Bruges, Belgium

One of my favorite things in Belgium was the beer.  I was so sick of Pilsner in Berlin!  I know it is bad for me to say this since I am living in Germany this year, but I think Belgian beer is much better than most German beers. 

The sweet reward waiting for us at the end of our tour.  We drank our beers with some lovely ladies from South America who we also saw the previous day in Ghent.  Belgium is a small place.

In Bruges we went on a tour of the only Brewery that still brews beer inside the city walls.  Most other breweries have moved their operations to cheaper and larger locations.  The brewery is called "de Halve Maan."  In Flemish it translates into Half Moon, but I thought it was funny because it is like half-man in German.  The beer I tasted here called the "Straffe Hendrik" or Strong Henry is a bitter tripel ale of 9%, which is normal in Belgium.  This friendly old man gave us the tour and he had been working at the brewery for a very long time.  He is one of something like 5 employees there.  Before things were automated with computers there used to be over 40 full time employees doing some pretty crazy jobs. 

The craziest job was the people who had to go in and clean the huge vats.  The entrance to the vats is a circle maybe two feet in diameter.  When they needed to be cleaned, a person would actually have to go inside, but the alcoholic fumes were so strong inside that a person could only be in there for a short amount of time before becoming dangerously intoxicated.  So, the brewery workers would tie rope around the person's leg and make the person sing in the vat.  When the person stopped singing, they would pull them back out of the hole using the rope.  It is a crazy story, but they had pictures of it to prove it!

Important beer information, you know malt, mashing, grist, and all that goodness.

A view from the top of the brewery.  I was not expecting our brewery tour to be so beautiful so it was a pleasant suprise when our guide took us to the roof and pointed out some of Bruges landmarks.

I couldn't contain myself.  It smelled so good in there I had to drink "direkt vom Fass"

Picture of the picture of the guy going inside to clean the barrels.

We would have earned an A+ in beer class.  Look at how closely everyone is listening.  Besides me, who was off taking pictures.

 

The Belfry.  Famously featured in the movie "In Bruges," which you are not allowed to mention while in Bruges.  For anyone else who is a Vald Todd fan, I couldn't help but think of him when I saw it.

The main square where I blissfully drank coffee and read when it started raining.

And finally, we have chocolate breasts because apparently there isn't anything you can't find made of Belgian chocolate in Belgium.