Bosteels Brewery

Shannon and I took the train up to Buggenhout for a tour of the Bosteels Brewery (turn off your speakers at work). We had arranged it by email a few weeks prior, as they only do tours for groups of I think 20. We asked to tag on to any tour, and they obliged with a 3pm tour on Friday.


We rocked up, right on time, and went in through a somewhat closing gate. Two guys saw us, and one came over. The conversation went something like this.

Me: Spreekt u Engles?
Him: Ya, sure.
Me: We're here for a three o'clock tour.
Him: Hmm. I think the tour was at two today.
Me: Hmm... Shit.
Him: Well... at least come up and have a drink.

Naturally, we obliged, and were greeted with two Kwaks and invited to sit with some employees. It was Friday afternoon and all. The gentleman spoke with his colleague and came back and said that there had been a change in the tour, but they had forgotten to sent us an email, so we would get a private, but shorter tour instead. Can't argue with this.

We were soon joined by the group, who had finished the tour, and were looking rather thirsty. Unknown to us, the group had been asked if a video discussing the history of the brewery could be shown in English. We were informed, and were somewhat embarrassed, but had little option.

About halfway through the film, the group got restless. We heard some mutterings about "English" and "Americans" and were somewhat more embarrassed. But, we started chatting with some folks at our table and things improved. It turns out that they were a group from a local Phizer office. One guy asked how we knew to come to Bosteels. We simply explained that we were really into the beer, and could only get it occasionally, and thought it proper to see the brewery while in Belgium. This seemed to garner favor with the table.

After our TK, we were taken off for a private tour. Our guide was fantastic, showing us some of the historical artifacts of the grounds, including the collection of old stagecoaches.



It was at this point that we noticed the flags over one of the buildings. When we asked what was going on, we were told "oh, we always hang the flag of our guests." How amazingly classy.


Obviously, the wind got a hold of them all, but that was a very nice gesture.

I didn't have my camera during the tour of the working part of the brewery, and I'm not sure I could have taken pictures anyway (trade secrets and all) but it was a really cool operation. Since it was private, we got a great chance to ask questions specific to the operation, as well as about brewing in general. We saw everything from the mash tuns to the label machine (and a stack of labels destined for the US, by coincidence).

A personal favorite of mine was a piece of stained glass over the mash tuns. I wish I had a photo of it. I believe it said this: Er zijn meer oude dronkaards dan oude dokters, but I know it translated to: "There are more old drunks than old doctors."

We all had a laugh about this.

Remember how I mentioned that people started to warm up to us? We're heading back in for another beer, and some folks from our table are leaving. A nice woman told us that she had left a business card on our bags upstairs, and that one of us should connect with her on Facebook. She invited us to stay with her the next time we were in Belgium. Amazing.

The whole of the staff was fantastic. While we were having our third beer (a lovely DueS), we bought some glasses. There were expressions of shock and delight that we had learned how to say please and thank you in Flemish. We were very glad to have made a good impression.

In summary, if you ever find yourself in the Brussels (or anywhere in Belgium, really - it's not a huge country) and you like beer, take the time to go to Bosteels. The people are really top notch, and so is the beer. It was a great experience, and I wanted to make note of it separately from the Brussels post.

Parting shots - a church on the main drag in town, and the sun going down as our train pulled into the station.

Brussels

Brussels! How fun is that.

We had a very uneventful and short (really, being used to flights to Oz, this was nothing) flight and landed on a Wednesday morning. The weather was mildly Belgian, with showers and clouds, but we managed to stay dry all the way to our B&B (I'd recommend). We had to get the key from the bakery across the street, but once we hashed out the language issue, it worked out really well.


For some reason, Shannon and I both had a lot of trouble with jet lag on this trip. We were still somewhat messed up by the time we were heading home. I've done similar Europe trips in the past, with no issues, but something was different with this one. So, our day was spent dodging showers by having beer and coffee between sights in the center of Brussels.

Unlike the last time I was in Brussels, this time, we did manage to locate the Mannequin Pis. I had been told it was a small statue, but I was still fairly surprised.



Two highly enjoyable stops for me were a random working class bar near our B&B where we had a few with the locals, and the stop at Le Bier Circus, where they have a pretty fantastic beer list. It didn't hurt that it was coincidentally located near our B&B.

After a shockingly early night to bed, we awoke to a much nicer day. But, before we could get out, we had breakfast. It had been an option at this place, but since it was two euro/person/day, we opted in, for even if it was just coffee and toast, it was a cheap start to the day. It turned out to be a fantastic spread. We never finished everything on the table. It was a tremendous value.

In keeping with the beer theme of the trip, we opted to take a self guided, mostly back alley, walking tour from town center to Cantillion brewery. The tour had nothing to do with beer, but had a few really interesting stops and tidbits. And since the weather was sunny, albeit cold, it was quite enjoyable.


The brewery tour itself was interesting. Cantillion is the only brewery still operating in Brussels proper, and all they make are Lambic, Kriek, and Gueuze. It's a self guided tour, which was somewhat peculiar, since it's an operating brewery and all, but it was cool to just get to mill around. You can tell that it's still a pretty small batch operation.



After the tour, while we were enjoying our tastings, we chatted with a Canadian who was on some stupid-long holiday from school. He gave us some good info for Brugge, and a little insight into the language in Brussels. He spoke French as well as English, but said that a lot of times when he would speak French, he would be answered in English. I guess he was trained in more classical French, like Parisian, because he said that the French in Brussels was "shit, just like the Quebecois." While I found this hilarious, I also started to notice a difference, especially when we were in Brugge. You could totally hear who was French and who was Belgian.

Post tour, we needed food, as well as beer, so we hit up the recommended Moeder Lambic. We found an outstanding beer list, good food, and friendly, funny, knowledgeable bar staff. Here is where we had our two top beers of the trip. The complete list will be posted soon.

Since it was still sunny, we thought we'd try to locate the EU complex that afternoon. It turns out, we failed miserably, but we did manage to find our way into Jubelpark, which was lovely.

Looked like a nice place to go for an after work run, as well as being home to the auto museum. We heard good things, but opted to give it a pass, instead taking in more architecture.

Scenes from the market at night.

Shannon at the geographical center of Brussels.

Friday turned into another lovely day, and we were determined to find the EU. This was the one day that we had any defined plans - a booked tour at the Bosteels Brewery in Buggenhout.

We still wanted to see the EU facilities, so we tried again to find them. We had planned to take a tram, but learned after somehow walking all the way there (which wasn't nearly as far as we thought) that the tram in question was actually a bus. We sort of failed at above ground transit. But, we had a lovely walk through lived in neighborhoods, through some parks, and ultimately to the EU.

One thing that did surprise us was the segment from the Berlin wall that was next to one of the EU buildings. This was totally unexpected, and made the trip down even more worthwhile.


From Luxembourg Square, looking back to the EU, where there were two more segments of the wall.




We had just a bit of time before needing to leave town for our tour, and after a quick stop at the Royal Palace when it wasn't raining...


we went out to the Atomium, which was built for the first Worlds Fair after WWII (1958). The recommendation from one of my colleagues was to go to, but not up, which seemed like good advice. It was a pretty cool structure though and worth the tram ride out.



Plus, we got to walk through the lovely Parc de Laeken while eating marvelous frites, all the way over to the actual residence of the king and queen. You really can't see much, and they certainly don't let you get close. We did see this monument though, which I documented poorly, and can't find the name of on the internet.


Next stop, Buggenhout.

San Francisco

A couple weeks back, I had to go to San Francisco for a few days for work. Shannon and I used this as a jumping off point for a vacation. The work portion of the trip was sort of a write off, as the vendor coming to present to us really didn't bring their A game. Good thing we hauled two people from Oz and they hauled a guy from the Isle of Wright in for the event.

Lunch was good though.

Anyway, after a few days of working, Shannon joined me for her first time to SF in about 18 months. It was great. We saw friends. We drank beer.


We drank coffee.


Those aren't beers. Those are cups of coffee. Coffee in beer mugs seems to be the rage in SF (it happened to me three times). Oh, did I mention that these coffees together were the price of one stupid latte in Melbourne?

We stayed at a lovely little B&B on Fell St. Thanks Robert!

We ate a ton of wonderful food.

We saw the sights.





We went to Japan.


We saw some artwork.


Naturally, we did NOT take any fucking requests.


And we had a great damn time. It was probably the best three days in SF I've had since I moved. Thanks, Shannon.

Then we flew to Brussels. In business. And it did not suck. More to come.

Frequency

It occurred to me as I was writing some today that I've really done a poor job of posting this year. As of now, I've got 80 posts YTD, as opposed to 171 last year. I doubt I'll catch up, but I'll try.

This year may get interesting yet.

Beechworth

I started this post so long ago, I had forgotten I even started it.

Weeks back, Shannon and I took an overnight trip up to Beechworth just to get out of town. We had no real agenda, but needed a change of scenery. We booked one night at a cottage just outside of town.

Before checking in, we made a stop at the Bridge Road Brewery in Beechworth, a spot we had been before, about 10 months prior. Our second trip was actually much better, and we found a number of beers that we enjoyed. Our first trip may have been marred by our mindset.

The cabin turned out to be a lovely place, and came with a field of sheep, a Shetland, and this guy, who was clearly accustomed to being fed by guests.


Unfortunately, it was magpie mating/swooping season, so it also came with this guy.

Now, obviously, this is not something that can be controlled. Magpies are wild, and pack animals, so rather defensive. But frankly, this guy was obnoxious. The tree in the photo is about 200 meters from the cabin. Any time you stepped out onto the covered porch, he took a dive at you. He never came under the cover, but the owner said he had before. It sort of wrecked being outside during the daytime. I'd still recommend the place, as this is a seasonal problem, but we headed back out, and went down the road to Woolshed Falls.

In retrospect, this is a fairly disappointing picture. It was a pretty cool set of falls, and we hung out there for a while before having a look from the top of Mt Pilot, also just up the road. From there, more unremarkable pictures were taken, but it was a pretty cool panorama from the top.

We had a pretty interesting experience while trying to get dinner. We drove back into Beechworth and walked into a Chinese restaurant. You know the kind. Paper table cloths, take away, nothing exciting. It looked busy, but we saw a few tables. When we indicated that we didn't have a booking, we were turned away, as they were booked out for the night. Who the hell books a table at a place that does take out? It remains a running joke, but after our substandard Tassie Chinese experience, maybe it's just as well.

Enter Sunday.


The weather took a definite turn for the sunnier, and it was a great day to roll down the windows and take the long way home.



We wondered up to the NSW border, where we crossed the Murray River and after doubling back into Victoria, hit a park along the water, Grantham's Bend State Forest. There were many sheep. None of them wanted anything to do with me.



The bird life in the park was probably the real highlight. There were a ton of cockatoos, some of them even having midair fights with smaller birds, which was pretty wild to see. Raw nature.

Further down the road we ran across a sign for the Buffalo Brewery, which we never heard of. Naturally, we altered course, and had a rather lovely dark ale at what turns out to be the oldest brewery in Victoria. It was a quick stop though, as it was something like 11 AM (which is 5 o'clock somewhere).


Back towards Wangaratta, we went to Salisbury Falls, where in addition to water tucked back in a lush little valley, we ran into this little echidna, who was pretty shy once he realized we were about.






The falls were at the end of this street. Great street, or the greatest street?


After that, it was pretty much a beeline home down the freeway. Something about it being late, and work the next day and the like. Nice little weekend away though.

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