Belgian beer is AWESOME!
On Friday, Pete, Reid, and I left work at lunch and headed in the direction of the land of beer. We drove to Bergen Op Zoom, the Netherlands and stayed the night in preparation for the Christmas beer festival in Essen, Belgium. Bergen Op Zoom wasn't just fun to say, but it was a super cute town too. The three of us thought it was sort of Disney-esque. Oh, and I fell in love with the doors there.
Friday evening, when we got there, we got into our hotel, which was really great, then set out on finding some dinner. It was bitter cold, but the numbness didn't kill our fascination in the town and how quaint it was. We ate at this great restaurant and for some reason were immediately recognized as English speakers when we walked through the door. The soup was phenomenal and dinner was great, plus the Westmalle beer was wonderful.
The next morning we trolled the town some more, because the festival didn't start until 2 in the afternoon, so around 12:30 we found our way to the train station and made the trek to Essen, Belgium. Essen isn't big and it was clear from the line of people leaving our train and the station that there wasn't much else in the town but the festival, so we just followed the crowd. At this point, and when we arrived to the line out the door, it was clear that the male attendees made up probably about 87%.
The festival was in a gymnasium, basically. For 15 euro, you got a booklet listing all the beer they had to try, tasting notes, alcohol content, etc. plus 10 tickets. 1 ticket got you 1 tasting, but some of the beer was 2 tickets. The glass was 3 euro, but you got that back when you returned it, and it held .15L. (That's about 5oz or almost 1/2 a bottle of beer. It would also be good to note that the average alcohol content of the the beer was probably around 8-9%, but I also had to try the one with the highest alcohol content at the festival--12.5%. I weigh 108lbs.)
We sat down at a table next to these other two Americans who are stationed in Mons, Belgium, and about 6 Dutch on the other side of us. Everyone was really nice and the Dutch kept sharing the food they brought, even though you really weren't supposed to bring outside food in. They had this great dried meat with a clove taste, eggs, cheese straws, crackers, and I don't remember what else.
Me after who knows how many.I think by tasting number 3, Pete, Reid, and I were very happy. No one was out of control there and it never got terribly crowded. I had 10 tastings and never had a bad beer. I loved it and had a great time.
Me, Reid, and Pete--beer connoisseurs
