Belgium is head of the class for drinkers With its reputation for experimentation, few countries are as rich in hoppy culture BY JOE WIEBE, SPECIAL TO THE SUN DECEMBER 15, 2014

Left: ’ Restobières features a gourmet menu where beer is an ingredient in every dish. Right: Golden hop bines and other decorations adorn the facade of the Maison des Brasseurs in Brussels. Belgium is home to about 150 making several hundred different ales, , and lagers.

For beer enthusiasts, there are a handful of bucket­list destinations around the world: for ; the Great American Beer Festival in Denver; Portland, Ore., almost any time of the year; and the , the birthplace of Pilsner, where more beer is consumed per capita than anywhere else in the world.

Belgium tops the list for many because of its unique and complex beer culture, which features a wider array of unique, homegrown beer styles than perhaps any other single country.

Belgian brewers have long enjoyed experimentation, employing a variety of grains, fruits, yeasts, and adjunct sugars to create new styles.

Today, Belgium has about 150 breweries making several hundred different , many of them one­ of­a­kind. Some are imported to North America, but most of them are only available at the source, making a Belgian beer­cation a very special experience indeed.

This past summer, I had the opportunity to go there as part of Taste Vacations’ inaugural Belgium Hike, Bike & Beer tour. It was an ambitious itinerary that would take our little group all around Belgium: we would visit two world­famous Trappist abbeys that brew beer, enjoy several beer­paired dinners at fine restaurants, hike and bike through the countryside and urban scene in equal measure, and sample local beers everywhere we went. It all sounded pretty great to me.

Day One of my weeklong Belgian beer odyssey began just after lunch in Brussels on a muggy Sunday in early August. Our small group, made up of five Americans and me, gathered outside the Hotel Welcome in St. Katalijn Square near the centre of the city, to introduce ourselves and meet our guides: Reno, who works for Zephyr from his home in Montana, and Sacha, who lives in Brussels, where he has been guiding and teaching people about beer since 2002.

After the introductions, Sacha led us on a short walking tour of central Brussels. At the Bourse (stock exchange building), Sacha pointed out one particular fresco sculpted, it turns out, by Auguste Rodin before he became famous: the panel depicts cherubic babies working industriously with barrels — beer! Not only that, but the building, which has not been used as a stock exchange since computerization made it superfluous, will be converted into the “Belgian Beer Temple,” a tourist­ focused beer museum, by 2018. At the Grand Place, Brussels’ central square, Sacha pointed out more babies making beer along with golden hop bines encircling pillars on the facade of the Maison des Brasseurs. By now we were getting thirsty so we stopped at A La Bécasse, a restaurant that has been devoted to beer since it opened in 1877. We settled in the wood­lined private room upstairs where Sacha led us through a beer­and­cheese tasting. Our first beers in Belgium, a spicy, refreshing St. Feuillien Blonde and a rich, robust Trappist Rochefort 8, were both exquisite.

Next, we wended our way to Moeder , which specializes in styles known as lambic and , which are unique to Belgium just as champagne is unique to . Lionel, a very entertaining member of the wait staff, led us through a tasting session of several different beers, describing the brewing process and the sorts of flavours we could expect.

We finished off our first day in Belgium with a wonderful meal at Restobières, a restaurant that has featured beer­infused dishes for decades. As we waddled out later that evening, we found a Klezmer band playing in front of a nearby café with the audience spread out into the street in the warm evening air. We joined the crowd for a couple of songs and then slowly ambled back to the hotel, sated and satisfied.

Monday morning found us, bright and early, at the , one of only a handful of authentic lambic breweries in Belgium, and the only one located within Brussels itself. Lambic beers are spontaneously fermented in open vessels by wild yeasts floating in the air and then aged for at least two­and­a­half years in wine barrels before finally being blended with different vintages. The old brewery, which opened in 1900, was dusty and cobwebby.

Our entertaining tour guide, Alberto, explained that spiders were a good thing because they catch fruit flies, which carry bacteria that can ruin lambic. “We are not a vinegar factory,” he said. “We are a brewery.”

After Cantillon, we loaded into the van and Reno drove us a few hours to the southeast corner of Belgium where we ate at Le Chameleux, a restaurant in the woods literally steps from the French border.

After lunch, we hiked for an hour along a tumbling creek to the Abbaye Orval, a Cistercian monastery that houses one of only six Trappist breweries in Belgium.

We toured the grounds of the old Abbey’s ruins and its new brewing museum before tasting the beer at the café just outside the monastery itself. While Orval beer is available in North America, that café is the only place where one can taste the fresh (“jeune”) version on draft alongside the older (“vieille”) one, which is bottle­conditioned with Brettanomyces yeast.

The young beer is full­bodied with a fresh, hoppy brightness, but as it ages in the bottle, the hop bite mellows into the background and the body dries out, creating the famous “goût d’Orval.”

Over the next several days we zigzagged across Belgium, visiting several breweries, feasting at beer­ themed restaurants, and working off the extra calories with hikes and bike rides. The medieval cities of and Ghent were highlights for walking, shopping and beer sampling, but the pinnacle of the trip came on Day Five when we biked through farm fields in the Hoppeland region in southwest Belgium.

After lunch at the fabulous Hommelhof restaurant in the town of Watou close to Ypres, the First World War battlefield where Canadian soldiers made a name for themselves in 1915, we continued on our bike ride to the Abbaye St. Sixtus, famous among beer lovers for the highly sought after Westvleteren 12.

Named after a nearby town, Westvleteren is generally only available for sale at the abbey itself, either at the drive­thru sales office (telephone reservations required several weeks ahead of time) or at the Welcome Centre across the street — which is where we parked our bikes to enjoy a beer or two in the afternoon sunshine.

How good was it? You’ll have to go there to find out.

General Info:

Air Canada flies direct to Brussels from . Another good option from Vancouver is to fly direct to Amsterdam or Paris and then take a fast train to Brussels (2.5 hours from either). Brussels is easy to get around with an underground metro system; the city centre is very walkable. Belgium itself is not a very large country, so it is easy to travel by train or car—the highway system is excellent and easy to navigate. Biking is also a great option—there are cycle routes everywhere, many following picturesque rivers or canals.

Websites: Taste Vacations: http://www.tastevacations.com/belgium/

Belgium Beer Tourism: http://belgium.beertourism.com/

In Brussels

A La Bécasse: http://www.alabecasse.com/

Cantillon Brewery: http://www.cantillon.be/

Hotel Welcome: http://www.hotelwelcome.com/

Moeder Lambic: http://www.moederlambic.com/

Restobières: http://www.restobieres.eu/

Outside Brussels

Abbaye Orval: http://www.orval.be/

Abbaye St. Sixtus: http://www.sintsixtus.be/

Le Chameleux: http://www.lechameleux.be/

Hommelhof: http://www.hommelhof.be/

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Previous Next Left: Brussels’ Restobières features a gourmet menu where beer is an ingredient in every dish. Right: Golden hop bines and other decorations adorn the facade of the Maison des Brasseurs in Brussels. Belgium is home to about 150 breweries making several hundred different ales, lambics, gueuzes and lagers.