flanders beer tour

Last weekend we took an impromptu trip to Belgium.  Though it was a short two day visit, we were excited for beer tastings at some renowned breweries and tour the Flemish countryside and some World War I memorials.

We booked a room at the Bed and Breakfast attached to St. Bernardus brewery.  We were greeted by the excellent host Jackie who showed us to our room  (and unlimited bar of St. Bernardus) and then led us over to the adjoining building for the brewery tour.  The guide gave the tour in Flemish, German, French, and rounded it out with a tad of English for the two Americans.  We ended the tour in the tasting room that overlooked farmland, hops fields, and the Belgium / French border.

Next stop was De Dolle Brouwers - "The Mad Brewers" based in Esen, West Flanders.  A brewery since the 1800's, the current owner and brewer, Kris, purchased the brewery from the original owners in 1980. Kris gave an excellent tour of the building showing us the still in use machinery and equipment dating back to WWI.  He told us the history of how he and his brother experimented in small batch, high fermentation home brewing (not common in the 1970's - even in Belgium) before they took over the brewery and started De Dolle Brouwers.

De Dolle bar and tasting room is only open on Sundays.  It was PACKED.  A true beer lovers atmosphere. People came to purchase bottles to take home, ordered a beer at the bar, and then joined the long communal tables.  We were lucky to meet some fellow Americans who were visiting from London, Brussels, and San Diego.

The San Diego group were on a two week brewery tour of Amsterdam and Belgium with an aggressive schedule of hitting three breweries a day.  A couple of guys, Dennis and Bill, came bearing gifts from the west coast.  It was fun to watch them present Kris with some brews from Green Flash and Russian River Breweries.  Dennis, owner of Fathom, gifted Marco and I with a bottle of Consecration when he heard we visited Russian River Brewery the day we got engaged.

Marco and I meet + chat up some great people on our travels but we hit the jackpot at De Dolle that day. We sat for hours with the San Diego group as Kris was so kind to let us try some dusty bottles from the cellar.  I knew I was tasting some rare and special brews, but it was the knowledgeable Bill who was breaking down the complexity that was in our glasses to help me process the heaven that was going down.

The next day was a visit to the legendary Trappist Abbey of Saint Sixtus in Westvleteren.  If you aren't familiar, behind the very private walls of this monastery lies the highly regarded Westvleteren Brewery.

To a non beer lover, the process to purchase Westvleteren 12 may seem borderline absurd.  The Brewery does not brew to commercial demands and is closed to the pubic but it sells small quantities of the beer weekly to the public via in person, drive through system.  The absurd part: to purchase beer from the Brewery one must first obtain a reservation by calling the brewery in advance, which depending on luck can take hours to days the get past the busy signal.  Once getting through, you're given date and time of when you can come pick up your crates. Each car registration number is limited to a certain amount of visits per year.

If you aren't lucky enough to get a reservation, Westvleteren has a cafe and bar on  site where you can purchase a limited amount of six packs.  Bill told us to order the ice cream - made with Westvleteren 12 and freeze-dried hops.  "What?! ... Gross"  No, totally delicious.  We lounged at the cafe and sipped on Westvleteren 12 and Westvleteren Blonde until it was our reservation pick-up time.  What an experience.