beer tasting in Belgium

I enjoyed Brugge. I visited Brouwerij De Halve Maan and enjoyed the tour. Actually, I enjoyed my time sitting in the beer garden with new friends drinking beer and talking. Pam

Can you recommend a B & B or hotel? Thank-you

Very few breweries in Belgium are open to the general public... De Half Maan in Brugge is one of the few exceptions. Their main brew, Bruges Zot, is decent, but not the greatest. The best place to sample beer in Belgium is usually in a restaurant. Some of the best beers have a very high alcohol content, so to sample more than one or two in a sitting and not get completely sloshed, you need to pace it with some food. Most decent restaurants will carry about 3 or 4 beers on tap and another dozen or so in bottles. Unless you go for the cheap table beer like Jupiler, Cristal or Maas, they will almost always serve the beer in a glass unique for that particular brew. If you'll have a car, you can try to visit the Holy of Holies for beer hounds, the abbey of St. Sixtus where they make the rare but highly sought-after West Vleteren. With the exception of rare promotions where they sell a limited quantity through grocery stores, this is the only place in the world where you can buy the beer. You can't enter the abbey grounds or see the brewery, but they have a drive-through window where you can purchase the beer. If you order ahead, you can buy up to a few crates. If you just show up, you are limited to three bottles. In truth, I didn't find their beer any better than the more widely available Chimay, but my visit at least gave me a good story to tell. If you really want to "go off the beaten path", look into visiting Durbuy, Leuven, Tournai, Spa, Hasselt, Namur, Dinant or the Belgian coast.

I love, love loved Utrecht in The Netherlands. Charming small city - Amsterdam feel without all the crowds.

As a Dutch person living on the fence between the Netherlands and Belgium, I can swear to you that the previous poster is talking rubbish. Most breweries take pride in their product and do tours and tastings, if only to boost the sales. http://www.zbf.be/index.php?lang=NL&page=2a this is a list of, well, a lot of belgium breweries incl location and website. my personal favorite to visit is actually near the border with Belgium, but it's in the Netherlands. It is called Hertog Jan. http://www.hertogjan.nl/brouwerij/onze-brouwerij/ the site is in Dutch but i'm sure google can translate it for you ;-) I did the tour a few years a go and it was informative, authentic, and surprising, as we were even allowed to taste special beers that have never been sold (and they were delicious!). There are also many specialty cafe's, owned by people who are zythologist, a sommelier for beer. They serve the weirdest beers and know everything about it, perfect combinations with certain snacks or cheese, etc. There is one in Maastricht (known for e.g. the European Treaty and the roman history. It's the oldest city in the Netherlands) called Take One. But just google "speciaalbierencafe" with the cities you'd like to visit and I'm sure you'll find more a like. (e.g. this one in Brugge, great historical city and much, MUCH nicer than Brussels: http://www.cambrinus.eu/default.htm ) http://www.routeyou.com/route/view/397906/wandelroute-brugse-bierwandeling.nl I hope this helps! Enjoy :) kr,
Roxanne

From what I've seen, if a tour is offered, it's only by special arrangement. I looked up visiting Westmalle, Stella Artois, Maas, Chimay, Hoogaarden, West Vleteren, Herkenrode (you can visit the abbey, but not the brewery), Bobeline, and Duvel Moortgat, and none of them regularly grant public access to their brewing facilities (after seeing that kind of pattern, I've given up looking). If there are others that do offer regular tours, then obviously, those are breweries I have not investigated. But several of the above do run brasseries.

http://beerme.com/index.php is a website that runs on reader contributions which appear to be fairly up-to-date. Its search function on the right side of the home page is useless since it places all locations on a map of West Africa beer drinkers! so use the regional pull-down on the left side. It presents a sampling for Belgium but certainly not all possibilities. It also links to http://beerme.com/index.php which is several years out of date and not necessarily in English but you can spot links to various microbrew operatons. Googling for Belgian locations and microbrews or breweries should expand your data.

Just looking at the blue line on Google Maps for your trip, I note Leuven (as mentioned), Antwerp, Mechelen, Gent, Lille, and Lens, as likely stops. (You may not need both Gent and Bruges.) A smaller town I like is Turnhout, but it's hard to make a case for a special stop in a place like that. Are your interests more beer, medieval squares, art on the wall, beguinages, food, local conversation? I recall that the big brewery in Antwerp only gives tours on one weekend day. And the brewery in Leuven is so big, it would be like visiting a Budweiser (oops, Inbev ... ) brewery in the U.S.A. So I kind of agree with the bar/restaurant idea. Note that not all Belgian beer is swell. I've had some awful fruit-flavored things. Would you stop in Utrecht or Kinderdijk, NL?

"Note that not all Belgian beer is swell. I've had some awful fruit-flavored things." Believe it or not, one of the worst beers I've ever tried was West Vleteren's Blonde. I'm not sure if perhaps I had a spoiled bottle, but it was rather repugnant. Now, their 11° was excellent, and rightly famous. Chalk Oerbier up as another awful Belgian ale. Because... well, it has a chalky taste.

You also might consider the town of Spa, interesting and nice spa hotels. You could then go towards Liege and south to Bastogne, lots of WWII sites and Museums. If your driving get good GPS for all the winding roads.

I just came back from Belgium with three people who wanted to do brewery tours. My recommendation is to look up the websites of the breweries you are interested in and phone them in advance. Even those who may not show public tours are willing to give private tours if you call in advance. This worked successfully for us. I always asked if someone spoke English (politely of course) when on the phone. I was always accommodated. One brewery asked for an email to be sent to a specific person and they gave me his details over the phone. we sent an email and got a response immediately with availability. Most only run tours on specific days of the week. If this is a big part of your trip to Belgium, invest in the phone calls and make your arrangements in advance. Everyone was very nice!

"You also might consider the town of Spa" If you give Spa a visit, look out for this beer- Bobeline (has sort of an Art Nouveau label). It's one of my favorite Belgian beers, but I've never seen it sold anywhere else except around Spa.

We spent a week in Belgium in 2011. We spend one day visiting a couple breweries. We found Westvleteren to be a bit of a disappointment for the effort. However, we cannot recommend De Dolle enough! It's only open on the weekends. We joined a tour lead by a 80+ year old woman who even drinks beer for breakfast! She was informative and hilarious. http://www.dedollebrouwers.be/page.asp?langue=EN&DocID=159253
We bought posters at the brewery sold by the artist. Our favorite beer shop in our town framed and displayed them. Great beer too. Great scores on beer advocate. Have fun!