We started off early for a visit to the Dolle Brouwers (The Mad Brewers) in Diksmuide.

We were welcomed there by the mother of the brewer, Kris Herteleer. Everybody calls her grandmother and she is such a sweet person.

She’s in her late seventies but still does the tours of the brewery and she speaks a lovely English. She explained us that the brewery was originally set up by her two sons back in the eighties, how they took over the old brewery from the previous owner who helped them out with the creation of their first beer, “Oerbier” (= ancient beer). The beer won a price in a competition in Brussels and the sales took off.

Nowadays the brewery is run by one son, Kris and his wife Els, with the help of the mother.

Kris is also an architect and a painter. This is certainly one of the most original breweries to visit in Belgium. Everything expresses art and good taste, no matter how old the materials that are being used are. Of course a tasting concluded the tour, we were able to taste the Oerbier  (with new yeast that causes lactic acids to develop) which has regained its authentic sweet-sourness, the wonderfully dry-hopped Arabier, the Dulle Teve (= Mad Bitch), a very dense triple and the recently created Stout (oh my!) that sells almost exclusively in the U.S.

We then headed to Alveringem for a visit to the famous museum “Brouw- en Mouthuis De Snoek”. This ancient maltery-brewery is now a museum and is the best-kept example of a 19^th century “cascade” brewery. Cascade here means that the whole brewing process takes place with the help of gravity, starting at the highest point with the brew house and ending at the lowest point in the cellar with the fermentation and kegging-bottling. It was probably never IN such a mint condition when it was still working, but the community of Alveringem has done a fantastic job in restoring the place.

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After the visit, we sat down for lunch, a typical cold lunch with bread and cold meat and local cheese, dripping, accompanied by the local Snoek blond (brewed by Bavik) and bruin. The café of the museum, called “ Brouwershof”, also has a collection of folksy games that everybody used to play before the time of television and jukeboxes.

Then we left for Westvleteren, the smallest of the Trappist Abbeys, which is only a couple of miles away. We knew that they would be closed (they always do in the second half of September) but decided to stop at the entry of the abbey for a photo- opportunity and a walk in the neighbourhood.

We then drove on to Oostvleteren, to a pub called “Vleterhof” where we could taste the Westvleteren trappist, which has become very rare since its election as best beer of the worlds on ratebeer.com. This is one of the reasons why we were being followed by a television team of NBC. They wanted to make a program about Westvleteren, and when they heard that there was a beer tour with people from the States, they wanted to interview us.

We tasted the blue-capped 8% and the extraordinary trappist cheese, while sitting on the patio.

The weather was getting better by the hour, so we were happy to spend some time outside.

Our next visit that day would be the brewery of De Ranke, in Dottignies just over the linguistic border.  A very interesting place that was never on the tour’s program before. Their beers are full of character and until the beginning of this year they had always been brewing at Deca in Woesten, where they could use the installation. One of the owners, Nino Bacelle gave us a tour of the brewery, which houses a brand new installation.

They apply dry hopping in their beers, which makes them very bitter to Belgian standards. Therefore one of their beers is also called XX Bitter. Their cherry beer, Kriek De Ranke, is produced with a blend of Girardin lambic and real cherries together with a blond beer brewed by themselves. A great beer with lambic character. We were very well received and our group was very interested at the technical details.

We couldn’t stay too long because we wanted to attend the Last Post ceremony, at the Meningate in Ypres, which has continuously been held since WW1 and remembers the soldiers without a grave who were killed during the first world war. It is very impressive and every night hundreds of people attend to it

After the ceremony we went to the restaurant ‘Het Zweerd’ which is on walking distance, right in the heart of Ypres. A very tasty dinner concluded this wonderful day. The pub-crawl afterwards will not be forgotten.

Menu Fresh prepared munchies Paulus-beer Sea bass with Poperings Hommel ale sauce Poperings Hommel Ale Taptjes-vlees, the meat specialty of Ypres with Watou's White beer sauce Watous wit White chocolate cake Kapittel Abt Coffee

 
Day IV