A Belgian Beery Break Pt 3: Brugge

Our last night in Ghent had drawn to a close with the barman, and a local, in Den Turk telling us that all the ways that Brugge was not so good as Ghent. Had we made a dreadful decision in coming to Ghent first? Would we be ending our Belgian Beery Break on a downer instead of a high? Only time would tell.

Our first impression driving into Brugge, and finding the Ibis hotel that we were staying in, did nothing to allay our fears. The city seemed clean, but very suburban and lacking in character compared to Ghent. At first glance, it seemed that we would need to fathom out public transport in order to get to the part of the city we wanted to visit. However, the hotel receptionist explained that it was very walkable, and pointed us in the right direction.

It took just a couple of minutes to find ourselves walking along cobbled streets between charming old houses, and just a couple more to get our first glance of one of the many magnificent churches that seem to abound in Brugge. The historic centre of Brugge is contained within the R30, and certainly has its fair share of magnificent architecture. In this case, first impressions had been very misleading.

Church of Our Lady

It was a bit early, so we had a wander, a cup of coffee, and noted the delicious looking foodstalls on the central market as lunch options, before heading for our first beery destination - the Bruges Beer Museum. 

After paying our €16 (which includes 3 drinks at the bar) we were given an Ipad and a set of headphones and sent on our way. The Ipad takes the place of traditional museum information displays, allowing you to point the camera at icons which then bring up relevant text, audio and video files. Clearly this does away with language barriers, but I found it rather an odd experience as the headphones seemed to discourage conversation as we were looking around. The museum contains a vast array of artefacts, displays and information covering the history of beer, how it is brewed, beer styles, and beer in culture - amongst other things! In fact, I have to admit I found it all a bit too much! Perhaps I would have been well advised to have skipped over some of the earlier sections of the museum which were nothing new to me. I was certainly ready for a beer when we got to the end of the tour and stepped into the bar.

Rodenbach Grand Cru, Kriek Boon and Steenbrugge Dubbel Bruin

Suitably refreshed we stepped outside, anticipating lunch on the market - only to discover that the marketplace was all but empty! Instead we found one of the several places claiming to sell the best fries in Brugge - they didn't. After a bit of a wander, we found ourselves back in the Markt just as a climate protest was passing through. We stopped to watch for a while before heading to the Duvelorium for more refreshment. Sitting on the terrace, enjoying the spring sunshine, we saw the protesters crossing the Markt again and raised our glasses to them.

Climate protesters in the Markt

A notable feature of the Brugge beer scene is the proliferation of bottle shops. I had planned on checking out the The Bottle Shop and The Beer Wall, but we stumbled across countless others as we wandered around the city. I could easily have spent a fortune on beers to bring home. However, this was my first trip to Belgium and I found plenty of supermarket beers that I wanted to try, and obviously these were more budget friendly.

Supermarket sweep

Over the course of two days we enjoyed beer at Bourgogne des Flandres, De Garre, Brouwerij de Halve Maan, 't Poatersgat and 't Brugs Beertje. None of them were bad, but 't Poatersgat and 't Beertje stood out.

We were early at 't Poatersgat and so it was quiet, not much more than half a dozen customers, but that meant that we were able to have a good chat with the owner (I think). I get the impression that it is quite a lively place later in the evening, with a fairly young crowd and plenty of music, so I suspect that we caught it at the best time for me.

't Poatersgaat - probably the strangest entrance to a bar that I have seen!

't Beertje was definitely my favourite bar in Brugge, although there were a few places that I had hoped to get to and didn't manage this time. In fact we liked it so much we went in twice. It had quite a pubby atmosphere, and was busy both times we went in with few empty tables. The staff were very friendly, polite and knowledgeable, and it seemed as if there were plenty of locals using the bar as well as beer tourists.

Another highlight of our trip was the Halve Maan brewery tour. We had decided to splash out on the XL tour at €21, instead of the basic package which was just €11. For the extra €10 we got to sample the Brugse Zot Dubbel, and the Straffe Hendrik Tripel and Quad, as well as the Brugse Zot Blonde which is included in the standard tour.

The tour itself was quite interesting, taking in several historic parts of the brewery which are now museum pieces, and covering some history of Brugge as well as the usual brewery tour staples.

Open fermenting vessels

Wort cooler

The old coolship at the top of the brewery

Our guide was very knowledgeable, but I have to say that some of his talk felt over rehearsed and therefore a little inauthentic. We enjoyed the beers, although the "professional beer tasting in the cellars of the brewery where you will be introduced to the secrets of serving and tasting beer" as promised by the brewery website was a little oversold in my opinion. What really made the tour though was chatting with a young Belgian couple, and a young Armenian woman named Hasmik. We talked about Brexit (again), and what is like to live in England, Belgium, and Armenia. Hasmik told us what a beautiful country Armenia is, and about her experience of solo travelling around Europe. Hopefully we will pay her a visit in a year or two.

Once again, I realised that one of the best things about beer is the way it gets us talking to new and interesting people.