Belgium Has The Best Beers

When I say that we went on an adventure to find the best beer in the world I really mean it. Read Jack's post named 'the holy grail of beers' and you'll understand. Briefly though, this beer, named Westvleteren, is brewed in small quantities in a monk monastary in the middle of nowhere. We had to figure out a way to get to this middle of nowhere place. Thus, our journey began.

We decided to embark on this adventure on the Friday morning. After asking some fellow beer seekers on the internet how to get there, we jumped on a 2 hour train ride to Poperinge - a small town of about 15,000 people. Once there we had a choice of renting bikes or waiting 2 hours for a bus to take us the last 20 to 30 kilometers. The weather wasn't good for biking so we decided to bus the out there. We went to the tourist office and asked the gentlemen - who I thought looked like Waldo from the Where's Waldo books - to book a bus for us. That is when he informed us that the bar was closed on Thursday and Friday.

Trying this beer was one of the top things we wanted to do on this trip, so we knew we had to return the next day. With Belgium being another 'B' country we didn't mind losing a day to come back. We probably would have gone to a bar and tried more Belgium beers anyway. So, the next day we made our way back to Poperinge and caught the bus to the monastary. The bus took us down very narrow and winding roads, while driving past fields where they grow hops for beer. After trying the first bottle of Westvletern I knew this journey was worth it. I can't decisively say that Westvleteren is the best beer in the world but it certainly was within the top 5. With the other 4 also being Belgium beers.

Our last night in Brussels we not surprisingly decided to try more Belgium beers. The easiest spot to do this was in bar that has over 2000 different beers. The bar is called Delirium and even had Molson Canadian and Moosehead. The menu of beers was larger than a school textbook.

The following day we left on an early train to Amsterdam, our final city before going back to London. For one of the first times this trip we actually had a hostel reserved before arriving in the city. It felt good not having to walk from hotel to hostel to hotel asking if they have any rooms. However, when checking in the receptionist could not find our name on the reservation list. We knew we reserved 3 beds for 4 nights but as the receptionist pointed out we did not know when we reserved for. We somehow came a day early! We fortunately were still able to get beds but I could not believe we did that. Eventually I figured out that we left a day early from Paris. We spent so many days there that we lost track of which day it was. An extra day in Amsterdam can only be a good thing though.

Way back in Berlin we met an American named Chad who just came from Amsterdam. He loved Amsterdam so much that he ended up staying there 3 or 4 days longer than he originally inteneded. With all the praise he was giving Amsterdam maybe we subconsciously feel into the same trap he did. He even told us, "You guys should cut out a city and go to Amsterdam longer!" We knew we could never cut out another city but I guess we almost did. Chad, if you're reading this, the extra day is in honour of you my friend.

Amsterdam has been absolutely insane! I can't believe what goes on here. I'll leave this craziness for my next post - quite possibly my final post while in Europe. Once again, I'm sorry about the now pictures. Amsterdam has a plethora of sinful stores, shops, and activities but they have very few internet cafes of which none can upload pictures.