100 Years of Irish Brewing in 50 Objects: #23 – Guinness 'Belgian' Tumbler (c. 1950)

I felt the most extraordinary desire for a glass of Guinness, which I knew could be obtained without difficulty. Upon expressing my wish to the doctor, he told me I might take a small glass. It was not long before I sent for the Guinness and I shall never forget how much I enjoyed it. I thought I had never tasted anything so delightful. I am confident that it contributed more than anything else to the renewal of my strength - from the Diary of a Cavalry Officer, June 1815, after being severely wounded at the Battle of Waterloo.

Ethel M. Richardson, "LONG FORGOTTEN DAYS." (1928) via The Sketch Guinness advertisement 1938

Although this object itself has but a loose link to Irish brewing history it is still an important link, as it could and should be seen as a tangible part of the porter export trade from this country, and particularly from its biggest brewery – that of the Guinness enterprise in Dublin. There is a long history of exporting porter from Ireland which has been recorded elsewhere with varying degrees of detail but the above glass connects into the Guinness export trade to Europe and, in particular, to Belgium. An export trade that to a modern eye would seem to be the equivalent of sending coal to Newcastle, given that Belgium is now synonymous with good and plentiful beer to most of those with an interest in the subject.

But, as we can see from the above - granted anecdotal - quotation, Belgium is a country that has been experiencing Guinness’s porters for quite a few years, albeit in that case by military contract via England it would appear.

-o-

This glass is a wonderful piece of workmanship that no photo will do justice to. It is made from quality glass that approaches lead crystal in colour, quality and sound, and appears to be mould-blown or similarly formed before the eight facets were cut and polished by hand to form an octagonal-shaped lower section around an extra thick base, with the bottom of the glass also polished to an incredible smoothness. As to the more boring details, the tumbler is approximately 15cm high by 8.5cm wide at its mouth, it weighs 400grms and holds 400ml of liquid, an important volume, as will transpire later. It hearkens back to similar conical tumblers of the late Victorian and early 20th century. These heavy-based, fluted pint glasses were relatively common on these islands before the popularity of undecorated, plain or ‘straight’ (‘Shaker,’ as they would be termed in America) glasses, which themselves gave way to other styles later on. There is also a nod perhaps to the continental ribbed or fluted tumblers used these days (and most likely in the past) by some Belgian brewers. The gold lettering around the harp symbol seems to date them to the mid-20th century, and the same logo was used on goblets produced to mark Guinness’s bicentenary year in 1959. The Guinness archive site dates this design to exactly 1955, but calls it a 'pint' glass so both statements may be averages. Another, probably slightly later version with a buff coloured logo was also produced, which was presumably a little more print-durable during washing, and the glass itself appears in at least one advertisement, on a showcard from 1950 for the Italian market* and also in this advertisement. That version is also shown in a press advertisement in French from the 1970s. (There is mention in the Guinness Archive site of the introduction of new Guinness glasses in 1949 'bearing our harp and the word ''Guinness'' in buff outlined in black' with a strong connection to the continent, which could mean this buff version is earlier.)

A later version of this tumbler was also made to the same size and weight but with inferior glass and the facets are moulded instead of being cut. Its bottom is slightly concave and very obviously moulded too. It has the stencilled Guinness typeface introduced in 1968 so dates from after that period.

Curiously, a slightly less tapered version of the glass with a shallower base and without the logo is illustrated in a showcard in English dated to c1912**, which might be an indication of the inspiration for the design, or adoption of an already known design for the continental market. There is no indication of the country of origin for these glasses but Belgium, France or any of the surrounding countries would be a relatively safe bet, unless they were commissioned from a Czech supplier, as they are certainly of that quality and heft. (Belgium was certainly making imperial pint tumblers with groves around the bottom for the English and Irish markets late in the first half of the 20th century, but they were somewhat cruder and wholly moulded.)

That capacity mentioned above of 400ml could be an important indicator of the true purpose of the glass, as this volume is a perfect fit for a 330ml bottle of Guinness including room for a head right up to the rim without overflowing, which is helped by the conical shape. The name and product that comes to mind in the 1950s with regard to Guinness on the continent, and Belgium in particular is John Martin in Antwerp, and bottles of Guinness Foreign Export Stout.

With the help of David Hughes excellent book ‘A Bottle of Guinness Please’ the following early history of the company can be cobbled together from various mentions and references within its pages.

John Martin wasn’t the first or only importer of Guinness into Belgium, there were others before him and operating alongside him in the country when he was appointed an agent in 1912 for Antwerp, and he started bottling that same year – although some draught stout was also being sold during this period. At this point Guinness’s Extra Stout (ES) and Extra Foreign Stout (AKA Foreign Extra Stout, or FES) were being imported into the country. This changed to Export Extra Stout (GXS) around the time Martin commenced bottling (although there is a contradictory mention of him bottling ES in 1913, and these names and abbreviations are a minefield to traverse.) and Guinness began to see an improvement in sales. This was also helped by a marketing budget that included newspaper advertisements as well as showcards, metal signage and postcards. Sales were showing some growth up to the start of World War I when exports stopped. Supply recommenced in 1920 and by 1923 the main beer being sold by Martin was ES with just some FES, the beer being bottled in reputed pint (379ml[?] approximately) bottles at this point. This was the year that they merged with the Schweppes company with Martin remaining on as the managing director. Sales were generally poor at this point and suffered from rivals Bass’s stout being stronger and pasteurised, so therefore more stable and consistent, unlike Guinness’s stouts. In 1930 Martins started pasteurising ES onsite in Brussels, where they had moved their headquarters to in 1927. After World War II sales slowly increased and Martins remain connected with Guinness right up to this day.**

The history of what we know now as Special Export Stout in Belgium is a trickier thing to pin down (and we are indebted to David Hughes again for the following information) but Martins were bottling a stronger version of ES called ES77 (1.054 gravity which possibly equated to an abv of 5.5% at most?) for the Belgian market, which was a new stout developed for the Armed Forces in 1945 exclusively in Europe, whereas other countries received a slightly weaker version. (This may therefore be the origins of what would be eventually become Guinness Special Export Stout?) Production of stronger export stouts in general had stopped in 1917 and only commenced again in 1945. By 1949 it was reported to be (1.058) and was reported to be a stronger version of Extra Stout which was sweeter with a lower hop rate than FES – this is still true today. It would appear at least that during the following years it gain some extra strength to end up at is current 8% abv. This would make sense as it was a stronger beer prior to the wars so it possibly bounced back, and helpfully, Ron Pattinson shows that an export stout brewed by Guinness was 6.6% abv in 1948, 7.8%in 1963, and 7.3% in 1966. The variance is mostly due to the attenuation of the brewing more so than the gravity of the beer but it still shows and general increase over time.

For comparison, the much-told story about how it came about varies a little depending on the teller but the Guinness website gives the most common story:

So, how did this continental brew come to life? Well, John Martin was an English brewer living in Belgium who shared Arthur’s thirst for exploration and adventure. In 1944, he ventured through the doors of St. James’s Gate with a request to create a truly Irish stout with a fiercer punch and sweeter aftertaste, to suit the palate of his Belgium friends.

The Guinness brewers, never ones to turn down a challenge, of course obliged and that’s what he got. An adventurer’s black gold.

So next time you indulge, close your eyes, and think of… Belgium.

A visit to many other internet sources and the odd book all tell a similar tale, although factual, first-hand content is unavailable in any commonly available, public sources. So what we are left with is the snippets regarding the beer as published by David Hughes plus a little bit of marketing-driven history and a fair degree of conjecture. The actual history of the beer itself is probably a combination of facts and story, complicated by the various Guinness brews and how they changed over the years.

Branded continental glassware for Guinness isn’t new, and even Martins themselves had commissioned embossed glasses for the Belgian trade in 1910, and other bottlers were producing etched glasses with ‘Guinness XX’ on them not long afterwards*** – and there may be earlier examples. And it is highly possible and probable that Jon Martin commissioned these glasses for his export stout from the very late 1940s onwards, although they were also probably used for draught product on occasion. The same glass shape but with the more modern Guinness typeface is shown on a beermat which was dated as being from 1976, so perhaps these glasses lasted up until the 1980s and beyond? Either way they should be an incredibly desirable product for the Guinness glass collector, although they seem to be relatively rare on these islands at least. But perhaps, like the early Guinness tankards that were used here in the sixties and seventies, they have become prized possessions on the continent, and sit in collections throughout Belgium, and beyond. They are indisputably the finest pieces of glassware ever produced for the brand, even more attractive than those aforementioned tankards.

And perhaps somewhere in Belgium, in an old and half-hidden pub in some quiet and peaceful town, when you order a bottle of Dublin brewed John Martin’s Special Export Stout, and as you are sitting facing a charming square, the kindly old bar owner will reach over your shoulder and place that beer on the marble-topped table, followed by an old beermat on which is placed one of these gorgeous glasses.

Wouldn’t that be a treat?

Liam K

(EDITED: 17th and 18th of May 2026)

*The Book of Guinness Advertising page 175 - Jim Davies1998

** ‘A Bottle of Guinness Please’ - David Hughes 2006

*** The Guinness Online Archive

Please note, all written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post. Much of the research was thanks to David Hughes' book, and the glasses and beermat image is from the author's own collection. DO NOT STEAL THIS CONTENT!

Travel : A Return to Kaffee de Planck, Ghent - Poor Poes...

My last visit here probably tells you all you need to know about one of my favourite bars in Ghent - and beyond it - but this return visit was worthy of note too as a poignant if soppy tribute to Poes, the wonderful cat who lazily watched us on our previous visit - checking us out with vague interest as we entered, and perhaps a hint of deserved disdain when we left.

Unfortunately Poes passed on in 2015 at the ripe old age of 20 and if the small shrine with postcards of him/her and the lit candles are anything to go by that cat is very sadly missed in the De Planck. I missed it too and I only met Poes once, but that cat was part of our original experience and received a special mention in that original post.

Ellezelloise Hercule Stout (Apologies for Photo Quality)

I toasted Poes with a a couple of really great beers. First up was one of my favourite Belgian stouts - Hercule from Brasserie des Légendes - presented to me in a wonderful branded tankard. It's all about the chocolate flavour with a vanilla hint and a spicy quality I can never quite place. (Perhaps liquorice?) For a 9% beer it's incredibly easy to drink, especially in such surroundings, but I paced myself and savoured its richness.

De Leite Cuvée Soeur’ise

Next up was a new one for me - Cuvée Soeur’ise from De Leite, which was really superb. The brewery adds cherries to their tripel, Enfant Terriple, and lets it all sit in oak wine casks for 5 months, which produces a beer that tastes of cherry bubblegum mixed with sour cider - a wonderful smooth bitter-sweet flavour with a little heat from its 8.5% abv. It was probably my favourite beer of that trip, and I had some excellent beers in Ghent.

Myself and my companions sat drinking a chatting for a while, enjoying the ambience, music and really good toasted ham and cheese sandwiches. The service was excellent as ever and the beer list and food menu perfectly sized, big enough to be interesting but not too large as to intimidate.

That krieked tripel was a fitting tribute, and I raised my glass to the seat where I'd last seen Poes.

Somehow I think that cat will always live on here...

It was obviously​ a part of this place.

Poor Poes...

Kaffee De Planck, Ter Platen (opposite Kinepolis), 9000 Ghent

Visited December 2016

Travel: Notes from Ghent - Back at the Trollekelder ... Where the Wild Things Really Are...

There are places I'll always go back to...

And the Trollekelder is one of those, so I was eager to return on this visit to Ghent, not only for the beer but also for the crazy-hot mustard and celery salt that's served with the platter of cheese and a salami-esque substance. The place hadn't changed much since my last visit but it was certainly busier, so we were relegated to sitting at the back, split from the noisy weekend crowd.

Scanning through the beer list I spotted Troubadour Magma. A beer I've had before from Brouwerij The Musketeers, who appear to do all of their brewing at De Proefbrouwerij in nearby Lochristi ... but this was a triple spiked Brett version. I have a fondness for Brett beers, probably stemming from my unseemly adoration of Orval, so I closed the menu, attracted someones attention by waving like a madman and ordered it along with a platter of cheese and meat of course.

It was superb...

It probably had a lot to do with where I was, who I was with, and my general elated mood caused by being back in Belgium and in Ghent, but there is no doubt that it ticked all my boxes at that moment in time.

One of my notes reads 'Orval on overdrive!' and I think that's a fair statement given that it's a 9.8% abv so-called imperial IPA with added Brett. It was also well over a year old which presumably helped its character.

I got citrus at first, like an under ripe orange, even down to that tartness. This was chased by a clean-but-wet labrador smell somehow converted into a taste, and some ripe fruit like plums or damsons. There was a lovely cleansing carbonation and then you were left with citrus again but perhaps more like that squishy, funky mandarin that sits in it bottom of the fruit bowl until you feel sorry for it and tentatively polish it off - with a slight grimace.

When I finished it I sat back with a sigh...

Was it really better than Orval? At that time and place, yes it was...

Would it still be now, sitting here at home ... in a side-by-side blind tasting?

Who knows?

... and that's hardly the point.

Liam

Travel: Notes from Ghent - Blue Birds

If you stand on St. Michael's Bridge in Ghent when it's dark - carefully avoiding getting poleaxed with a selfie-stick or boom mic from the tourists and film crews that seem to a permanent feature of the structure - and gaze to your left past St Michael's Never-Open-Church and Ghent Universities' Het Pand you will see one of the most striking artistic light installations I have ever seen...

View looking towards St. Michael's Bridge

By taking the steps down from the bridge and walking along Predikherenlei you can get a closer look at this master-piece, indeed the view (above) from the bridge on Jakobijnenstraat is probably the best place to appreciate it from, as it takes in St. Michael's Bridge and the beautiful old buildings on Graslei in the background.

It's unimaginatively but accurately called the Blue Birds but its full title is 'Les Oiseaux de Mr Maeterlinck' by the French creative studio Pitaya. It references a story called 'The Blue Bird' by Maurice Maeterlinck - who was born in the city - to commemorate his Nobel Prize for Literature. It was originally a part of Gent's 2012 Light Festival but was then bought by the municipality and is now a permanent installation.

The origami-like birds seem to be frozen in startled flight from their tree, and their reflection in the canal - enhanced by the odd ripple - adds another dimension of movement and depth to the work. They are mesmerising, elegant and vibrant, and perhaps worthy of a trip to Ghent in themselves.

It is stunning ... and I could have looked at it for ages...

But the thoughts of food and imbibing in what is surely Belgium's best city eventually dragged me away...

View from Predikherenlei

Liam

Travel: Brussels - Art Nouveau Walking Tour and the Victor Horta Museum

Art Nouveau

noun, art nou·veau  \ˌär(t)-nü-ˈvō\

: a style of art, design, and architecture that uses curving lines and shapes that look like leaves and flowers

Mirriam-Webster

I awoke early to a gorgeous morning. The sun was out and I had a spring in my step as I was heading to yet another museum, and a self-guided Art Nouveau architectural tour of sorts. My travelling companions were having a lie-in, having overindulged the night before so this was a solo tour, following a walking guide-map I had picked up in the tourist office

Art Nouveau developed in the 1880s and 1890s, possibly from the Arts and Crafts movement in England and swept through many cities in Europe and North America in the 1900s and 1910s, going by different names in different countries - Jugendstil and Liberty style to name but two. Brussels was one of the main cities where it took hold, thanks in no small part to the work of Victor Horta, Paul Hamesse and Paul Hanker, who along with others left their stamp on the city.

An overly simplified description would be to say that the style was influenced heavily by organic, florid, flowing forms and by the use of new materials - by-products of the industrial revolution such as cast iron for example - but hand crafted instead of mass produced. It is typified in art by the works of Mucha and Klimt, and others such as Mackintosh, Gaudi, Liberty, Lalique and Tiffany are also synonymous with the movement.

I set off through the quiet Sunday morning streets of the city. Very few people were around apart from the street cleaners, and the odd person walking their dog while leaving a trail of turds. (The dogs I mean...) I passed the obscenely enormous Palace of Justice, crossed the busy ring road and soon I was in the St Giles area of the city, an open-air Art Nouveau building museum. I spent a pleasant morning admiring the beautiful façades of the houses that lined the streets. Appreciating the flowing metal and stonework, and studying the intricate woodwork of the doors and windows. At any minute I expected a police car to roll up and to be taken away, accused of being a peeping tom as I stood staring in awe at the design and workmanship of the buildings. It was, for me, a fantastic way to spend a Sunday morning in a strange city with no other souls around.

The city was starting to wake up from its Sunday morning slumber as I made my way over to Rue Américaine and the Victor Horta Museum, my ultimate destination. Cafés were opening up and people were coming and going with the morning papers or buying pastries for breakfast. The streets were a mixture of old and new buildings and I still caught glimpses of the city's Art Nouveau past squashed between ugly 1960s or 1970s structures. The city was relatively clean, only marred by the dog turds and the 'tagging' graffiti that seemed to be in every town and city in Europe now. I am all for decent urban 'wall art', especially on ugly concrete slabs but this is meaningless vandalism to my mind.

I arrived too early at the museum and after pausing briefly to admire the two buildings that it is composed of, I headed further along the street for a stroll in the sunshine, eventually reaching a nice circular park, Leemansplace. It was a pretty spot to sit and have a rest only marred by the now ubiquitous, aforementioned piles of dog faeces and some discarded needles under the benches, both now a part of the sights and experiences of parks all over the world. Worried about the chances of catching something or of being accused of now looking like a heroin-junkie-peeping-tom, I decided to wander back up the street to a small café that was just opening up as I went past it towards the park. I resisted the urge to have a beer and instead had a coffee and a glass of water, as I waited impatiently for the museum to open up.

Eventually it did and I joined the small queue waiting to enter. It is a smallish building which wasn't designed for large groups of people so only a certain number can be inside at any one time, so as some leave, more are let in. While waiting outside I admired the façade's design again and the attention to detail, which Horta applied to all his work.

Victor Horta was born in Ghent, Belgium in 1861 but studied and learned his trade in Brussels. He made a name for himself when he designed a couple of hotels in the city and his career snowballed from there. He was soon being commissioned to design buildings throughout Brussels. He built his house and studio on the site where I now stood between 1898 and 1901. After an enforced stint lecturing in America because of the WWI he returned to Brussels and sold the house and the attached studio. The house was bought by the local community in 1969 and opened as a museum two years later. The attached studio was purchased in 1971 and restoration has been ongoing since. Horta died in 1947 and many of his buildings were demolished in acts of what can only be classed as insanity in the 1950s and 1960s. (How this could be let happen is a mystery to me, I can only presume that monkeys were among the town planners back then. Actually, that is probably a little unfair to monkeys.)

I was finally let inside the door and had to wait in a small hallway, for some unknown reason, for five or so minutes before being let into the house proper. Perhaps it was an airlock where I was slowly and secretly infused with Art Nouveau appreciation gas. Whatever the reason, when I reached the main hall I was blown away. A beautiful staircase winds its way up through the house, culminating in a curvilinear glass ceiling that floods light back down through the stairwell. The rooms leading from the stairwell on all levels were exquisitely designed with incredible attention to detail. Even the door handles were decorative works of art. It was staggering how the functional aspects of home living were cunningly concealed. (Like a urinal which swings out from a hidden compartment beside the bed, a feature that would be of utmost use in my own home.) I walked up and down the stairs with my mouth open, seeing things I had missed on my first trip into a room or looking at a stained-glass window, beautifully moulded door or mosaic section of flooring from a different angle. Sometimes I just stood and tried to absorb and see the tiny details that are the hallmark of a perfectionist. Time appeared to slow down... and almost stop, but looking at my watch I realised I had been in here for ages.

The house was starting to fill up now so after one last look around and a visit to the gift shop I headed out. With a smile on my face, and whistling to myself I headed back towards the city centre. On the way I visited another Art Nouveau building, the beautiful, if slightly less ornate, Hôtel Hannon on Rue de la Jonction, designed by the architect Jules Brunfaut and built in 1903. The sad thing was, I was the only one there. Nobody else came to admire the mosaics, mural and ironwork, or the extremely elegant façade. I wandered around the building with only some photographs, a gallery, and the curator for company.

I met up with the others in a little park in the Sablon district called La Place du Petit Sablon. It was a very pretty little place full of statues, roses and lavender with a nice fountain as a centrepiece. Directly across from it stands the 15th century church of Notre Dame du Sablon, yet another example of Gothic architecture of which Brussels has some superb examples. The park was quite busy with locals enjoying a cooling break from what was now becoming a heavy, clammy day, and tourists like us admiring the statues, fountain and the view across to the church.

We decided to go for a beer, as it was now early afternoon, calling in to the church firstly. Unfortunately, some restoration and renovation was taking place and most of the church was sealed off so we traipsed back out and around the back to an antique market. We had just surmised that anything worth buying was outside our budgetary constraints when we noticed the sun had disappeared and it was getting overcast. Suddenly the heavens opened and we ran to the safety of the nearest bar, shaking ourselves dry as we entered.

   

We immediately sensed that this was not our kind of place. Something about the well-dressed clientele, the silver cutlery and the look of disdain on the waiter's face as we stood shaking like dogs at his desk were a giveaway I think. Not to mention the fact that we now realised it was a restaurant and not a bar.

    'Ah, a table for four?' inquired my companion, not wanting to lose face by retreating back to the rain.

The waiter looked us up and down from his lectern, his hands moving to a shelf underneath. I sensed his finger hovering over the button that called security or opened a trap door under our feet, but he must have had a change of heart as next thing he ushered us towards a seat across from the window. If I had been him I would have hidden us down the back of the establishment but perhaps he felt we might be a source of amusement for the other customers.

    'Here are the lunch menus, gentlemen,' he said, handing them to us.

    'Actually, we just wanted to get a few beers.'

This news was received with a withering look of disdain but in fairness he took our order and came back with our selection promptly but by then we had suddenly been distracted by a plaque that we had spotted on the wall.

It read:

(Mr Bill Clinton

President of the United States of America

sat at this table on 9th January 1994

He drank coffee and chatted an hour

with all present.)

Imagine if it hadn't started to rain, and we hadn't run in here, and the waiter had turned us away? We would never have sat at the same table as Slick Willy - for good or for bad.

As we drank our beers, which I never took note of, we started to wonder why the waiter had put us there? I am not sure what it says about us - or Bill - but at least we can say our butts shared a seat with an American president. We thought and talked about this as we drank our beer, then paid our enormous bill - obviously there was a surcharge for that table - and vowed to come back for a meal sometime we could afford it.

Which wouldn't be any time soon...

Liam

(Originally written 2008)

(All written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its source and a link back to this post. All original photographs are my own and can not be used elsewhere without my consent.)

Travel: De Garre, Bruges, Belgium - Tripels and Doilies

We got the train without any fuss and we - me and my travelling companions Pete and Nige - were soon whizzing our way into Brussels main station where we would change for Bruges. The ubiquitous suburban rail line graffiti was plastered on every available wall but it somehow felt fresher and more colourful than usual and helped to brighten the drab building on our short hop into the city. We had a little time to wait here so we decided to get a bite to eat as Nige was getting hungry and I needed my morning coffee to stave of my irritability. He went mooching around the pannini in a café, asking in English about Italian food in a place ran by French speaking Chinese people. It was an accident waiting to happen and sure enough when we sat down, vegetarian Nige took a bite from his sandwich and exposed a nice layer of ham. Instead of bringing it back, he threw it disgustedly back down on his plate and grumble about it while drinking his coffee, which wasn't very good either he thought. We caught the train to Bruges without further mishap and we were soon heading northwest on a eerily near-empty train, over the flat, pretty-but-boringish landscape of Flanders through showers of rain, just ourselves and a few other tourists for company.

            

In Bruges I knew we would have the usual time-wasteful argument about whether to take a taxi, bus or walk to the hotel, but this time I had a plan. As soon as we exited the doors of the station I walked straight and purposely towards the pedestrian crossing that leads into the town.

'Where are you going?' Nige asked.

'We're walking,' I said, as I kept moving.

'But it could be a long walk. Perhaps we should get a bus?'

'No, we're walking.'

'How far is it?' Pete chimed in.

 'About fifteen minutes. We're walking,' I said again, not stopping or giving them a chance to argue with me to any great degree. We were near the crossing by now.

'We got the bus last time,' Nige whined as Pete shrugged and kept pace with me.

'Well we're walking this time. I know the way.'

The rain had cleared off and it was a nice morning and secretly, I was only half sure of the way and hoped my sense of direction wouldn't desert me. I was also unsure of how long it would actually take but I felt that the only way to deal with the usual faffing we tended to do when we reached a train station was to seize the day, keep my head down and keep walking.

We walked along a canal and past the Minnewater, all the while listening to the constant grumbles of the doubting, untrusting and irritable Nige, as he trailed after Pete and myself. Luckily, after a few more twists and turns we arrived at our hotel. It had taken twenty minutes but it had saved half an hour of discussion and waiting at the station. As usual, we quickly cleaned up and changed, eager for our first beer of the trip.

 

And I knew just the place.

           

De Garre is not the sort of place you would stumble upon by accident, it's more of a destination you need you seek out. Even though I possessed directions on where to find the place we still nearly missed the narrow side street on which it sits. We had left the hotel and walked up to the Belfort, the bell tower that sits on the Markt, the main square of the city, and headed towards the Burg, which is the other square in the very centre of the city. We were eager to reach our first watering hole so we just glanced at the many fine buildings we passed, promising to return later for a proper look around. Halfway along the street that connects these two squares and just visible up the narrowest of alleys, we glimpsed the sign and a small flight of worn steps leading up to a door.

To say we were anxious to get our first drink was an understatement. We had done a lot more research for this trip than any of the others. There are load of bars in Bruges selling hundreds of different beers so we didn't want to be wasting time looking at maps and menus deciding where to go and what to drink when we got here. We had only two nights in the city and then one in Brussels, and with a good degree of sight-seeing also on the agenda time was a precious commodity. I had narrowed down the bars to a wish-list of around ten or so and hoped to visit at least five depending on how we got on in the various places. It's all well and good making list and planning ahead but until you actually enter the bar, sit down and take in the atmosphere you’re really not sure if it's your kind of place.

But De Garre (best pronounced while clearing your throat and sounding like a pirate I think) was our kind of place. As soon as we passed through the doorway we knew it would be somewhere we would have at least one or two beers. It is an agreeably old-fashioned place with a tiled floor, age-darkened timbers and brick walls. Old paintings hang on the walls and apart from the very full room we were now in, a stairs led up to another level that was just being opened up as we entered. Eager to soak in the atmosphere we sat down at the only free table and had a better look around. Good humour seemed to fill the room and there was no question of us being looked on as interlopers or trespassers here. From the language and accents there seemed to be a mix of locals and tourists, I caught American and English voices mingling with the lilting guttural language of the locals. It felt more like the front room of someone's house than a pub, apart from the long bar against the far wall behind which stood a happy looking barman, polishing glasses.

The house beer and any other draught beer that De Garre stocked were written on paper doilies that were stuck with thumb tacks over the bar. We decided to first order the house brew, Tripel van der Garre (brewed by Brouwerij Van Steenberge), so that we would have time to study the beer menu as we drank.  There was some common ground with beers we all appreciated but in general, Nige and I preferred the stronger, more flavoursome beers while Pete liked something a little milder taste-wise. The house beer turned out to be a creamy, mild brew that was not as overpowering as tripels could be. It had a light spicy-fruity aftertaste that hung around on your palate and suited the complimentary cheese that we were also munching. Any pub that gives me food - even just cheese - with my beer goes up automatically one notch in my estimation. The beer was served in a branded glass - naturally as we're in Belgium - on a paper doily and a wooden tray. All of this added to the front room ambience we already felt.

From previous experience I knew that I liked roasty stouts or any beer with a good dose of bittering hops and I had with me a list of some of the beers I had hoped would appear on the beer menus of the bars we wished to visit. Scanning the menu I spotted Brasserie Ellezelloise's Hercule, which appeared on my list with an asterisk beside it. I couldn't remember why I had placed the mark there but presumed it was because it had gotten good reviews somewhere. Although it was a little high in alcohol for this early in the day, especially after the tripel, I decided to go for it anyway, worried about not seeing it elsewhere and unsure about how many more we would drink here.

So as soon as we had finished out tripels and our cheese, we beckoned our barman and proceeded to order our next round. I ordered the Hercule, Nige went for a Hopus and Pete for a Guillotine, as he liked the name.

Our beers arrived, mine served from a swing-top bottle and in a beer tankard. Pete's was served in a standard, branded glass. Nige's came with two glasses, a tall elegant one into which the barman poured almost all of the beer and a small shot glass into which he poured the yeasty sediment that remains in the bottom of bottle conditioned beers. This presentation was a wonderful ceremony in itself, and something we hadn't come across before.

Mine tasted of treacle and burnt toffee with a gorgeous peaty smell that rose from the glass each time I went to take a sip. I stole a sip of Nige's Hopus - brewed by Brasserie Lefèbvre - and discovered that it certainly lived up to its name with a smooth hop taste that was not overpowering. Pete's Guillotine looked good too and the bottle seemed strangely familiar. On closer inspection it was brewed but the Huyghe Brewery in Melle near Ghent, who also brew Delerium Tremens. I asked Pete what he thought of it and he replied that it was good but had 'lost its head quite quickly' to which I was about to respond when I saw his grin appear and the penny dropped.

With the upstairs area now quite busy too, the atmosphere was buzzing as we drank our beers and relaxed into the place. Like making yourself comfortable in an old worn armchair, we felt cosy and content, helped by the alcohol that was now running through our systems. There were two barmen and a barwoman now serving, to cope with the extra people who were arriving. Some had to leave, as there is a no-standing rule here. If you don't get a seat, you don't get a drink.

We decided to get one last drink before we left, I choose a Struise's Pannepot 2007, Pete went for a St Bernardus Pater 6 and Nige a  Floreffe Prima Melior. They were served with exaggerated swagger and aplomb by our new waiter who held glass and tray at an angle while he poured the beers and presented them to us with a large amount of theatrics. I can only presume he's an actor and does waitering I his spare time. All the beers were great, as expected, with my own reminding me of the fizzy cola cube sweets of my childhood albeit with a boozy, complex, sherry-like kick.

By now we were getting pretty toasty as the alcohol contents of the beers we had chosen were pretty high so after yet another discussion about how great the place was we drank up, paid our bill and wobbled down the steps to get some fresh air, De Garre having jumped quickly into my top five European bars.

The streets were getting quite busy now as the tour buses had spewed hoards of tourist from all over the globe into the city. Bruges is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe for Asian and American travelers - not to mention those from Europe - who come here to experience a city whose buildings and architecture is seemingly untouched for hundreds of years.

Appearances can be deceptive, as they say, and never more so than here in Bruges. To be sure, the city is as old as it looks but much of it has been heavily restored. Many of the building quite recently. As almost every guidebook will tell you, Bruges became a backwater in the 1520s when a route to the sea silted up and left the once commercial hub lost its access to major trade routes. This and some political upheaval meant that Bruges was pretty much deserted by commercial enterprise of any sort for centuries even though canals and access to the sea was re-established relatively quickly.

There is no doubt that the city owes a lot of its charm to the fact that the buildings were preserved because the owners couldn't afford to pull them down and rebuild them in a modern style as happened in other places in Belgium and indeed Europe. The other reason why there are so many 'old' building is because they were rebuilt to look so by the British - but that's a story for another day I think...

Liam K

Chez Moeder Lambic Saint-Gilles - Brussels

We made the decision to divert on the train back from Mons, a pretty town choc full of history ( Hah! Belgium? Choc? See what I did there? Never mind...) and with a close connection to the two world wars. It had surprised us by its charm and quirkiness, not to mention the architecture and distinctly French feel, which was understandable I suppose given its location close-ish to the French border, and in Wallonia.

Earlier, my companions had headed out from Mons to see one of the many war cemeteries that keep the memory of what happened early in the last century alive in the minds of locals and visitors, while I had decided to wander the town and see what it had to offer. It truly was a gorgeous town so with the sun shining and a pep in my step from being somewhere new, I wandered around the sites for an hour or so looking at gardens, admiring churches and rubbing monkeys on their heads for luck. (Google it...it's not a fetish!)

I had exhausted the sites when I came across an exhibition on Fritz Haber in a gallery on Grand Place. I had never heard of him but the gallery looked cool - in the climatical sense of the word - and for €2 it seemed worth a look.

Fritz Haber I found out, is perhaps one of the first hero/villains of the last century. He was an interesting character who, it could be argued, saved the lives of millions with his work on developing artificial fertiliser and thus aided in the food production for many people who would have otherwise have died of starvation, but he was also responsible for chemical warfare production in the first world war, and this work was also linked to the gasses used in the concentration camps of the second world war. His life is well worth researching and reading about, and this exhibition by David Vandermeulen, a renown comic book artist, was well put together and thought provoking. Books about Haber, facts about his life and contemporaries were combined with Vandermeulen's artwork and pieces of war memorabilia. It's not a happy tale for any of those involved or affected by him...

I left the exhibition in a somber mood and although back at the train station the sight of my companions running for the train back to Brussels with their lumbering zombie-like gaits somewhat lightened my spirits, my mind was unfocussed and disjointed on the journey back. On the train I was conscious that on this trip to Brussels we still hadn't visited what was one of my favourite bars - Chez Moeder Lambic - the original bar that opened before its younger sibling that occupies Place Fontainas just off Anspach. I brought this subject up and we decided that three of us would get off the train at Gare de Midi and trek south in search of it, but it would mean a short visit as we were meeting a friend from Antwerp in a couple of hours back in the city centre for dinner.

The walk from the station brought us through an interesting neighbourhood of Art Nouveau houses butted up against 60s and 70s Brutalistic buildings. Strange people stalked us even though they were ahead of us - something I thought would have been an impossible task. One guy in particular was having an animated conversation with himself and seemed to be itching for us to catch up with him. We crossed to the other side of the road in forced conversation with each other in order to avoid him.

On we went past tiny neighbourood bars blaring frenetic ethnic beats, past abandoned cars and a dog toilet that seemed to be composed entirely of sand and dog turds in equal ratio. Even the local dogs seemed to avoid it apart from a few deformed creatures that looked like the had been crossed with wargs, or perhaps had been inbred to within a generation of being their own grandparents..

Eventually we hit Chaussee de Waterloo and it was like someone had flicked the 'On' switch for party time. The street had an carnival atmosphere and appeared to contain at least one family from every nation on the planet. Sellers of underwear, fabric conditioner and deodorant were competing for space with energy drink vendors and people cooking food on the sort of barbecues that would make the average health and safety officer have an apoplectic fit. I'm not sure whether this was a normal Saturday evening here but as we strutted up the street with Bobby Womack's Across 110th Street's chorus playing in my head, my mood lifted and it reaffirmed something I had thought on previous visits to this part of the city, that Saint-Gilles - how ever you spell it - is the coolest neighbourhood in Brussels.

And so in flying form we reached Chez Moeder Lambic, which is hidden in plain sight on a corner behind the gorgeous but unvisited treasure that is the Saint-Gilles Town Hall - Stadhuis van Sint-Gillis. Moeder Lambic is a pretty unassuming place and you could miss it or dismiss it if you weren't 'In-the-Know' so to speak. It's a nice building with parasols outside emblazoned with the Moeder Lambic logo, shading the numerous drinkers from the evening sun. We went inside and took a seat while the very busy barman hopped from customer to bar and back in a no-nonsense but professional manner.

The bar itself is not like its sister bar in the city centre. It has a rougher more lived in feel, a bit like the plain but more interesting older sister of the snooty big city girl that had moved in to town to be with the beautiful people. Sure, the younger one gets all the attention and action but if you want a long term commitment then stick with the sister who's been around a bit - in a good way of course. (Don't get me wrong I love the bar in Fontainas, but they are a little bit like chalk and cheese.) It's an interesting bar, the floor is a checkerboard of black and white, and its position on a street corner means it has an irregular, disjointed shape. And it's small, very small...

But small can mean cozy or cramped and this is definitely cozy. Timber furniture, brick walls and chalk boards complete the look and it was to these chalk boards that our eyes were drawn. Chez Moeder Lambic has a relatively small but excellent tap selection and an excellent bottle selection including many rarities and hard to get imports. So after a quick glance at the bottle selection on the chalk board above the bar it was to the taps we went first.

I went for the Mont Saleve Black Indians that tasted of rich and creamy cocoa. I alsosampled my companions beer, Brasserie de Bellevaux Black had a rich flavour of fishy coke - not as unpleasant as it sounds - and Ganstaller Brau Golden Frankincense Myrrh, a dry beer with a nice orange marmalade quality.

We were enjoying our beers, conscious of the time mind you, and I was looking once again at the long chalk board over the bar...

And there it was - roughly written and without pomp, fanfare, underlining or multiple astrerixes - Struise Black Albert.

You see I had read about Albert before. I had tried to drink him before. I had tried to buy him before but he was always this just out of reach - or out of stock. Questions entered my head. How could I have missed it when first I looked? Had it magically appeared? Surely it would be different this time and I would get to try it? Hopefully? Maybe? Perhaps?

Our hurried waiter returning fleetingly to our table so I asked for Albert in an almost resignated way, assuming it would be out of stock or he would laugh at me in a way that suggested I was unworthy of such a beer, with my rotund physical attributes, scraggy beard and bad dress sense... But wait, maybe that's 'The Look' that's required?  Like a visual password to open the fridge of happiness so to speak. He said nothing to either confirm of deny this, he just took my order plus my companions' and scurried off.

My Holy Grail of beers arrived with very little aplomb and no fanfare, and it was served with the same flourish as my fellow travelers' selection. Perhaps it wasn't as good as I'd heard? I'd been here before with other beers...

Well, what can I say... Only that yes, it is all it's cracked up to be.

And then some.

It's rich and sweet like alcoholic treacle and it hides it 13% abv very well. Too well perhaps, as it was easier to drink that I thought it could be. My companions were suitably impressed with it too and I think the might have even suffered from a little beer envy. This was possibly one of the best beers I have EVER tasted.

Wow.

The Orval like Li P'tit Gayoule and the Cuvee Alex le Rouge, a sour licorice porter, that my friends had, which were great by the way, paled into insignificance compared to my Black Albert.

But time was running out and we needed to get back to our hotel to shower and revitalise ourselves for the night ahead. We thanked the bar man, promising to return later. (We didn't get back though...)

We hadn't even had a chance to try the food, which I presume from the chalkboard menu was the fantastic cheese and charcuterie that I remembered from my previous visit.

So it was with a mix of elation and regret we headed back towards the city centre and our hotel. It took us half an hour to walk back and apart from an animated argument I had with a driver who had the nerve to beep his little horn at me while I crossed at a green-manned pedestrian crossing (That ended lamely when I had to curtail my language because I saw he had kids in the back of his car.), we arrived back at our hotel safe and sound with my mood lifted ... and with Bobby Womack still singing in my head.

'Across 110th Street
Pushers won't let the junkie go free...'

(Visited 13th September 2014)