Beer Pilgrims - day 3 and 4

Day III - Friday - The Metropolis

On third day's morning we visited the Orval abbey, you can find the story in the previous post, the afternoon we left for civilization, after a day and a half spent between empty meadows and woods.

We arrive in Bruxelles at dinner time. It's freaking cold, it's snowing and we spent 3 hours in a train.We get to the hotel and prepare for the evening. First let me say that we don't care about visiting the city that much, especially because there are low-cost flights that allow you to have a weekend here with really little money.

Dinner with Bruxelles main dish. Fries. Small place, frying all they can, 450g of fries with € 2,50. And huge sandwiches.

We head to Delirium Cafè. The pink elephant is the same to the Delirium brewery. We immediately realize that the name is appropriate. The whole Bruxelles nightlife gathers on the two sides of a closed little street. On one side Delirium, on three floors, on the other side a pirates place, still the same pub of the pink elephant. Literally bursting at the seams. They have more than 2400 bottled beers plus 15/16 on tap and on the wall there's a plate to celebrate Guinness World Record for most beers served. They have Tanzanian and Far Oer beers, just in case you want to taste them. 

Pink elephant beers didn't match our taste after all. The only one that passed the exam was Delirium Nocturnum (dark red, 8,5° caramel and liquorice flavours), though the Delirium Tremens, her blonde sister, was rewarded as Best Beer in the World in Chicago. We do not agree our Chicagian friends. Wait...Chicagian?

The evening goes straight on. Well...sort of.

Day IV - Saturday - Really that far?

Early wake up. We leave. Fresh and ready.

Bruxelles - Gent - Kortrijk - Poperinge. We are in the south-west part of Belgium. Edge of the country.

Cold don't leave us a second. In the  Poperinge station we check for the bus, no one is going towards our destination, we ask a bus-driver. Nothing. We are on foot. Again.

A girl that is waiting a bus next to us asks us where we are going and if she can help.
"We are going to Westvleteren."
"Uhm, there are not bus to get there."
"A taxi?" "No way, but try to go to the bus central station, probably they can give you infos."
"Thank you."

Wear your bags on  your backs boys, get ready to walk(the abbey is about 8 km from Poperinge).

After 100 meters i hear a horn...PE PE. I turn around and  I see the earlier girl, with her sister, in a lightblue Punto.

"You'll never get there, get in, we are taking you there.".

Eyes wide open and angelic choirs. We get in the car and after a while we realize that we would never have arrived to our destination only by ourselves. Looks like the mistery and exclusivity aura that surround Westvleteren abbey starts from the road to get there. No signs. Fields as far as you can see (hop fields).


Finally the abbey, in all its....well....ugliness. We are so used to wonderful buildings, living in Tuscany, that the abbey don't impress us that much. But we are not here for the architectural beauty...

We enter In de Vrede, next ot the abbey and take a sit. We had to reverse our Belgium tour just to get here on Saturday, so check for the opening hours, they are tricky.

Sint Sixtus abbey produces three beers: Westvleteren Blonde - 5,8°, Westvleteren 8 and the one that is called "The best beer in the world" Westvleteren 12. 
To give you an idea of the exclusivity of this beer, if you want to buy a six-bottles crate of Westv 12, you have to take an appointment y phone and tell them the licence number of the car you are going with. You can only buy one crate a car and you can not buy another one before 60 days.
Furthermore the customer assume the responsibility not to resell the beer he buys.

Tasting our meals we notice that also Blonde and the 8, a 8° dark one, are superlative. The place is full of different languages speaking people, we have a laugh  learning the local dialect and speaking of Italy and italians.

Ok, if finding a ride to the abbey could have been only a lucky stroke, it was clear that Someone up there guides us when we discover free sell  Westvleteren 12 in the restaurant's shop.

Due to some renovation works monks needed hard cash and were forced to loosen the grip to their precious bottles, 33 cl, label-less.
The question is: "How many crates do I take?"
After a few thinking I choose only six bottles, we are on foot ater all. If I could get back there I would take 10 crates.

Is Westvleteren 12 good?
It is good. I can not tell if it is the best in the world (at least till I taste all the beers in the world), but it is the more exclusive, for sure. Let me explain better, it is not a fake exotic exclusivity of a beer crafted in elephant skulls by a community of aborigine dwarves on hovercrafts. It is authenticity, tradition and strong proof of its roots.

We head back to Poperinge, a couple of photos and say goodbye to our hosts.
Thank you far all, Katrijn and Tine, you are two angels.

We open another 12 waiting for the train. Oh yes, that's good.


I should write down about Bruges, too. More to come.