Month: September 2007

Categories
Cultural Differences

Mabruuk Nadr and Georgette!

We almost blew it, but we were invited to a wedding.

One of the bartenders, Nadr, at a club (The British Community Association) we frequent spoke to me last week. He said that he was getting married this Thursday and he would like to invite us. I was very happy for him and congratulated him. He took out a piece of paper and started to give us the info. But then the club got very busy and I did not get a chance to talk to him again that evening. This was on a Thursday. I assured him that we would be back Friday and we could talk then.

Friday came and went, and we never made it back to the club that night. We were there Saturday, but Nadr was not working that night. We were next there on Monday night. Nadr seemed a little miffed. I had said I would be there Friday to get the directions to his wedding and I did not show. I don’t know if he thought I was avoiding him or what. But I made it a point to speak with him Monday night and congratulate him again on his upcoming wedding. I apologized for not being at the club Friday night.

That seemed to ease the strain and he then asked again if we could go. I said of course and directions were obtained.

The BCA is a bar, restaurant and club house kind of place. They serve alcohol and pork products. Every one of the staff, afaict, are Coptic. [Coptic’s are the Egyptian branch of Christianity. Similar to the Greek Orthodox branch. But the Egyptians, naturally, feel that the Coptic religion is the TRUE Christianity. After all, monasticism started in Egypt. And Jesus and the Holy Family hid out in Egypt for a while. And the Coptics consider themselves the guardians of Christianity from heresy. Anyway]. While some Muslims are tolerant of alcohol use, especially by non-Muslims, very few are tolerant of pork products. No “good” Muslim would work in a place like the BCA].

Now, what does one wear to a Coptic wedding? Does one bring a gift? If there a reception? How long does it take?

Well, Thursday night we found out.

The wedding was about an hour long. All in Egyptian Arabic, and some Coptic. [Parts of the liturgy are still recited in a dialect of Coptic]. It was a rare display of efficiency that is really witnessed in Egypt. The weddings were planned back-to-back-to-back.

We arrived at 7:30 and there was a wedding going on. While the wedding was proceeding in the central nave, minions were scurrying and setting up arbors and flowers etc in a side nave. When the wedding was over, the wedding party is funneled out the side door to a small area. This area is where the receiving line is staged and the photographers take photos with the bride and groom and guests.

While the wedding party is exiting, the previous arbor is removed, the new arbor is deployed, the flowers and white runners are deployed in the central aisle. The next wedding is set to go.

It literally was the single most efficient logistical deployment I have seen in my time in Egypt. If the rest of the country ran this well, it would be a site to behold.

So after that first wedding was over, I went outside to try and snap a few photos of Nadr’s bride, Georgette arriving. I ran into Nadr. He was a very nervous looking young man. :-). But we was SO HAPPY that we made it. He really was just so pleased. It is hard to explain and it makes me sound like I am bragging, but he really was surprised and pleased to see me and asked about Kaddee. I told him that she was inside and that we were very happy to be invited.

We then went inside for the wedding. It is an interesting ceremony. There is a lot of sit down, stand up, chanting, singing, ululating. Guests walk up onto the altar during the ceremony to take photos with their cameras and cell phones, children are running around.

The bride and groom get a cape and a gold crown to wear.

The couple before them looked terrified. Nadr had a smile on his face the entire time. Georgette started out looking terrified, but she relaxed and smiled as things got started.

One thing that we had been “warned” about was that as obvious foreigners, we would be featured in videos and photos.

In the previous wedding, we went inside to watch to figure the protocol. The wedding is videotaped, and the videographer walked up and down the aisle panning across the guests. He spent a LOT of time on Kaddee and I and the other foreigners. We chuckled. I do wonder, when that couple watches their video, if they say “Who are those khwagate(foreigners)?”. We could hire ourselves our as official wedding foreigners.

The same thing happened during Nadr’s wedding. We got a lot of “face time”.

After the wedding, we went outside to shake hands with the bride and groom. ALL the foreigners got their picture taken by the official photographer with the bride and groom. I have been told that it is kind of a big deal to have a foreigner at your wedding. Not sure why, but it sure seemed that way.

Anyway, there was no reception that we were aware of anyway. There were about 10 or so folks from the BCA that had gone to the wedding, so we all met back there for a few drinks.

Oh, yes I almost forgot. I was using my little point and shoot to record the sound of the ululating in the church when I caught this amusing little vignette.

Categories
Cultural Differences The Ordinary

It takes a village, a taxi driver and somebody’s mom

It is Ramadan. I only mention this because it means that traffic is much worse than normal during certain times of the day.

During one such busy time I was sitting in a taxi on a side street. We sat there for some time. While sitting there, I saw a scene that reminded me of growing up. What follows also greatly reminded me of my childhood.

I see 2 boys fighting. I saw the entire fight develop from start to finish. More on that later.
My taxi driver looks over to the sidewalk and sees these 2 boys fighting.

One short, scrawny looking kid with glasses. Maybe 6 or 7 years old. Let us call him Mido.

One taller, beefy kid. Maybe 9 or 10 years old. Let us call him Achmed.

They are in that stage of the fight, familiar to all boys as “the hold”. Neither is really swinging at the other or inflicting any damage. They are just kind of hanging on to each other and pushing.

The taxi driver yells at them to stop. They ignore him. He looks around and sees a woman of indeterminate age and of large proportions, wearing a headscarf and an abaya similar to this one. She, and women like her, are an ubiquitous sight on the streets of Cairo. He says something to her and points at the boys.

She reacts in almost comic book fashion: The eyes go wide, the mouth opens and then closes in a look of grim determination. She storms over to the other side of the street and starts berating the boys.

Neither one lets go of the other. She forces them apart and then proceeds [I am guessing here based on the scene and the body language and gestures of everyone involved] to yell at the larger boy,Achmed for picking on the little kid, Mido. She is yelling at him and smacking him on the back of the neck. [Here, hitting someone on the back of the neck is a humiliating gesture. One used to punish, berate or otherwise display dominance. It is not as insulting as showing someone the bottom of your shoe or hitting them with the shoe, but it is up there]. She says waves the the little kid, Mido, off.

The boys disperse, the larger boy being chased by a flurry of invective from the woman.

Mission accomplished, she walks back to the other side of the street and exchanges some pleasantries with the taxi driver. They share a laugh and the contentment of “having done the right thing.”

This reminded me of my childhood in that it was very common for strangers to question, and correct, the behavior of children that they did not know or knew only as being from the neighborhood. Many people would have no problem with breaking up a fight between 2 kids and demanding to be brought to the parents so that the parents could be informed of “these shenanigans.”

It happened to me and my friends more times than I could count.

I wonder if the same thing is still done in the US? Someone I doubt it.

The other part of this story that reminded me of my childhood was this:

I saw the entire fight. Because of the placement of vehicles and sight lines, the taxi driver could not.

The little kid, Mido, started it. Or at least started the aggression. I am sure there was some provoking event/word or score to settle, real or imagined.

But Mido ran up behind the big kid, Achmed, and started punching him in the back of the head and the back. Achmed turned around and tried to grab hold of Mido to stop the blows. Mido was then able to squirm free and punch Achmed in the face. Achmed was then able to pin Mido’s arms to stop the onslaught. He would hold him and say something to him and then let him go.

Mido would stand there and glare at Achmed. Achmed would then turn around and start to walk away. He would get about 2 steps, and Mido would renew the attack.

This repeated itself 2 more times before the taxi driver notices. By then Achmed had pinned Mido’s arms again and was, it appeared, reluctant to let him go, again.

But when “justice” was served, Achmed must have felt that he got treated unfairly. And no one can cry “that’s not fair!” like a child.

I wonder if he thought to himself “Where was that crazy old woman when Mido was punching me in the back of the head? I shouldda just smacked the crap out of Mido. I wouldda been out of there before anybody noticed.”

Ed donya kiddah. [Which is, roughly speaking, the Egyptian phrase for “C’est la vie”]

Categories
beer Travel

Brussels one more time

[Edit: I forgot to link to some photos.]

So we trained down from Mechelen to Brussels for one more night. We picked up our luggage that we had left at the Marriott when we swung through Brussels at the start of our trip.

We began our last day of beer tourism trying to get to 3 places we didn’t make it to on our first pass through Brussels (Mort Subite, t’ Spinnekopke and Bier Circus) as well as one place we did visit and we wanted to visit again, Delirium Cafe.

We started at Mort Subite. It is a place of faded glory. All the beer tourists, plus many non-beer tourists, have this place on their tours. It is worth going for the architecture and to see professional snotty wait staff at work. Though they were nice to us.

We had

  • Mort Subite White on tap. Ok. A decent gueze
  • Faro. VERY sweet. This is, basically, a gueze that has sugar added to cut the sourness. Many guezes are flavored with fruit or fruit juice. This is “straight”. A rare treat if one loves gueze.
  • Chimay white. After the Faro, one is not going to taste alot, so the next beer is almost a throw away.
  • Orval. Yummy again. I must say I always enjoyed Orval in the US, but enjoyed it much more in Belgium

We then went to t’ Spinnekopke. It is a local’s place, but is well regarded within the beer community. It was here that we really needed our “beer to order while reading the menu” AND our “backup beer”. They were out of our first choice, so we had to go with the backup beers:

  • Achel blonde. a very nice blonde that I have had on numerous occasions in the US and Belgium.
  • Quentine Ambree. We have had several beers from this brewery and have greatly enjoyed all of them. This was no exception.

We spent a lovely hour or so sitting outdoors in a little square in a quiet residential neighborhood full of young women wearing headscarves chasing their rugrats. Reminded me of Cairo.

Except for the good beer part.
And the quiet part.
And the women in Cairo don’t chase their rugrats so much as let them run around and occasionally yell at them part.

But other than that, it reminded me of Cairo.

From there we were off to Bier Circus. Another great place with a fantastic beer list. According to Kaddee’s notes, we ate there and really enjoyed the food. [shrug]. We drank:

  • Dupont Biologere. a 3.5% beer. Which is RIDICULOUSLY low alcohol for a Belgian. Very light and easy drinking, though a little disappointing.
  • La Binchoise Blonde. My notes are scribbled and blurry at this point. my notes either say “tasty” or ta-sobe. At this point in the evening, they are both equally likely.
  • La Moneuse Blonde. lively, more like what I expected from the Biologere. Unfiltered, yeasty and slightly “sparkly”. very tasty.

And we managed one more beer at Delirium Cafe. We had:

  • Saxo blonde. surprisingly hoppy with a nice dry finish. very nice
  • Villers Triple. floral and full mouth feel, slightly dry.

Then it was off to our hotel room for a bottle of Malheur 12. A beer bottled and finished like a champagne. Not bad, but we both prefer Deus.

Sleep.

Categories
Uncategorized

Making friends everywhere I go [The director’s cut]

[I originally pulled this post because I broke my cardinal rule: No posting under the influence. I got up the next morning and pulled it immediately. After reading I decided to let it stand as is. But, I have to admit, certain liberties with the facts were taken. Some people mentioned are composites, and some of the comments come from different events. Some are made up out of whole cloth. Enjoy 🙂 ]

We belong to the BCA. It is the British Community Association here in
Cairo. Any non-Egyptian can join, though only citizens of the Realm have
full voting rights.

We joined because the booze is cheap, the food is good (with lots of
pork choices and REALLY good curries.) and the company is usually
extremely witty.

Recently they had “British Pub Night.” They had imported some actual
British beer (a couple of bitters, Guinness, and a Boddington’s cream
ale”). The flyer said “dress in costume for the empire’s greatest moment
and win a prize!” Kaddee suggested dressing as Revolutionary fighters,
but we were unable to find the appropriate flint-locks.

Anyway,,,,

One night I was in there (the good Dr. was at Arabic classes at an
Arabic language school nearby) when the topic of conversation turned to
lineage etc. One particularly loud individual was talking about tracing
his roots back many years to the first person in his family to “learn a
trade”. He could “measure things”. So he became a blacksmith.

It was ok when the fellow Brits laughed at this. So I laughed, good
naturedly.

He looked at me and said, “You can bloody well laugh, you didn’t even
have a country then.”

Now, this bloke is one of those people that asks “Haven’t seen you in a
while, where have you been”. If you were so foolish as to reply, “Well,
we were in Belgium for 2 weeks”, he would reply “Why the fuck would you
go there?”.

The kind of guy who, when you would say, “we just got back from Italy”
would say, “ah I remember when Italy was WORTH going to, not like now.
It is all crap”.

The kind of guy who, when you would say, “we just spent a few days in
Luxor” would say, “Ah, I remember when a RESPECTABLE person could go
there and LEARN something”.

I, unwittingly, earned his undying hatred the first time he did this to
me. He asked where we had been, and I replied “We just got back from [i
can’t remember where] ” and he did his usual, “Why the hell would you go
there.”

The first thing that came to mind was “Well, at least it wasn’t
Ireland.”. His mate, who was sitting at his table burst into laughter.
The asshat, who I shall call “the asshat” said “I’m from Ireland.”.

To which I replied: “Well you know what I mean then.”

His mate nearly fell off his chair.

Fast forward to this evening.

When the asshat said “You can bloody well laugh, you didn’t even have a
country then” I replied:

Right. I am 100% Portuguese. I can trace my family back 600 years on the same island. You can trace your people back to, oh I don’t know,when the Romans ruled? Or the Normans, or was it the Saxons? Or when the Danes rules? Or was it William of Orange (the dutchman)? Or perhaps the”House of Windsor”, the germans? We colonial peasants have trouble keeping track of all the invaders of our oppressors.”

The silence was amusing. Except for “his mate” who respects us, I think, because we can “take the piss” and dish it out.

He laughed. As well as the Rhodesian.

I didn’t even mention the whole Stuarts and Roundheads.

Ah, the life on an ex-pat.

Categories
beer Travel

Mechelen and Hotel Carolus

[Edit: A couple of crappy photos here]

We spent 3 nights in Mechelen at the Hotel Carolus. It is attached to and part of Het Anker brewery.

Our hotel room looked right out over the brewery yard. There is a lovely pub and restaurant attached to the brewery. We drank a few pints of what they had.

We had:

  • Gouden Carolus Ambrio. An ok amber. Not a big fan of ambers, but this was nice.
  • Triple. This was on tap. This is a very nice beer. I drank ALOT of this.
  • Classic. Which was also kind of an amber. Almost a tweener beer between a classic british amber and a blonde.
  • Margrit. This was a citrus-y, sort of a wit style beer. Very drinkable. light-ish in alcohol (maybe 4.5?)

We had multiple rounds of these, both at the brewery and elsewhere in town over the 3 nights.

One of the nice things for me about staying at the hotel was the smell of the wort. Anyone who has brewed beer, or been around beer being made, knows the smell of wort. (It is basically unfermented beer). The smell is sweet and heady. A great smell if you love beer. It was a constant background smell at the hotel.

In town itself, we started at der Akker. This is a student and “artsy folk” kind of pub. (ie: cheap). Mechelen is a university town. We drank more Carolus.

From there we went to t Ankenjte where we drank more Carolus. Kind of a one beer town.

Then we wandered over to d’Afspraak and drank La Choufee and Postel Tripple – slightly malty and floral. BIG flavor and nose.

There seems to be a style of pub in Mechelen (and maybe other parts of Belgium) that are referred to as “Praat”. You will see a pub listed as Food and Praat. Some place are listed as Art and Praat. One place was listed as Piano, Mon,Wed,Fri, and “Praat” the rest of the week.

The best I could figure out from context and seeing the word in other contexts is that praat means it is a “chatting” pub. A place where one goes to chat with friends. In other words, no loud music. Some places has “praat gardens” that were quieter than inside the pub. A neat concept.

From there we went to the last “must see” place on my list. The “Den Stille Genieter”.

I don’t know how to describe this place, or the owner. It is a dark place, PILED high with old newspapers, and holiday decorations from Christmas, and Halloween, from who knows what year. The gentleman that owns the place is rather taciturn. I ordered 2 beers and when he brought them, he held them up and shrugged his shoulders as if to say “which beer goes where?”. Rather OCD/aspergers/autistic.

In addition to this, the man casts an odd spell of his bar, none of my pictures came out worth a damn. But I did find a reference to the place online. But enough of the ambiance! What did we drink?

Welllll,

  • Westvleteren 6
  • Westvleteren 8 They were both beautiful and served at just about the perfect temp 45-50 F. If you don’t know, these are some of the rarest beers, outside of belgium. And even in Belgium, I was only able to purchase them at 2 or 3 places. The monks make a very limited supply. The 8 has some slight spice with a bit of chocolate to it.
  • Cuvee de Bouillon – I have no notes here for this
  • Westvleteren 12. This is a BIG beer. about 10% alcohol, rather complex. They are so hard to find in the US that this was a little slice of heaven.

And when I paid the bill, the total was 12.25Euro. That is RIDICULOUSLY cheap. Ahh. I could live in Mechelen.

All kidding aside, it would not be a bad place to live. It is a smallish town, on the quiet side. But the university keeps it lively enough during the school year and it is about a 1/2 hour by train to Brussels. If I were ever to be so “lucky” as to land a job in the EU parliament (snork) or work for NATO, I would live in Mechelen and commute to Brussels.

I spent the next day in bed. I never really got up. It wasn’t really a hangover, i think it was just trip fatigue. I slept away the day. A waste I know, but it could not be helped.

We did have a lovely dinner at the Hotel Carolus pub, along with more of their beer (of course)

Finally, we had to leave for Brussels.

Categories
beer Photographs Travel

Antwerp and Westmalle

We needed to kill a night before heading to Mechelen. So we spent one night in Antwerp. Mainly to head to Wesmalle. So arrived at Antwerp, put our luggage in a locker and headed for the bus station outside.

It is about an hour long bus ride from Antwerp central. So, we hopped the bus and headed to the “Cafe Wesmalle”.

Now, we did not know exactly where it was, but there is a stop listed on bus schedule as “Westmalle.” So we figured we could hoof it to where the monastery was from the bus stop.

Well, the bus stop is in front of here. Right in front of the cafe which is across the street from the monastery. So we went in for a beer and a trappist cheese plate. They have the WestMalle Dubble on tap and the Triple in bottles. We had one of each and they do a half and half: Half dubble half triple. I am not normally a fan of half and half pours, but this was pretty tasty. So we had another.

We asked about getting into the monastery/brewery for a tour and were told we could go ring the bell and ask, but unless we had made arrangements in advance it was HIGHLY unlikely we would get in.

We decided to stroll down there anyway. It was a pleasant little walk but we were denied at the gate. I did get a couple of “spy shots” through the gate when they let in a delivery truck. :-). So we strolled back to the cafe and had another beer.

I noticed that we were, bar far, the youngest people in the cafe. Most of the people in the place were old enough to be our parents. Kind of odd. Perhaps we were there during “blue plate special” hours.

Fully beer logged we hopped on the bus back to town. We caught a quick snooze or two on the bus.

We then headed off to our hotel[which I remember nothing about].

The next day was a quick day. Kaddee had heard about this “gorgeous” pedestrian tunnel under the river that was decorated with all this art deco tile work.We found it. It was a straight, boring white tiled tunnet. The escalator down has some tiles. That was it. Oh well.

Onward to Mechelen.

Categories
Photographs

Speaking of photography

We attended a photo exhibition put on by the Cairo Image Collective. The exhibit was the “World Press Photo 2007” Awards. The photos were submitted by professional photo journalists from around the world.

Many of the photos were artistically beautiful.

Many were disturbing and painful to look at.

Many were technical marvels. (All hail photoshop!).

There were several photos of war scenes that will take a long time to fade from my memory.

The winning photo was this one:

WPPh 07_01.jpg

(Image: Spencer Platt, USA, Getty Images, World Press Photo of the Year)

It is a photo of Beirut residents driving through a bombed neighborhood of southern Beirut. [ I am not sure I agree with the judges, given the photos I saw. But…]

It can be interpreted many ways, I guess. Perhaps as a bunch of rich kids in their expensive convertible with their D&G sunglasses, manicured fingernails, and expensive mobile phones.

Perhaps as people looking for missing friends, or checking on their homes to see if anything was salvageable.

But it is a photograph of contrasts and the reality on the ground. At least some small part of someone’s reality, anyway.

One of the more intriguing details, to me, of the photo [which is sadly not visible in this shot, but is visible in the large photo on display in the exhibit] is the reflection in the sunglasses of the woman in the white shirt sitting in front.

The reflection shows a man walking away from the car, shoulders slumped and head hung low.

Categories
beer Photographs Travel

Ghent again

[Edit: Photos from Ghent available here.]

So we woke up the next morning feeling FAR better than we had any right to after the long day and night of drinking. Perhaps walking 40 minutes back to our B&B helped.

We decided to stay one more night in Ghent, but the B&B we were in had no rooms available. So we had breakfast and I did some phoning and found a very funky attic room in an artist’s house. He was a painter, sculptor and potter. A rather eclectic individual. Somehow, when I first examined the room I missed the TRAPEZE that was hanging from the ceiling over the bed. Just call me Mr Observant. [In my defense, it was all coiled up and you had to untie it let it down. Ahem.]

After schelpping our luggage there we set out for our day. I had wanted to go the the Ghent Design Museum. It contained 2 items of interest.

The first one that attracted my attention to the museum, was the Aprilia Moto 6.5 which was right in the lobby. That got me in the door and we wandered around and found the Charles Eames exhibit. It was a neat exhibit, including about 6 short videos that Eames himself had narrated. One was about the production of the fiberglass chairs, and others were odd stop motion vignettes of parades using papermache or clay figurines. Very odd.

We were then off to the Dulle Griet for a beer and some nibbles. We had a Westmalle Dubble on tap as the house Dulle Griet blonde on tap.

Then Kaddee said that she had read of a scotch bar in Ghent that is somewhat well regarded. So we went off to find it. It is a cellar bar in this alley. As we were about to go down, I heard the mournful wail of not one but TWO sets of bagpipes. Now, I am not a big fan of the bagpipes. In fact I will usually beat feet in the opposite direction of a set of bagpipes. Especially since they are usually played by amateurs with far too much enthusiasm. Anyway, I refused to go down into a cellar bar that was being serenaded by TWO bagpipers. So we waited a few minutes and discussed where we would go. Perhaps we could come back later. Then, blissfully, the bagpipes stopped. Ah, it was safe to enter.

So down we went.

Continue reading “Ghent again”
Categories
beer Travel

HopDuvel

We found our way to HopDuvel and opened the door. We were greated by a loud cheer

“YOU MUST BE KADDEE AND JACK! WELCOME! COME IN COME IN!”

Uuhh. “Hi”.

Our American friend on the bicycle, Stefan, had arrived first. He had been embraced by a group of [hard drinking] locals that had spent the day watching the Tour de France at another pub not far from HopDuvel.

The ring leader of this troop was Ronald. He is the gentleman in the tie in the foreground of the photo. He is a pharmacist that owns a couple of pharmacies in town. The young woman and man with him work for a pharmaceutical company. Ronald is a big customer of theirs. They are out drinking on an expense account, apparently.

Ronald had traveled in the US quite a bit when he was younger. He said that he was always welcomed in pubs where ever he went. Americans invited him to join them. They bought him drinks to hear his stories. He always remembered that.

He said that this was a very “un-Belgian” thing, to invite strangers into the group. Belgians are polite and formal, but cold to strangers, according to him.

So now, whenever he sees Americans in a bar, he invites them to join him and buys them a beer. When Stefan showed up, he welcomed him and incorporated him into the group. Stefan told them that Kaddee and I were on our way on foot and would be there shortly. So when we walked in, they were waiting for us.

It really was a pleasant surprise.

To further illustrate how “un-Belgian” it is to invite strangers into the group, Ronald decided to conduct an experiment. He was going to ask the next couple of people who entered the bar to join them. He predicted that they would decline.

He did, and they did. They all said “uh, we are meeting someone” or “we are just here for 1 drink then we have to go”.

It was an interesting social experiment.

So anyway, Ronald was one of the people that was absolutely flabbergasted that we were in Belgium for 2 weeks and weren’t going anywhere else in Europe. The whole “we’re here for the beer” thing.

With that knowledge, he decided that they were going to buy us 10 beers representative of good Belgian beer. They then preceded to discuss the choices, quite loudly and vociferously, as only a bunch of half-drunken bar patrons can do.

I tried a few times to offer input on what we have had, what was readily available to us in Seattle, and what we would like to try. But it was pretty much ignored. I figured, what the hell.

They ordered us 10 beers and we passed them around and tried them. They were all good beers, but they were all beers I could get in the US. [Our local pub, Beveridge Place Pub, has a very good selection of Belgians.] By the time those beers were consumed, I tried to buy a round but the bartender wanted to go home and was closing up shop.

Alas, HopDuvel was not the opportunity to try more beers that I had hoped it would be. But it was a very fun evening talking and drinking with the locals.

Cheers Ronald!

Categories
beer Travel

Ghent Part II

The next morning, groggy and covered in mosquito bites, we stumbled out for some food. We ended up at Waterhuis ann de Bierkant. I had a delicious rabbit stew made with Chimay.

We started lunch sitting outside. But the temperature started to drop and the wind picked up. It looked like rain. We decided to move into the restaurant. Shortly after we moved the skies opened and it HAILED. Gotta love the low-country weather.

While we watched the weather, we enjoyed

  • Malheur 6 on tap.
  • Gandavum house on tap – a dry hopped. The hoppiest beer I had so far.
  • La Trappe Blonde Tripel on tap. Rather weak flavor
  • Chimay Tripel on tap (to go with the rabbit stew, cooked in Chimay)

After lunch and waiting for the weather to let up we set off for the tourist office to find our way to a few of the other beer houses we wanted to visit. We were told that they were in a quarter of town that was closed off to public transport and cars because the Tour de France was coming through there today. We are not big bicycle racing fans, so we were unaware that the Tour de France even WENT to Belgium. We could get there, but we would have to hoof it all the way AND places were probably packed with fans. Alas.

As we pondered our options we realized that the big cathedral we were looking at was St. Baafskathedraal, the home of “The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb” by Jan van Eyck. It is a large work and in very good shape. Included in your entrance is one of those talking wands that will explain the history and significance of the piece. We had expected to go in, look around and be done in about 10 minutes. But we listened to the whole talk. It took about 50 minutes. It was well worth the time. It really is a magnificent piece of art.

After art-appreciation hour, it was SURPRISE, time for more beer!

So we walked to Trappenhuis and settled in for some serious sampling. While we were there, an Australian fellow over heard us talking and joined us. He was an interesting fellow. He is an actor/musician/street performer. His troupe, from Australia, spends the summer living in Ghent and travels around Europe doing various festivals. There was a big festival starting in a few days in Ghent, and he was going to be performing there.

After he had joined us, an American fellow asked to join us as well. He is a (currently unemployed) biomedical engineer from Minnesota(?) on a bicycling/beer drinking holiday of Europe. He had been to several of the breweries and had sampled a lot of beer.
The four of us compared beer notes and swapped stories for a few hours.

We had

  • Oude Geuze Boon. Kaddee made quite the face tasting this. It was a very good geuze
  • Bonne Esperance – we enjoyed this. Slightly hoppy.
  • Achel Bruin – Beauty. slightly sour
  • Dikke Mathile – Nice brown/blonde w slight spicy tones
  • Ter Dolen Blonde – slightly sweet with a floral nose.
  • Rochefort 6 – perfect, as always

We tried for Westvleteren again, but they were out. There were empty cases of it stacked, 6 or 7 high, in the bar. Bummer.

The four of us talked about HopDuvel, another famous beer bar in Ghent. We decided to head there and meet up again. The Aussie headed home to drop off his car and get his bike. [He never showed up. We were all pretty tipsy. I wager he decided to just call it quits]. The American was on a bicycle and he pedalled there.

We were unable to find a tram or taxi to take us there, because the area was still closed off due to the Tour de France. So we walked. It took about half an hour on a pleasant afternoon/evening.

Our welcome when we entered HopDuvel was something special. That will be my next post.