Belgium: Last Day
Left Ghent at a perfectly reasonable time of the morning on a train to Brussels then decamped to a bar, unsurprisingly. We'd tried to go to the Poechenellekelder ("Mannequin Cellar") a few times when we'd been in Brussels before but it had always been closed. This time it was open, and a fine bar it turned out to be, especially as it's almost opposite the Mannekin Pis (pissing boy statue) so could probably get away with being a crap tourist trap.
Lunch was accompanied by another good beer from the Senne brewery, now a firm favourite of mine, and this, the last of the 100 beers I had on this trip:
42 - Caracole Ambrée
Which I failed to scribble any notes about, but was a rather tasty amber ale.
Caracole are a small brewery, founded in 1990 and now based in a 200 year old brewery building. Brewery re-cycling I suppose, which sounds like a good idea.
I've had a pretty fine wheat beer from them in the past and I've seen fringefaan recommend their strong beer Nostradamus. They sound like the sort of brewery it's worth trying anything from. So I'll be keeping my eye out.
After lunch we had a bit of a wander and bought chocolate and beer to bring back. Then tried to find another bar to sit in for a last drink. But a combination of them being closed, too hot (in a basement, weather was still very warm) or full (Magritte's old haunt; a nice place) meant we ended up back in the Poe again. So my last beer of the trip ended up also being brewed at Caracole's brewery, just not by them. It was memorably described by pingopark as "vacuous pixie tart" beer. You can see why
Then it was back to the train station for the Eurostar home. Which all went nice and leisurely and fine. My only gripe being that the last beer of the holiday was meant to be a bottle of Duvel (or their "guest beer") on the train, but they were only selling cans of Stella or Kronenberg. I had tea.
Well after several days of a holiday dedicated to drinking fine beer I was hardly going to ruin it all.
Lunch was accompanied by another good beer from the Senne brewery, now a firm favourite of mine, and this, the last of the 100 beers I had on this trip:
42 - Caracole Ambrée
Which I failed to scribble any notes about, but was a rather tasty amber ale.
Caracole are a small brewery, founded in 1990 and now based in a 200 year old brewery building. Brewery re-cycling I suppose, which sounds like a good idea.
I've had a pretty fine wheat beer from them in the past and I've seen fringefaan recommend their strong beer Nostradamus. They sound like the sort of brewery it's worth trying anything from. So I'll be keeping my eye out.
After lunch we had a bit of a wander and bought chocolate and beer to bring back. Then tried to find another bar to sit in for a last drink. But a combination of them being closed, too hot (in a basement, weather was still very warm) or full (Magritte's old haunt; a nice place) meant we ended up back in the Poe again. So my last beer of the trip ended up also being brewed at Caracole's brewery, just not by them. It was memorably described by pingopark as "vacuous pixie tart" beer. You can see why
Then it was back to the train station for the Eurostar home. Which all went nice and leisurely and fine. My only gripe being that the last beer of the holiday was meant to be a bottle of Duvel (or their "guest beer") on the train, but they were only selling cans of Stella or Kronenberg. I had tea.
Well after several days of a holiday dedicated to drinking fine beer I was hardly going to ruin it all.