Drinking beer in Brussels

I'm taking my husband binge drinking in Brussels for one day only in August. He's a huge fan of Belgian beer and we have a layover, so what the hell. Now, where do I take him? Where should we stay that is convenient/easily accessible to airport and drinking?

France.

There is a good frequent train service between the airport and town.

I am a fan of a bar called Le Roi des Belges in the Place Saint Gery/Sint Goriksplein. Good cheap food, reasonable beer selection (by the standards of Belgium, 30 odd beers) great people watching spot. Airport train to gare du nord and then pre-metro to Beurse.

There is Delerium Tremmens which has "the largest selection of beers in the world" it is a bit of a tourist trap, off the rue des bouchers, but it does have an awful lot of beer.

As for hotels, weekends are cheap, weekdays are expensive. There is are lot of big chain hotels round the gare du nord, if it is a weekend, get aggressive with priceline, you should score something cheap. Summer weekdays may also yield something good through priceline. Otherwise search through ordinary channels, brands like IBIS are flatrate functional and cheap, sometimes their best rates are only available direct through the website.

Go to Antwerp, drink at the station bar.

forget Delerium Tremens, which is way touristy - bring him to Moeder Lambic in Saint Gilles neighbourhood. This blog has good infor for that sort of thing: http://gloriousfoodandwinebelgianbeer.blogspot.com/2007/08/beer-bar-in-brussels.html

as for hotels, if you don't wanna stay in the dulelr, more corporate area. I can really recommend Hotel Atlas in the city center which is walking distance to a lot of nice drinking holes (including my favorite bar in the world L'Archiduc).

I only know Brussels as a tourist and if I was going to choose one Brussels drinking hole and one only I would probably get a cab to Moeder Lambic. But given a few hours in the middle of Brussels to drink I'd likely have a couple in the Mort Subite, buy a jug of the Bourgogne de Flandres in A La Becasse, maybe stop for a swifty in Au Bon Vieux Temps (or is it A l'Image de Nostre Dame?) over the road), drunkenly buy a couple of dodgy LPs in the record shop behind the Bourse (last time I wound up with a copy of Sylvie Vartin A Nashville for 15 Europes, SCORE) and maybe wind up in the Archiduc if I felt like I could stand the JAZZ.

That's not an untouristy route but it gives a nice sample of some different looking gaffs with good drinking.

You should listen to Baaderonixx though, not me.

That record shop is AWESOME! Found some V3 there.

haha Tim - you've just described my typical saturday routine!

That is a great record store if we are thinking of the same one.

There is a great clothes store just here which does great things with linen, I have gota couple of nice things from there.

China collection?

Nope, unfortunately I am not at home so I can't check the label on the shirt I have.

No streetview for brussels so I can't check that way either.

well I live 20 meters away from there so I will check it out!

Bing bird's eye - does this help?

(click on the +/- for zooming and the clockwise/anticlockwise for other angles)

not close enough in unfortunately

Anyway to get back on topic, I definitely second Tim's recommendation of la Mort Subite.

so I'm heading to Brussels next week for a conference, but I'll have a couple of days ahead of time to look around. I've never been to Belgium before. I hear the beer is great! What else should I try to do? I've read suggestions that I spend a day in Brussels and a day in Bruges doing tourist things, rather than spend two days in Brussels doing tourist things, before the conference begins at which point I'll be pretty busy doing work-y things. Does that sound right, or should I just stay in Brussels the whole time?

Easy to spend two days in Brussels if you want to, it's one of my favourite cities for hanging out in. Never been to Bruges, but I'll rep for Antwerp as another excellent destination.

Cool! I don't know much about Brussels; I'll need to read up before next week. Right now all I know is that I want to see the peeing statue, drink lots of beer, & eat waffles & frites & chocolate. So if you have ideas about how I could spend a couple of days sightseeing in Brussels I'd love to hear them.

I'm taking my husband binge drinking in Brussels for one day only in August.

~swoon~

Random things that come to mind:

- Dandoy (Rue au Beurre) for biscuits and cakes
- Plaizier (Spoormakersstraat) for an incredible selection of postcards and graphic design
- Comics Museum (Rue des Sables) for an insight into Belgian culture
- Atomium for a glimpse of the formerly not-so-distant future
- Brasserie de la Roue d'Or (Rue des Chapeliers) for excellent food and Magritte-inspired decor
- A la Mort Subite (Rue Montagne aux Herbes Potageres) is my favourite place for beer - but take your pick really.
- Place du Jeu de Balle has an entertaining flea market
- Musee Horta (Rue Americaine) for Art Nouveau

I'm taking my husband binge drinking in Brussels for one day only in August.

~swoon~

― BIG MUFFIN (gbx), Wednesday, December 1, 2010 8:12 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark

Back off, dude, I'm taken. Maybe we'll go to Brussels someday, but just as friends, ok?

Great, Sean, & thanks!

revive. also food recs.

i haven't been to Brussels for over 10 years, extremely out of touch.

Flanders/Wallonia too. Maybe have an appointment in Antwerp.

Where my Belgian homies at?

I've never been to Antwerp and I hate Brussels, so um, not much help I'm afraid. (go to Ghent, Mechelen/Malines, Leuven/Louvain, those are great, more provincial places without the big city vibes and more chances of finding fantastic eat/drink places imho)

I had a pretty boring time in Brussels last year. I enjoyed the beer, had a nice night @ A La Mort Subite, but the city was drab. The historical center, all four blocks of it, was ok enough, I guess. I'd heard that the food would be good but it seemed super touristy to me, I guess b/c locals live outside the city center. Plus it was over a weekend & we couldn't get a table anywhere just by dropping in, which I guess is lol me @ being behind but it's a huge city, it's weird that *every place* aside from Mc Do's would be filled to capacity.

I may have a free day in Brussels before heading down to Namur for work later this month. Any recommendations for hotels (I was thinking the Metropole) / vegetarian-friendly restaurants? Is there enough to do in Namur to make it worth spending the extra day there instead?

yeah I always stay at the Metropole, it's super nice. Can't help you with other questions.

oh, and drink Kriek.

Kriek is great! Thanks for the hotel advice.

Seems like an uneventful weekend to be going.

Will probably try to get to A La Becasse, Au Bon Vieux Temps and Le Corbeau on Saturday. Any of them particularly good for food as well as beer?

The Cantillon brewery is not very far out of the centre and is well worth a trip if you are a fan of theirs. Amazing to think there's still just the one open fermentation vat in it. You get a couple of drinks afterwards, most interesting is a very young and underdeveloped gueuze which tastes like no other Belgian I've ever had.

pls pls pls tell me thats pronounced 'guys'

That sounds great. I'll be five minutes away from l'Abbaye Notre-Dame de Leffe later in the week and might drop in there but that gueuze sounds tempting.

sorry for coming late
Brussels is not the most vegetarian-friendly capital in Europe and most of the specificaly vegetarian restaurants are quite dull (if you insist, Dolma close to Place Flagey in Ixelles is alright, otherwise your best bet are veggie-friendly non-begian restaurants, eg. there are quite a few really nice upscale Greek places in town)
For hotels, if you wanna try something a bit different Odette en Ville is a small (pricy though!) boutique hotel in the Place du Chatelain area of Ixelles - where in any case you should definitely spend some time for restaurants and shops (surprising lack of bars though).
If you're in the city center and already tried Becasse, Mort Subite and all those medieval pubs - I'd recommend dropping by one of my favourite drinking holes, MONK café on place Sainte Catherine. You may even find me there

Excellent! Thanks.

a friend used to live on the same street as Mort Subite, I have fond memories of that bar. Also it's just round the corner from the Delerium Tremens bar, which I can recommend if you are suitably refreshed in the small hours of the morning, but probably not otherwise

Heartily recommend Brasserie Cantillon, Moeder Lambic Fantainas, & 3 Fonteinen for drinking. Maybe the closest to beer heaven on earth.

Helpful when I went to Brussels: Beer in the new era

That links to a specific post from Tim, not just the thread.

Fin de Siecle have gone to the trouble of painting their name on their window since I wrote that post. Bless them.

Man, I want to go back.

Can't believe StanM has never been to Antwerp and hates Brussels. Is that still the case?
We might even reach critical mass to to have a FAP

Yep :-)