Day 163-exploring Brussels

   June 15-Sally and I finally got around to doing what we came to Brussels to do: experience Belgian beers!  We all slept in this morning, which felt great.  We finally got up around mid-morning and headed out into the rain.  It was mostly cloudy and rained off and on today.  We walked around and found a bakery to grab food to eat for breakfast and then continued on our way to the Cantillon brewery.  This, as well as most of the rest of the stuff we did today, was recommended by Dale, who has made two trips to Belgium to visit breweries and sample local brews, so had a pretty good idea where we should go and what we should do.  The brewery dates back to 1900 and most of the machinery and equipment inside it dated from around that time as well.  We took a self-guided tour through the brewery and got to see all of the equipment.  Then we had a couple tastings and ate some bread we had brought with us.  Interestingly, the owner walked in towards the end with two IPAs from Odell’s brewery in Fort Collins and opened them for his employees who were taking their lunch break.  I noted that we were from Colorado as well and we talked about our breweries and Belgian breweries.  He said that the brewer from Fort Collin’s New Belgian brewery comes over yearly to visit him at Cantillon.

These pictures show some of the sequential steps in the brewing, processing, and drinking of Cantillon beer.
Notice that the employees are supplementing their lambics with some beer from Colorado. How ironic!

   We left and wandered back towards the Grand Place, stopping off to see the Mannekin Pis, which is an odd fountain of a peeing boy that seems to be very popular to tourists.  Replicas dominate most tourist shops.  We all ordered Belgian waffles and then headed back to the apartment to eat them.

 

This street opens into the Grand Place in about a
hundred feet. Our apartment is at the top of the
building with the black street frontage (and no
shop) that is over Spencer's right shoulder.

      The kids stayed in the apartment to rest and watch TV, while Sally and I walked over to the beer bar, Poechenellekelder, and had a Boon Marriage Parfait Geuze, Van Duis Brown, and a Buffalo Stout.

         After an enjoyable time, we headed back to the apartment and the whole family wandered over to the Moeder Lambic beer bar and restaurant where we ate and the adults drank a blend of four geuzes and a Van Duis Grand Cru.  We headed back to the apartment and stopped at one of the many Belgian chocolate stores and got a package deal of different chocolates.  We brought them up to the apartment and ate some of them for dessert.  We all spent a couple hours relaxing, Skyping Sally’s folks, and watching kids’ TV in Dutch, French and English.  We tried to get to bed a little earlier tonight since we planned to get going earlier the next morning.