Lee's Ramblings

I do some strange things.  This was one of the better ones.

Last year, I saw an advert in 't Brugs Beertje for the Bruges Beer Festival and thought nothing more as I wasn't available at that weekend.  Earlier this year, I saw their website and it quite appealed.  I mentioned it to Jerry and he seemed keen to.  Then the catch - they were after volunteers.  One quick email to the organisers and we'd booked our places working there!

So, on the day before the festival, Jerry and myself, along with a few other CAMRA members travelled to Brugge for the festival.  On the way, we called at 't Zevende Hemel in Beernem, partly for the 2-for-1 offer they run (or did...) and secondly to visit somewhere with 'beer' in it's name. 

After checking in at the hotel, it wasn't long before we visited 't Brugs Beertje, grabbed some food and then on to Poatersgat and Erasmus. 

Saturday morning dawned, and after breakfast, Jerry and myself ambled down to the main square for opening time at the festival.  As we'd not been to a Belgian beer festival before, we wanted to have an hour or so there before working.

For readers who are used to the British beer festival format, this one was a bit different.  Apart from the trappist and gueuze beers, each brewery had it's own stand - a bit like an exhibition - and they served their own beers using their own staff.  Beer is paid for in plastic tokens which the breweries then cashed in at the end of the day.  The trappist and gueuze beer stands were run by BAB (Brugse Autonome Bierproevers - Bruges Independent Beer Tasters) volunteers.

After signing in, I was posted to the trappist beer stand and Jerry to the BAB beer stand, although he ended up running the cloakroom!  The trappist stand was busy all day, with most imbibers plumping for the rare Westvleteren beers.  Normally, this cannot be bought except from the brewery itself, but as the festival is non profit making and they give some of the proceeds to charity, the monks decided they could sell some.  I did see some of the Doncaster CAMRA lot, but as we were so busy, there wasn't much time to natter!

Four hours later and our stint was done so it was time to relax with a beer or two.  At kicking out time, we decided to continue and went to hunt down Kelk.  Unfortunately it was closed (hopefully not for good) so we headed back to Stokershuis - a good old, down to earth Belgian 'brown cafe'.  Now I am not a fan of smoking at all, but to ban smoking in a place like this would be disastrous!  Anyway, bedtime soon beckoned so we headed back to the hotel.  Via 'Charlie Rockets'.

Sunday morning saw us rise bright and early (yeah, right) and after breakfast ambled down to the festival once again, to sample a few beers before serving - this time me on the BAB stall and Jerry on the trappist stand.  During my stint, the chap I was serving with had visits from his wife, kids, mum and dad - a true family affair!  Sunday was a little quieter, and I had to chance to chat to a few folk while serving, both in English and French.  French is frowned upon in Bruges, but there were a number of visitors from Wallonia and on numerous occasions, I was congratulated on how good my French was!  I tend to pick up foreign languages quite easy (often just a few words though!) and during the weekend, I served in English, Flemish, French, Polish, Japanese, Hungarian, German, Spanish and probably a few more I've forgotten.

After we'd finished working, we stopped at the festival on Sunday evening until finishing time, after which we retired to the staff accommodation and sampled a bottle of several year old Westvleteren 12.  Mmm.  A number of stalls were still serving so we stopped till it was time to go back to the hotel.

We didn't arise particularly early on Monday, and after breakfast wandered over to Roeselare to sample Rodenbach in its hometime before heading onto Kortrijk.  Unfortunately, an old favourite - De Klokke - has been taken over by Rodenbach and they've cut their beer list from an exciting 70 or so to a rather dull dozen.  We made our way back to Brussels to call at the supermarket to get a picnic for the train.

Would I go again?  It's already booked!

Closing thought:  the Belgians like beer.  They don't drink to get drunk and cause trouble.  It was estimated around 10000 people attended the festival over the two days and there wasn't a single bit of trouble.  Folk just pop into cafes with their mates for a couple of beers then move on.

Photos at http://www.ieatcurry.co.uk/brugesbeerfestival09 and   http://www.brugsbierfestival.be/nl/fotoreportage_3°_bf-423.html