Stepping out

Dave, Laura, Séan and I left Cantillon in the late afternoon and caught up with Mrs Beer Nut on Rue Tabora, just outside one of my very favourite Brussels boozers. I wrote about A La Bécasse after my last visit in 2007. It's well hidden up an alley with only the giant flashing red neon sign indicating that it exists. It was quite crowded when we got in, but we squeezed round a table and ordered Lambic Doux for four, which arrived in one of their trademark clay jugs.

I absolutely love this beer, and I think most of my drinking buddies did too. They noted a certain cidery quality to it which I'd never noticed but is definitely present. The drinkability is just astounding. With the jug drained we moved on.

We didn't move very far, mind: just up Rue du Marché aux Herbes to A L'Image de Notre Dame. I'm a big fan of this Brueghelesque two-room affair concealed up yet another alley. It has quite an extensive beer list for a central pub, and my first pinstick got me a Belgoo Magus. It's quite a light and spicy blonde ale. A touch of yeasty spiciness starts it off, moderated by some zesty oranges and lemons. The sort of classic easy-going beer that Leffe Blonde would give its eye-teeth to be.

Also around the table was a light and caramelly Pater Lieven and a strong and malty La Divine, but Séan was the one who really struck gold with his La Gauloise Bruin. I think it was more than just the name which suggested a smoky character, and this sits next to rich dark plumminess on a very full body.

Time to move on, and for some reason A La Mort Subite was chosen as our next stop. It had been many years since I visited the brown café that thinks it's a beerhall, and which is famed for its lousy service. The main room was packed so we scurried upstairs and found a table there. We didn't have to wait too long for service either, which was pleasantly surprising. Alken-Maes beers dominate here, and I decided to follow Boak & Bailey's recommendation of Ciney Brune. Quite complex, this clear red-brown ale. Mostly it's the sort of sweet and malty affair I was expecting, but there's a very interesting sour kick mixed in with the caramel. I liked it.

Mrs Beer Nut has a particular penchant for the restaurants of Rue Rollebeek so that's where we dined, passing over Séan's suggestion of In't Spinnekopke La Rose Blanche. We came back towards Grand Place after, finding Poechenellekelder full. The possibility of drinking beer from ceramic skulls at Le Cercueil had been something of a running joke through the evening. With a few beers on board this seemed a perfectly natural option. When we found that Le Cercueil -- where the light is ultraviolet, the tables are coffins and the soundtrack is rrrrock -- includes Orval among its skullable beers the joke just got funnier. Five skulls of Orval around the coffin. I'm not sure where I stand on Orval. I've found it tough going in the past, but supping it from a ceramic cranium without really thinking about it I really quite enjoyed it. Not too powerfully horsey but still loaded with character. Perhaps from-the-skull is the best way to enjoy it. Noted for future reference.

Fun and all that Le Cercueil was, it's damned expensive. So we moved on, back to Rue du Marché aux Herbes. This time we hit Au Bon Vieux Temps, probably my least favourite of the three pubs on the street. Still, it wasn't too crowded and the beer was good. Looking for a good Flemish red, I opted for Bourgogne des Flandres, mistaking it for Duchesse de Bourgogne. Oops. Anyway, it's still quite enjoyable, though a little unexciting. Needing more malt in my life, I moved to Westmalle Dubbel and stayed there for the rest of the night.

I don't do pub crawls very often. When the occasion does present itself, it's nice to do it properly. Just one more day of beering left in Brussels.

Spontaneous dégustation

My visit to the Cantillon Brewery in Brussels back in 2004 was something of a revelation. I knew my lambics and my gueuzes from a drinker's point of view, and I knew that they were created through a process called "spontaneous fermentation". However, it wasn't until I was standing in the attic of the brewery looking at the huge shallow copper tray that I realised what that actually meant: the brewers just spread the wort out on the flat surface and wait for the natural wild yeasts to come in and do their stuff. When I explain to brewers that I quite fancy having a go at making beer this way they give me a Look. Some day I will, and learn my lesson while doing it, no doubt.

In the meantime, I'm content to drink the commercial examples available to me, and in Belgium last month I made a point of trying out as many as I could get. This post is a run-down of those, and finishes the series of posts on the trip.

Two of the beers I regard as beginners' lambic and both are made by some of Belgium's largest brewers. Bellevue Gueuze (InBev) is sweet and unchallenging almost to the point of being non-descript. There's a smidge more character to Mort Subite Gueuze (Alken-Maes), with its candy sugar foretaste and just a hint of sourness at the end. I think this was the first gueuze I ever tasted, and it's a good one to start with.

Off next to what's probably my favourite pub in the whole wide world. On every visit to Brussels I make time for a visit to A La Bécasse. A big part of the attraction is having beer served in clay jugs, but the main draw for me is the house speciality: Lambic Doux. This is a light, sweet-and-sour golden lambic which slips down with indecent ease: a large jug for me, and I don't need a glass. I did manage to tear myself away from it briefly to try their other house beer, Lambic Blanc. This is an odd hybrid of a Belgian witbier and the sweeter sort of lambic. The result is a bitter and dry fruity wheat beer with sweeter notes in the background: complex and lip-smackingly good. Both beers are InBev products and clearly demonstrate that brewing behemoths can make quality beer if they want to.

Which brings me down to the smaller operators. Of course I had a Cantillon Gueuze, and brought one home too. It pours a pale orange colour, with a slight haze to it. The taste is fresh and zesty, popping with notes of citrus and gunpowder. It's sour, of course, but not astringent. In fact, it's almost quaffable, but is best savoured. Cantillon is organic too, which I think makes it my favourite organic beer.

Finally, I had heard very good things about the 3 Fonteinen range, so took the opportunity to try their Oude Geuze. In contrast to the young and lively Cantillon, this pours out a mellow red-gold colour with almost no carbonation. It has the sharply alkaline taste of the sourer gueuzes, reminiscent of nitre and brick cellars, but it's smooth and rounded with it. This is a beer that's not in a hurry and needs to be taken seriously.

So that's a few days' adventures in lambic. Making my own though: that's the real adventure.

Sour times

A La Bécasse in Brussels is one of my favourite bars in the world. Their Lambic Doux is a very fine beer, being a sweet version of Brussels's bitter local speciality. I happened across a kriek being sold under their brand recently and decided to give it a go. I'm a big fan of kriek, in its sweet to medium-sweet incarnations. Liefmans is the benchmark, with honourable mentions for Bellevue and Timmerman's. I was expecting something similar from La Bécasse. I was wrong. While there is no doubt that Bécasse kriek wears its ripe cherries up front, at heart it is an unreconstructed, down home sour Brussels gueuze. The contrast in the flavour is remarkable and is unique as far as I know. Despite being made by monster brewer InBev, this stuff couldn't be more Brussels if it tried and is well worth sampling if you can find it.