New Spring Beer Festivals

Published on 1 April 2024

The beer festival season has well and truly started for me! After a very enjoyable trip to CBFS24 in Stuttgart in February, I visited two more beer festivals in Belgium I had never been to yet: The Beer Experience in Zolder, and Fest’IPA in Namur.

The Beer Experience – 24-25 March 2024

First up was The Beer Experience, which I visited on the 23rd of March. I arrived quite late—it was a two train trip, all the way to Zolder—so it was in full swing by the time I entered. There were lots of familiar faces, bot among the visitors and the stand holders, but more importantly, also a lot of breweries I hadn’t tried any beers of yet!

The location was quite special—an old mining site—and I didn’t quite get around to exploring all of it. Neither did I had the time to ‘experience’ all aspects of the festival fully, with its art exhibits spread out over the buildings, since there were simply too many beers to try! I did get to enjoy some of the live music, though!

This definitely is a festival I will visit again, and allow a bit more time for next time!

I also skipped the food trucks for once, since I had my heart set on something I can only get the way I want it in Limburg, it seems: a döner kebab in Turkish bread that doesn’t get squished in a panini grill, and with green peppers on the side. The appropriately named snack bar De Mijn had exactly that!

After a beer festival, train trips with a change to get home are always a bit risky, but I didn’t miss any connections, and made it back to Brussels without a hitch.

Fest’IPA – 19-20 April 2024

The next discovery was Fest’IPA in Namur. I already discovered that Namur has something to offer for beer lovers, but I hadn’t been to any events here yet. Fest’IPA is an event by Namur Capitale de la Bière, the organisation behind the festival with the same name, but also some other beer events in the city.

The location for the festival—La Nef—was already quite special. It was in fact the desecrated Notre-Dame church of Namur, but a lot of the artwork was still in place.

No entrance fee, no tokens, just one bar with six beer pumps and a couple of fridges. Apparently that’s all you need, since I had a great time tasting some of the beers they had selected. If I didn’t have to get up early the next morning, I would happily have spent a couple of hours more!

So that’s another, completely different, beer festival to look out for next year!

Warszawa & Berlin – Day 7

Published on 18 October 2023

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If you want to read about this trip from start to finish, instead of in reverse order, click here!

Back to Brussels…

And just like that, it was time to go home again.

To keep things simple, I just had breakfast at ibis Berlin Mitte, with a view on wat seemed to be a rooftop apiary. I didn’t try the waffle maker, but I was tempted!

After checking out of the hotel, I took the M2 tram again—the tram with which every day in Berlin started and ended—to Berlin Hauptbahnhof, to take the ICE to Köln.

The ICE arrived almost in time, so I had plenty of time for a coffee at Blooming Coffeebar and Roastery, before a last beer in Germany. I was considering going for a Kölsch, like last time, but when I passed Craftbeer Corner Coeln, still well before its opening tim, there was already some movement inside, and the door was open. When I asked about their 18:00 opening, they took pity on me, and served me some beers already!

From there it was back onto an ICE, for the last stretch to Brussels. That meant the end of another wonderful trip, full of great discoveries, and happy revisits of familiar places!

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Warszawa & Berlin – Day 0

Published on 11 October 2023

On the European Sleeper!

Just a day after European Sleeper announced it will soon continue to their originally announced destination Prague, I find myself on one of their trains to Berlin.

European Sleeper: route Brussels - Berlin

After a slightly confusing boarding experience—carriage 1 was not at the front where it should be—I settled in my room for the night.

Stewardess—yes, that is how they call themselves on the European Sleeper!—Caroline then explained to me how everything worked, prepared my bed already—since I don’t really need three seats for just myself anyway—and brought me my welcome drink, a European Sleeper Weizen.

Of course I brought some more beers and snacks for the rest of the journey myself! For entertainment, I had downloaded some films and series on my iPad, since the current sleeper service doesn’t offer any WiFi.

Arrival in Berlin tomorrow will be quite early—shortly after six —so Caroline will bring me my breakfast and tea around that time, as soon as I open my room door. I’ll add photos of that in the morning!

Breakfast!

My Belgian Summer Holiday – Ghent

Published on 9 August 2023

One of the last destinations with my Off-Peak Unlimited train ticket, was Ghent. I originally planned to go there on a Thursday, but I was unexpectedly called in to work, but this Wednesday was the only full free day I had, and all the bars I intended to go to, seemed to be open.

However, I didn’t check the museums, and as it turns out, Wednesday is a closing day for most museums in Ghent… So after walking to STAM, the city museum of Ghent, in vain, my first stop was then Koffeine, for some coffee and cheesecake.

A bit earlier than planned, I then continued my sunny and scenic walk to Dok Brewing Company for my first beers of the day. This taproom was actually the only one of my beer stops open this early, so I took my time to enjoy my beers, while waiting to move on to the a new bar.

Well, Café De Welkom might be new, but it used to be Brouwbar before. Now it is kind of the city centre taproom of Dok Brewing Company, and they completely overhauled the place. There are considerably fewer taps with beer here than in the actual brewery taproom, so if you’re keen on trying new beers, it’s best to go to the centre bar before you head over to the docks…

For dinner I went to Faja Lobi, originally a Surinamese restaurant, but over the years several cultures and styles have influenced the menu. But put anything with peanut sauce on the menu, and I’ll have that! So I had the chicken satays with spicy peanut sauce, with rice and salad. The drink I had with it was dawet, a quite tasty coconut milk based drink.

I then passed by Huzaar, which would have been another new bar for me, but it was unfortunately closed for some reason, so that discovery will have to wait until another time. Inevitably the next and last bar then was Bar Beenhouwer, with a banging beer list as usual!

From there I walked back to the station, to go home. Just one more mini-trip to go!

BRD: Beer & Running in Deutschland

Published on 6 August 2023

My Belgian Holiday was interrupted the past long weekend, for a trip to Germany. The main destination was a hostel in Oberwesel, for the German Nash Hash—you know, drinking and running with half-minds from everywhere—but of course I seized the opportunity to make some stops along the way to visit some of the better beer serving establishments…

Thursday

On Thursday morning, I headed to Brussels’ international train station to hop on the direct ICE to Frankfurt am Main, my first stop and final destination for that day as well. At least, that was the plan… However, when I arrived in the train station, my train turned out to be cancelled, or at least its Belgian leg! There was another direct train two hours later, but when I checked with the DB staff at their information booth, they recommended me to make my way to Aachen on Belgian trains, and board the later ICE there, because it might very well suffer the same fate as my originally booked train (it didn’t…). So that’s what I did: a slow train to Verviers, and from there an even slower one to Aachen… Kudos to the NMBS for adding an extra carriage to that train to provide space for all those extra passengers!

As expected, I had to chase someone out of my seat, which I had reserved as soon as I knew I would be on this train. And just as well, since the train was fully booked by the time I arrived in Aachen!

So far, I had only seen the airport train station of Frankfurt, where I’ve had to change trains a couple of times on previous trips, so it was nice to actually see the city this time. Since I would actually spend the night in Frankfurt, I first went to my hotel to check in and drop off my bag.
Because of the two hour delay I had to cancel some planned stops, and started with the important things: crossing off one of the missing German BrewDog bars on my list, BrewDog Frankfurt. Even though the whole Beer Visa thing is on hold until the new version comes out, I had them stamp my booklet, just for the fun of it.

Then I had to get changed for a very peculiar hashing charity event: a Red Dress Run! It’s pretty self-explanatory: all participants dress up in red dresses and skirts and run trail like that, and part of the run fees and money collected on the way go to a good cause, in this case Brustkrebs Deutschland. I thought the term “dress” is a bit restrictive and doesn’t really cover everything that’s being worn by the participants on these runs, so I renamed it to “Red Unbifurcated Garment Run” for myself, while running it in a red kilt, of course!

After the run and obligatory Circle that followed, it was quite late, and by the time I had showered, changed, and made my way to the first craft beer destination that night, it was already 23:30…

Not surprisingly, when I entered Taphouse Frankfurt it was already time for last call.
After taking the tram to the last stop, it was already past midnight, and sure enough, I had already missed last call at Naïv… Luckily they took pity with me, and served me a beer after all. I should definitely revisit both bars earlier though!

Friday

After a nice breakfast at the hotel—fried Leberkäse is really tasty!—I still had some time before I would have to check out. So I went to Bunca Barista for my coffee.

Checked out and bag retrieved, it was then time to get on a train to Wiesbaden, to visit the only German BrewDog bar I hadn’t been to yet, BrewDog Wiesbaden! It was still rather quiet—I arrived only minutes after opening—but they were oh so friendly. I didn’t even had to ask them to stamp my Beer Visa, they were there with the stamp as soon as they noticed the booklet!

From Wiesbaden I had to take the rather touristy and very full MittelrheinBahn train to Oberwesel.

At the Oberwesel train station I was lucky: there was still some space in the shuttle up to the hostel, even though I didn’t book it. Once arrived on top of the hill, I checked in, and German Nash Hash could really start!

Saturday

Most of the Saturday on these Nash Hashes are dedicated to a trail, usually a bit longer than your usual weekly hash. Well, there are usually different lengths available, and such was the case at German Nash Hash too. I had registered for the ‘long’ trail, which would be between 13 and 20 km. On the definite program it was listed as 19 km, but in the end it turned out to 21,5 km, with 709 meters of elevation…

The theme of the evening party was “Bacchanalia”, so I had brought my thirty year old toga—dyed for the occasion—and the linen tunica and caligae I still had from my army reenactment days. I even brought an earthenware poculum to drink my wine from! Yes, wine, since it suited the theme better, and Rheinland-Pfalz is a wine area after all!

Unfortunately—well, it might be for the better—I don’t have any photos of this part of the evening.

Sunday

After a party like that, the Sunday run is of course the Hangover Trail. It was only 4km, with a bubbles stop somewhere in the middle.

After closing Circle it was then time to catch the train to Köln.

In Bierhaus en d’r Salzgass I had some Päffgen Kölsch vom Fass, and Himmel un Ääd (black pudding, fried onions, mashed potato, and apple sauce). I intended to go to some craft beer bars after that, but they all seem to be closed on Sundays… So I just had some more Kölsch instead!