Kulminator. I can see the second getting quite pricey but I strongly suspect it would have some of the finest beer I've ever drunk.