Touring Belgian breweries. Can you help?

Definitely visit here when you go to Brussels:

http://www.cantillon.be/br/3_2

As you'll see, you can do individual visits on any day, and it comes with a beer. Of course, this is a lambic brewery, but it's still fascinating for anyone who loves beer in general.

 

bruges for 5 days...completely unnecissary imo. A day, maybe 2 is all you really need to spend there.

Brussels, go to cantillon and moeder lambic and youre set.

you have to understand that breweries in the us do different things than the rest of the world. A brewery tour with tasting at the end is not as common over here as it is in the states.

Cantillon does offer that, its a lot of fun and a nice tour with a tasting at the end but as you may have read, they consider theyre brewery to also be a gueuwe museum...hence the tour/tasting.

Let me know where exactly you want to visit and Ill see if I can help you out...or at the very least point you in the right direction for some info.

 

consider searching the Benelux forum and this thread was impressive
http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/4-days-and-40-destinations-belgium.84883/#post-1401390

 

In Bruges you can visit these bars: De Garre with their exclusive tripel van de Garre, 't Brugs Beertje and Cambrinus.

You can also visit brewery De Halve Maan in Bruges. There most popular beers are Straffe Hendrik and Brugse Zot.

De Struise and Westvleteren aren't also that far from Bruges if you consider visiting those.

 

Bruges is a fantastic beautifull old town , i'm sure that you can spend several days in Bruges ,
Not only do they have nice brewery's , restaurants and pubs that you can visit ,they also have lots of many markets , museums , old buildings etc ... ,
To give you an excample , next to the struise beershop you have to chapel of the holy blood , very nice place , around the corner you have the pub called de garre , i've you walk in the other direction you will find a nice irish pub , cross the square and you walk straight to the old fishmarket , and like that Bruges has hundreds of places ,
I'd say 3/4 days in Bruges is ok , but you can stay much longer , it's just a great place to walk around and hang out

 

You might want to check out Ghent as well, not quite as impressive on the beer front but the rest of the city more than makes up for it. Bruges is beautiful but a tourist trap during the day and deserted at night.

 

Have a similar predicament - heading over in August for 10 nights (3 spent in Amsterdam, 7 in Belgium). I've spent time in Brussels before but have been nowhere else in Belgium.

The trip certainly has a strong beer-component, but I would absolutely not neglect getting to know each of the cities we visit and the cultural sites within. We've been tossing around some allocations of nights (3-4 in Brussels, 2 in Brugge, maybe 1 in Ghent, maybe 1 in west Flanders). Staying in Ghent almost seems like more trouble than it's worth due to the ability to easily make a full day trip from Brussels without having to change lodging.

Outside of Cantillon and Boon (Wed, 3pm), we've been struggling with getting in touch with certain breweries to confirm availability. We've tried Rodenbach, De Struise (just want to confirm Saturday hours), St Bernardus, Oude Beersel, 3 Fonteinen (to confirm what exactly is possible these days) and a few others. It seems like many only open up for large groups but I'm struggling to believe that there isn't a way around that or at least a way to join an already scheduled group.

 

Check out http://www.regniersbeertourism.com/ Regnier will let you join his groups with the other groups permission.

And get Tim Webb's Good Beer Guide to Belgium book. http://www.booksaboutbeer.com/collections/belgium/products/good-beer-guide-belgium It weill list every brewery and if they offer tours or not and also what times if they do.

 

Brugge is in West flanders , it's like the capital of west flanders , and Ghent is easy to reach from Brugge by train , maybe 45 minutes and your in Ghent ,
Don't forget that you also have a struise beershop in Brugge ,next to the chapel with the holy blood

 

A'Chouffe and Interpol (smallest in Belgium) down in the Ardennes and probably not in your plans. Plus lots of WW 2 history with Bastonge close by. Maredsous was very impressive also. They no longer brew there but the monastery has been preserved and is one of the top sites in Belgium to visit.

 

Hi ,

I am from Antwerp and lived in the states for 6 years. If you coming this direction please feel free to contact me in person. There is one great brewery in Antwerp and this is http://www.dekoninck.be
Also my friend put a new beer on the market that you must drink if you are in Antwerp.http://www.seef.be/Seef_lancering/Welkom.html

Best Sacha www.belgacity.com

 

Definitely visit De Halve Maan in Bruges. Great tour.