Trappist in Name Only

Tonight was Den Engel night. We will be on a plane to Edinburgh tomorrow, so we had to make sure we fit it in. For the last week or so, Den Engel has had Gregorius Bruin, the newest Trappist beer from Austria on special http://www.stift-engelszell.at/cmsimple/. (albeit at 7.50 euro a glass) So, after my usual Trappist Achel (he just brings it without ordering) I ordered the Gregorius. 

Marc, the Publican, came over and warned me that the difference between the Achel and the  Gregorius was like the difference between a well aged whiskey and, well one that is not. 

The Gregorius was, a little harsh. At 9.7% you could really taste the alcohol. It has flavors of coffee and burnt caramel and is generally bitter. On the drunk monk scale, a generous 2. 

I am left thinking that Austrian monks have a very different outlook on life than Belgian monks. Austrian monks want you to atone for your sins. Belgian monks want to encourage more sinning. 

I prefer the Belgian view.

Autumn

Autumn in Belgium tends to be a mixed bag weather-wise. Absolutely spectacular crisp sunny days off set by miserable cold rainy days. So when the weather is nice, it is best to take advantage of it. Recently, that has meant visiting some breweries and trappist monasteries (along with their breweries).

Earlier in the month we visited Oud Beersel in the town of Beersel. Oud Beersel specializes in lambic beers. A lambic is a beer that is fermented using atmospheric yeasts and bacteria. The result of this are beers that tend to be tart, with a pretty unique flavor profile. They also tend to be lower in alcohol because the natural yeast do not convert the sugars to alcohol as efficiently.

SWMBO and I thought we would pop in for their once monthly English tour and then get some lunch afterward. We figured that the tour would be about 30-45 minutes with a brief tasting. It actually turned into three and a half hours of education with our enthusiastic guide giving us tastings of every beer they make. 

 Oud Beersel makes a few different versions of lambics, they make a basic lambic which is packaged in a 5L a in a box. It is very crisp with apple and pear notes and would be excellent on a hot summer day. They also make gueze. Gueze are lambics that are aged in wooden barrels for a couple of years before being blended into the final product.  According to our tour guide, each barrel has its own micro-environment of yeasts and bacteria going back 50+ years. Consequently, each barrel develops its own personality and flavor profile. A byproduct of this is that lambic breweries do not clean anything. They want to preserve the environment that they have worked years to develop, so the brewery itself is covered in cobwebs and dust going back generations.

I had tried to introduce SWMBO to gueze once before, I believe it was a Cantillon, and she was not a fan. Because of the methods used, some of the gueze can rely on a lot of lactic fermentation from the many species of lactobacilli in the environment. This can give a very sour vinegar flavor. Oud Beersel works to keep this type of fermentation down to make a much more balanced beer. SWMBO actually liked these.

The other, and arguably more popular, lambics are krieks (cherry) and framboise (raspberry). These beers are made from a base lambic with a huge quantity of fruit placed in the barrel to macerate and add to the fermentation. Krieks and framboise are very popular year round in Belgium but especially so in the spring and summer where the fruity tartness and low alcohol make them the go to choice for a light lunch or aperitif. Oud Beersel’s kriek is really excellent, but their framboise is spectacular. It smells like a bowl of fresh raspberries. The fruit is well balanced by the lambic beer. it is not sweet, but rather tart and refreshing. On a drunk monk scale, certainly 4.5. Interestingly, our guide commented that they added a small percentage of kriek to the framboise for color because “consumers are stupid and they expect a framboise to be pink.” He also commented that the big producers used food coloring. All I know is that we brought samples of all of them home for further taste testing.

Following our trip to Oud Beersel, SWMBO signed up with a Flemish women’s group to tour the Abbey at Chimay, home to Chimay beer which is one of the best known Belgian beers outside of Belgium. SWMBO’s flemish is coming along nicely and is at a point where she can begin to have legitimate conversations with people and can follow along just fine with the flemish tour. With the tour, SWMBO was able to try Chimay Doree which is only available at the Abby and is the beer that the monks have with meals. I am very jealous that I have not yet had the opportunity to add this rarity to the beer list.

The weekend after our trip to Oud Beersel, we drove out to Westvleteren to pick up a couple of cases of the Westvleteren 12 that SWMBO reserved to get us through the winter. I have talked about this beer a couple of other times on the blog. It is excellent and has won the Best Beer in the World award on multiple occasions. The 2 hour drive from Brussels takes you through much of what constituted the front line during WWI. We did what we typically do when we make a run to the Abby. We had lunch in cafe. (The Abbey Pate is excellent.) Then we picked up our cases from the monks. Beer secured, we decided to drive through Ieper (Ypres) and visit a couple of WWI battlefields and cemeteries. The weather was beautiful, but it was a bit somber visiting the Menin Gate and then the cemetery at Polygon Wood. I always feel like I should know more about WWI whenever we drive through this area. The cemeteries and memorials dot the landscape and it is always surprising just how many people lost their lives in this area to accomplish very little. We also stopped by the American Cemetery at Flanders Fields to see if it was closed due to the Government Shutdown. Sure enough, it was.

Market Day

Europe has amazing markets. Whenever we move back, I am sure that this will be the thing that I miss most. (maybe next to Den Engel). It is hard to describe the markets to someone who has never been to one. There is a tremendous variety and each one has its own particular character. The market in Antwerp is excellent. It is on Saturday mornings and it is big. My favorite part of many of these markets are the stands selling food to eat immediately. You have the oyster guys with champagne and white wine. There are the asian food vendors with lumpia (egg rolls) and Phad Thai. The moroccan vendors with durum pancakes filled with feta and honey. and it goes on.

We always time our market visits to the brunch hour. Glass of wine, something to munch on, then we shop for dinner. Today was tea and moroccan pancakes. Being Autumn, it is mushroom season and everywhere you look there are vendors selling amazing varieties of mushrooms. Cepes, black trumpet mushrooms, elk horns, you name it. A good excuse for mushroom pasta in my book.

Soon it will be the Chasse (Hunting season), and the markets will fill up with wild game. Rabbit, venison and wild boar. Not to mention Fois gras. I really think this is the best time of the year to be here.

In the US there are farmers markets and they are nice for what they are, but they are nothing like this. I love the fresh produce and the home baked items, but there is something special about being able to get a half dozen oysters, a glass of champagne while you are shopping for the week.

I think it is going to be hard to move home.

 

Beer Me

This is the Annual Brussels Beer Weekend (http://www.belgianbrewers.be/en/events/belgian-beer-weekend-171/article/belgian-beer-weekend). It is our fourth. We moved here one week before the first one we attended back in 2010 and it has become how we mark time spent in Belgium. Three years, four Beer weekends.

As one would expect, Beer Weekend has proven to be a draw for visitors. Even from the first Beer Weekend, we have had people join us for each one. This year it was a collection of colleagues from around the globe. SWMBO (ever the hostess) picked up our Jeton and crowns to get our glasses and beer. Unfortunately we miscalculated. We thought that we would be getting the 33cl normal beer pours that we had in every previous year but this year they moved to small half pours. Probably an effort to reduce public drunkenness but it forced us to thwart their efforts by relocating to http://www.moederlambic.com for post festival beers.

In addition to Brussels Beer Weekend, it is also Reuzenfeest (http://www.reuzen.be) in our town. It is really hard to fully capture what Reuzenfeest is but essentially it is a festival with big paper mâché giants as the central characters. In addition to a parade of giants, we also have a big market featuring lots of junk food and yes, beer. Currently we are awaiting the fireworks which mark the halfway point of the festival.

Tomorrow, back to the Beer Festival with a couple of other co-workers. A light day, I think. It is a school night after all.

Alsatian Vacation

Belgium being Belgium, we had a nice 4 day weekend in August due to a National Holiday. (Feast of the Assumption of Mary) 4 Day weekends mean finding someplace new to visit, so this time it was Alsace. From Brussels it is a four hour drive to Strasbourg so we decided to break it up by planning for lunch in Metz, which is in the Lorraine region just south of Luxembourg. Metz is a really lovely little town sitting literally in the middle of the Moselle River with beautiful Cathedral and a very scenic square, where we had lunch. It was a really good choice by SWMBO given the fact that we she had not researched it at all before choosing our destination. We spent a couple of hours sightseeing, eating and sightseeing some more before heading off for Strasbourg.

If I have to be honest, we were a little disappointed in our first impression of Strasbourg. The main square around the Cathedral is pretty touristy. In fairness, it is the high season, so the shear volumes of tourists contributed to that feel. Like most cities with a big tourist draw, it is possible to go a little off the beaten path and get away from the trinkets and trash. While we were there we found a couple of really nice places to eat and spent our Thursday evening and Friday wandering around taking in the sights. Unlike a lot of cities we have been to, there were not that many Americans. There were some, but Strasbourg must be far enough down most people’s lists that numbers are limited. There were plenty of Germans and Italians though.

One of the things that we enjoy most about trips like this is having our car. A car gives you the freedom to go and see places that you otherwise would not be able to or if you did as part of a tour, would need to adhere to someone else’s schedule. Most of all, it opens you up to random possibilities. Saturday was like that. SWMBO had suggested that we go visit Colmar which is a historic little city with a medieval old town. As we headed down the highway en route to Colmar, the GPS noted construction and offered us a bypass. The bypass put us on the Route des vins de Alsace (Asatian wine route). OK twist our arms. The rural route was a much better alternative to the freeway. The countryside in Alsace is spectacular and the wineries are really fun to visit as well. Probably our favorite experience, if not favorite wine, was at a little winery stand on the side of the road. When we stopped the Vintner was entertaining some Portuguese tourists. The stand was similar to a fruit stand you might see in the countryside except he was pouring wine tastings. Liberally pouring tastings. It was like a wine lemonade stand.

Driving through the countryside in France is really a nice experience. The small towns are  very scenic and we have almost without exception, found the people to be warm and friendly. Mon francais c’est la merde. And yet, it is enough to break the ice. Usually that means that they use their impeccable english, but sometimes I have to man up and attempt to communicate. Results are mixed but we always seem to have a good time.

Today we drove home. All freeway this time. We had to get back because we leave for the US tomorrow and need to pack. It was a good day for driving home. A little rain and cooler temps made it not so hard to leave. It is interesting that driving habits seem to segregate by national origin. The Germans are all channeling Sebastian Vettel. The Dutch speed until they see a speed limit sign in which case they drive precisely the speed limit. The Brits drive like they own the place. The French do what they want. The Belgians are just bad drivers. 

Has It Really Been That Long?

In  a few short days, we will have been living in Belgium for three years. It really is hard to believe. The time has flown by and it has brought into perspective the comments we have heard from other Ex-Pats. In general they follow the lines of; If you are here at 3 years, then you will be around for 5. If you make it to 7 years, you may never leave. I don’t know how true the last one is, but the former seems entirely plausible.

We just returned from three weeks in the US, which further reinforces the concept. On our arrival we happened to sit behind a mother and her two daughters who had just finished 9 months in the UK and were visiting family in Northern Michigan. She commented that she felt a little disconnected after being out of the US for that amount of time. We assured her that we knew what she meant and in fact the longer we are away, the more the disconnection sets in. The funny thing is, the disconnects are generally the small things, like the cultural touch-points that people take for granted. We do our best to stay on top of the US news and Belgian television makes sure that we don’t lose track of what is happening with the Kardashians, people engaged in wars du storage or American Picking. What you do lose however, is much of the local news, events and definitely anything that happens in US Prime Time.  For any of those things, we are frankly, clueless. We also find ourselves making references to our reality, which our friends in the US have no visibility to, BBC television, Australian cooking shows, european news etc. You can’t win.

Invariably, our friends and family ask us “Are you homesick yet?” “When are you coming back?” “Are you sick of it yet?”. And the funny thing is, the answers to them are Yes and No, We have no idea, Sometimes but not all the time.

There is certainly the draw of coming back home and being closer to family and friends and this is why I don’t see us making Europe a permanent home. Homesickness comes in waves and generally is worse when the weather is crap and there is nothing to do, which for this spring was essentially the entire season. But then again, there are days like today when you go to a french market, find amazing bread, cheese, produce, etc. Have a glass of wine and something delicious to nibble on (today was moroccan crepes). Then move on to a little cafe and while away two hours with another glass of wine and apple tarts. So for those aspects, it does make it hard to be sick of it entirely. As for when we will come back, we honestly have no idea. I just got notice that I am eligible to achieve unlimited stay status which on the upside will make the annual residency work less annual, but on the downside means we are closer to turning this into an unlimited stay.

The other night we had some friends over. Two were colleagues from the US, one on a three month stay and the other on a 6 month stay to support some work we are doing here. Both are living in furnished corporate apartments in Brussels. We also invited another couple who are Brits and serial Ex-Pats (Germany, France, US, Belgium). It was fun to help out the Americans with getting settled here. (Identifying laundry detergent from fabric softener was the big win for both of them.) For us it was interesting in how different their experience is from ours. For one, they may be living here, but it is more akin to staying in a hotel than actually moving. They know when they are going back. There is no commitment and therefore no need to really immerse or develop connections. It is more Ex-Pat light.

We have much more in common with the serial Ex-Pats. We are here, with our stuff, and we need to make an effort for some level of assimilation. Where our US colleagues can maintain a certain distance from it, we cannot. We need to be more culturally sensitive, more accommodating and make more of an effort to figure out how everything works. It isn’t always easy. Can sometimes be incredibly frustrating. But it is also a wonderful learning experience.

So I don’t know if the Ex-Pat assumption will hold true and our three years in Belgium will turn into five. We still get to see the Sun Devil with reasonable frequency. Some of the other members of the family not so much, but they seem to like Skype. The lifestyle here is pretty comfortable and SWMBO’s Flemish is coming along well. My French is still crap, but good enough to get what we order most of the time. I think we will stick around for a bit longer. Besides, SWMBO’s list of places to visit continues to grow.

Hotels

I travel.   A lot.

When you travel a lot, you develop routines, habits, preferences and a lot of opinions. A few of my recent trips got me thinking about this where hotels are concerned.

For full disclosure, I am not a fan of budget hotels or Bed & Breakfasts. I have stayed in my share of them and as for the former I am fortunate enough not to have to patronize them and for the latter, enough have disappointed that any charm they may have isn't worth the risk that they lack it. Which more often than not, is the case.

For me, I like a full service hotel. I do not need extreme luxury, but I do want space, cleanliness and comfort. I prefer a hotel that has a real restaurant, preferably with a well appointed bar. I want check in to be pleasant and efficient. I have traveled a long way and just want to get through the process and get to my room. I do not care about a spa, but appreciate a quality fitness room. Even if I seldom use the gym clothes that I pack. What I do not like are gimmicks. I do not want a pillow menu. Don’t call me 20 seconds after I arrive in my room to ask if everything is OK. If it isn’t I will let you know. I do not need a leopard print bathrobe and slippers. Nobody wants to see that, least of all me.

A great example of what I like is the Yeatman in Porto, Portugal. The check in was a bit more involved than I would like, but the staff are friendly and helpful so it is not an issue. The rooms are classic but not stuffy. Most importantly they are comfortable. The furniture is functional and you feel like lingering. The bar area was really comfortable, had an incredible wine list. Our room had a nice garden area where, had it not been raining, I could easily picture ourselves opening a nice bottle of recently purchased port, ordering the cheese plate from room service and spending the evening looking at the view. Comfortable. Given the opportunity, we will be back.

By contrast is the W Hotel in Leicester Square. We had the opportunity to join a couple of friends in London to see the Book of Mormon,(Excellent) so She Who Must Be Obeyed booked us at the W which was very close to the theater. The W is everything I hate in a boutique hotel. It started poorly with the desk staff on our arrival. It seemed that our presence was a real burden to them. They were having a nice conversation and we had the audacity to step off the elevator. Once we got to our room. it was frankly, absurd. The middle of the room taken up by the sink, mirrors and shelves. The bed shoved to the side and the bathroom door identical to the closet. Cool colored lights were strategically placed throughout the room. Unfortunately these same cool colored lights turn into an IQ test as you try to locate the switches to turn them off in the evening. I am probably too old, too ugly and too unsophisticated to fully appreciate the W, but then again, at about $400 a night, should that matter?

Most recently, SWMBO and I checked into the Marmara Pera in Istanbul. Our first room violated the cleanliness requirement having not been serviced since it’s last guest. Apparently a fan of nut products. We were moved from the unclean room with the great view of the Bosphorus to the “better” room with the view of the urban decay. I give the hotel manager full marks for trying to sell on this. I think he may have developed his skills hawking carpets before moving to the hospitality industry. At least the room was clean. On the upside, the hotel has a great breakfast buffet.

What is interesting is the differences that you see between American hotels and their European cousins. American hotel rooms are generally larger, more plush and have bathrooms that do not cause you to spray water all over them. They also have sheets. Europeans, particularly of the Northern variety, prefer Duvets. This is not universal, but tends to hold true.

What I don’t get, is that in concept having a great hotel should not be that complex. Great bed, clean room, free internet, good food, better bar, efficient service. Is that really so hard?