Sadly, because of limitations I was unaware of in the blog theme I am going to have to build pages for this trip outside the theme, so I’ll be doing my first redirect here: some random images from day 1 in Bruges: Bruges3-9/ This new amera does panoramas and I love them, so plan on scrolling to he right [and then back again to go to the next image] Bruges 3-10. Today 3/11, the day of the earthquake and resultant tsunamis, brought us back to the B&B at 3 pm, as the tsunami was due in Hawaii to watch the news. Looks like were skating through without to much damage.. This morning was one of tours, we did a canal tour and a tour of the Chocolate Museum. There are some new pictures on the 3/11 page but the real treasure in the camera are in 3D pictures   -especially the one of Jane behind the alter at St Gile’s Church.. But to that you’ll have to come to the house when we return!

Dinner on Friday night at de Hobbit… was OK, but the real fun was directly across the street at Bruges Beerjt. Their menu of some 300+ Belgian beers was more than we felt like processing so we opened with a McChauffe and soon found ourselves in the company of a delightful couple from England and two young guys from Bruges who have made a career of working their way through the menu and were glad to offer some suggestions.

note: this was the place mentioned in the NYT article about the Belgian Beer Trail and it’s owner, Daisey is a rock star among beer lovers. She graciously posed for her first 3D photograph, but you’ll have to see that, you know where… Anyway it was a very fun evening discovering some really world class beers…  Did you know that beer, like wines, has better years and are often not at their peak for some time after they are bottled?  I didn’t. One of the discoveries was Oerbier Reserva 2009, a  brew that is hard to imagine and hard to explain but if you love huge complex funky sour ales this is your beer! It is very layered and shows off the barrel aging nicely. I didn’t even know they aged some beers in barrels!  In the nose are red-wine like fragrances too & dry oaky tannins, leather and herbs, roasted malts and raisins, walnuts, cloves and pepper and vanilla. Isn;t this sounding more like wine than beer?? The taste is tart   with sour cherries, sweet and even sort of bready. The mouth-feel is velvety and finishes powerfully with a bit of tartness.. wow!

When I brought up something we had read about in the aformentioned article, they boys said it isn’t available for more than about 2-3 weeks and recommended a St. Bernardus 12, just as good and always available. It was a blonde beer but full of rich fruity aromas and a back end with cherries, chocolate notes and maybe a hint of coffee, but it isn’t fruity really as much as it is ‘warm’  and it weighs in at a hefty 10.5% alcohol so it packs a punch. I liked it a lot, but wanted to try some other things so when that was done it was time to move on…

The next beer was the heavy weight of all time… Black Albert, weighing in at 13% and in the menu described and DARK/HEAVY/Black as HELL! It was all that and more and the last beer of the night. I love Guinness Stout and this makes Guinness look like your grandmother’s sip of Pabst..

 

Thanks to the Daisey, the ‘Boys’ and the ‘Brits’ we had a splendid evening and thanks to it being a 20-25 minute walk home, survived it too 🙂