Around Brussels in 80 Beers
Welcome to Brussels, Bienvenue à Bruxelles, Welkom in Brussel, Willkommen in Brüssel ...capital of Belgium, the country of contradictions they call the beer paradise.
For centuries Brussels has enjoyed a unique reputation for its beers and the hundreds of places to drink them. Conviviality is what Brussels does best so naturally you would expect to find a special beer place on every corner, right?
Well, no, to the surprise of many a foreigner. In this as in virtually every other aspect of Brussels life, to get the best out of what is really one of the world’s great cities, you have to know where to go.
Joe Stange is an American beer writer who was recently condemned to live out a few years in Brussels, maybe for sins in a past life. Yvan de Baets has been campaigning for quality ales and lambics in the capital for years, turning his slogans into real projects first with the Bruxellensis Beer Festival and later this year by opening his own brewery in the capital.
In a city that is loaded with excellent restaurants we have naturally included suggestions for fine dining with beer and how to pair food with particular styles of brew.
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Sample spread from Around Brussels in 80 Beers |
From Joe and Yvan
‘We were pessimistic when we started this project. We feared we would not even be able to identify 80 places serving real craft Belgian beer, of the kind produced on a personal rather than industrial scale but by the end we had a hard time excluding some.
‘There is an up-and-coming generation of young proprietors rejecting the same-old corporate stuff and giving place of honour to craft beers on their menus and chalkboards. That is the subplot that runs throughout these pages. If this book gives those heroes an extra little boost then we have done our job.’
Two new books from Cogan & Mater!
Around Brussels in 80 Beers
Joe Stange & Yvan de Baets
The book that has gone down a storm in the Belgian capital – the must have for visitors and ex-pats. We put Missouri beer writer Joe Stange in touch with Bruxellois brewer and campaigner Yvan de Baets and asked them to choose the best venues in town for sampling beer with haute cuisine, Art Deco, alternative arts and men in flat caps taking sheep’s cheese and lambic for breakfast ...more >
The award-winning Good Beer Guide Belgium 6th edition
Good Beer Guide Belgium
Tim Webb
First published in 1992, Good Beer Guide Belgium has managed to become both a cult guidebook and the standard work on the beers of Belgium and where to find them. Definitive, totally independent and opinionated, it covers every brewery and regular beer, over 600 hand-picked specialist outlets. Chock full of in-the-know travel advice about small hotels, getting around without a car, beer festivals, brewery visiting and ...more >