B is for beer! And Brugge.

LOCATION:

Brugge, Belgium

 

Brugge has absolutely been one of my favorite cities so far, if not my favorite. After a few weeks of drinking wine in France and English ale in London (warm and flat - gross!), I was ready for some good beer. My beer education began in Amsterdam at the Heineken brewery - four ingredients, fermentation, blah blah blah. If Amsterdam was the kindergarten for beer, I graduated straight to beer college in Belgium! Beer is everywhere here - and most bars have beer menus that are a lot longer than their food menus. One of the cool things here is that all beers come with their own glass. So if a bar stocks 200 Belgium beers, that's 200 different glasses! Beer here can also be a lot stronger as far as alcohol content goes, so be careful!

My favorite types of Belgium beers are Trappist beers. For a beer to qualify as Trappist, it has to be brewed in a monastery by monks, and all profits (after Abbey costs have been covered) must go to charity. So really, by drinking a Trappist beer you are making the world a better place. There are currently seven Trappist breweries, and six of them are in Belgium. The bad news for tourists like me though, is that you can't visit any of them.

From the triple treat tour, brewed especially for the Ter Doest monastery but not an official Trappist brew.

Rodenbach, fermented in wine barrels, so it had a wine-ish taste. Not my favorite beer.

Karmeliet - not that special of a beer, but the best glass I have seen!

Westmalle is a Trappist ale, and is one of the few Belgian beers easy to find in the states.

Brugse Zot is from De Halve Maan brewery I toured.

Delirium Tremens is one of Kyle's favorites - I like the elephants on the label.

Chimay is my absolute favorite of them all!

I know it looks like all I did in Brugge was drink beer, but I saw some attractions as well. The first was the famous Belfort tower, with 366 winding steps to the top. While climbing the tower I learned about the importance of bells in earlier times - different chimes would signal time, celebration, mourning, or other important city events. When I was inside the tower the bell started to ring but I could not hear it at all - I could just see the gears moving. But when I rounded the corner and the bell came into view from a more outside angle, it was so loud! Strange how that works!

I made it to the top!

Hard to tell which way these steps go, right?

The inner workings of the bell!

View from the top - worth the climb.

 

I also made it to the Basilica of the Holy Blood which - you guessed it - contains the alleged holy blood of Christ. Though the small vial of blood has a storied past, research shows that - regardless of the origin of the vials contents - the vial likely only dates back to the 11th or 12th century, and has not been opened since arriving in Brugge, around 1250. Real or not, it was interesting to walk in front of the vial and think "what if." The basilica was small and otherwise unassuming, which made it quiet and peaceful because it is off most tourists radar.

No pictures inside, but this is the outside.

 

My favorite thing about Brugge (besides the beer!) is the simple charm. I have been to the canal cities of Venice and now Amsterdam, but Brugge exudes a picturesque quality that I have never seen before. Perhaps because it is a low tourist season, but many of the streets were deserted making the canals even more beautiful. Overall I loved Brugge, and know I will come here again someday!

Lovely canal.

Pretty tunnels and bridges everywhere.

The canal my hotel was located on, at dusk.

 

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