Addi Luxembourg

It has been awhile since I last posted as I have been a bit of slacker lately and because we have moved from Luxembourg. Although we were sad to leave this wonderful country, we are happy to be home again in the U.S. In the near future I hope to fill in the blank of some trips that we took but never posted on!

Easter in the Netherlands

This Easter Paula and I are going to spend a longish weekend in the Netherlands..more specifically my favorite city, Utrecht for 2 days and nights, then Delft for an afternoon and then Amsterdam for the last 2 days and nights before returning to Luxembourg in time for the annual bird whistle festival.

This will be the last trip that Paula takes in Europe before heading back to the U.S. next week and what better place to make her last trip than one of our most favorite destinations...Utrecht! and the rest of Holland for that matter.

We are going to drive up to Utrecht and enjoy the shopping, eating, drinking and people watching that the city has to offer. It will also be nice to visit a few of my favorite hangouts from back in the day (circa 2000) as this will also be my last trip to Utrecht for several years I would guess.

After a few days in Utrecht it is off to Delft just for a few hours to pick up some cool Delft blauw tiles and other items we have been thinking of for some time but never purchased before.

Then we are on to Amsterdam for 2 days and nights of roaming around shopping, maybe taking in a slow canal cruise or anything else that comes to mind. We have dinner reservations at a cool farm/nursery restaurant on the outskirts of Amsterdam that serves only things grown on the farm and surrounding area. Should be a great dining experience.

More to come....

Brussels....Cantillon Open Brewing...Moeder Lambic oh my!

As if the Pre-ZBF was not enough on Thursday and Friday, were trekked on to Brussels for a Saturday of fun starting off with a visit to De Heeren van Liederkercke, our favorite resturant in Belgium, for lunch and a few beers. Usually a stop at De Heeren could be a full day itself with the gourmet food and extensive current and vintage beer listing they have but we had a full day ahead.

When we entered Brussels, after dropping bags at the hotel, Keith and I were off to Cantillon and Paula was off to some last trip to Brussels shopping for goodies.

The trip to Cantillon was to see what we could see for their bi-annual open brewing day where you can wander around the brewery while they are doing everything in the brewing process from boiling, to pumping the wort in the koelchip which is really cool to see. They also clean barrel, kegs and everything in between. Although we got there later in the day, we were able to jump on an English tour and got to roam around the brewery, sample some beer at the end and buy a few items on the way out. We also chatted for a few minutes with the brewer Jean who is a really nice guy and a guy that is passionate about authentic lambic brewing.

After Cantillon, our next stop was to the new location of Moeder Lambic right in the heart of Brussels and conveiniently right across the road from our hotel. Great planning by our travel agent I must say. A trip to Moeder Lambic is a must on any visit to Brussels but this Saturday trip was extra special as it turns out.

First, Moeder Lambic having a mini-Cantillon festival with 12 of their beers on tap which is just unheard of but not for a bar that is about 2 miles from the brewery. In addition to several rare beer you usually only get in the U.S. in bottles (Iris, Saint Lamvinus, Fou Foune, Vigneronne) we were also lucky enough to try Zwanze 2008 with rhubarb and Zwanze 2009 with elderflowers. Both beers were wonderful on tap...in fact all the beers were wonderful on tap but the Zwanze 2009 really stuck out to me.

After being there for a good hour or more, the Cantillon family arrived as the guests of honor for the night. It actually seemed to be a bit of a beer industry party as Rob Tod from Allagash was there, Tom Peters from Monk's Cafe in Philadelphia was there and several other Americans that looked familiar but I did not know were there. We had a great night of Cantillon's, fantastic cheese and we even had a bit more conversation with Jean from Cantillon.

All in all it was a great night and a great cap to a beery weekend in Belgium that was also a sort of beer bachelor party for Keith!

Check out our fun.

Pre-ZBF 2010 Edition

The Pre-ZBF festival 2010 edition could not get here soon enough.....and now it is sadly over and I am already looking forward to 2011. Now I just have to figure out how to get back to Belgium next year...

This is a wonderful festival that is put on by the great folks at Picobrouwerij Alvinne (Glenn, Davy and several others) in Heule, Belgium. Pre-ZBF is held a day or so before the much larger and more mundane Zythos Beer Festival that is held each year around the first weekend of March. Pre-ZBF is in my mind the festival of the year in Belgium as it is much smaller that the big boys but pound for pound the quality of the brewers and the beers served is second to none.

Paula and I took in our first Pre-ZBF in 2009 when it was held at the Alvinne brewery which is housed in a sort of farm house in a residential neighborhood and is very charming. The 2009 fest was packing with fellow beer geeks from all over the world and certainly packed with fantastic and rare beers.

Although I thought it would be hard to top the quality of 2009, the 2010 did indeed top the prior year. Firstly, the festival was moved to a larger location just outside of Brugge, Kasteel der Lakebusschen. We had to get transportation out to the kasteel from our hotel in Brugge but Glenn and Davy at Alvinne helped to arrange all of that so things ran smoothly on that front.

The actual Pre-ZBF festival was held on a Friday from 10am to 8pm. This part of the festival was open to the public so you could have ordered a ticket ahead of time or just showed up that day and got in for a reasonable entrance fee which included a tasting glass and some tokens. As with most beer fests in Belgium, you typically pay a small upfront fee and then each beer sample costs you a token or more and each token usually has a value of €1 or €1.50.

For a lucky few (about 50 or so which included Paula, my cousin Keith and myself) there was also a special beer and whisky night on Thursday. This included a meet and greet tasting which each brewer for about 2 hours where we were allowed to sample one special beer from each brewer but it ended up being that we were able to sample several different beers from each brewer...and all this before dinner! Dinner was served inside the castle in a fantastic space that is hard to describe but the setting was perfect for the damn fine food that was cooked up by Glenn from Alvinne and paired with 5/6 beers and whiskys.

During dinner we were lucky enough to sit at a table with some fellow beer lovers from the U.S. so the conversation was flowing all night. Sometime during the dinner we were suprised when Glenn from Alvinne annouced that there was a person in the crowd that could not drink because she was pregnant ant that just happened to be Paula. Glenn was so kind to present Paula with a nice set of baby bibs. It was a wonderful gesture from a wonderful friend, something we will always remember. In addition to the gift for our baby, Glenn also presented my cousin Keith and I with a huge 1.5 litre bottle of a new Alvinne creation, Cuvee de Freddy, as a sort of congrats on the baby present for me and a congrats on getting married for Keith! Now I just have to figure out how to transport the big bottle home to Paoli.....

After a wonderful night at the beer and whisky tasting...we were back to our hotel in Brugge and after a few drinks out in the city at the Bruge Beertje for Keith and I, it was off to bed to get ready for an early rise for the actual Pre-ZBF fest on Friday.

The brewery listed was expanded in 2010 to include Alvinne, Struise, De Molen (all of which were there in 2009) and there were the additions of Brewdog, Thornbridge and Urthel which were much appreciated.

The listing of beers was expanded to something outrageous like 70 beers, several of them collaberations between the various brewers, several of them draft only and only for the festival and every beer I tried was a winner and worth the few tokens they cost.

I could not say enough about the quality of Pre-ZBF and about how much I will miss it if we are not able to make it in 2011 since we will be living back in the U.S. by then. If we don't get back next year or for several years...at least I these pictures to bring back fond memories...

A Long Weekend In Munich

A few weeks back Paula and I spent a long weekend in Munich to visit the city, take in a Dave Matthews Band concert, visit a beautiful castle and to visit the sad history of the Dachau WWII concentration camp outside of Munich.

We also got to visit a few brauhaus' in Munich including the famous but very touristy Haufbrau Haus. Did I mention we got to taste some wonderful and very affordable Bavarian food?

Being that Munich is the home of some wonderful German cars...we visited the BMW museum to dream a bit...

We also made a day trip out to the sad yet historic Dachau concentration camp and one of King Ludwig's castles.

Andescher Monastery

BMW Museum

The city of Munich

Dachau Camp

King Ludwig's Castle

Where have all the posts gone?

I know, I have become really lax in posting about our travels in and out of Luxembourg but that is not for lack of activity! Since my last post many moons ago we have traveled to Munich and Cologne in Germany take in the historic sites and a few Dave Matthews Band concerts. We also spent a weekend in Brugge and Brussels in Belgium for a beer festival / bachelor party of sorts with my cousin Keith.

There have been other interesting adventures along the way including a quick stop in the U.S.

Hopefully this weekend I will get a few minutes of time to jot down some words and to upload pictures which are always more interesting than my words!

Cheers,
Greg

First Stop in Italy, Bra....really

Over the Christmas break, we came back from a nice U.S. visit early and made our way on a 6 night trek through Piedmont region of Italy and the wonderful cities of Torino and Milano.

The first stop on our trek was to the little town of Bra for a lunch at a great little Slow Food restaurant, Osteria Boccondivino. This restaurant is known for their home made Italian food, including the amazing wine infused Risotto I ordered and super smooth and creamy gnocchi that Paula had. In addition to the great food, they had a cool wall of wine and we enjoyed a few glasses from there.

A weekend in Champagne

Last weekend we took a trip to Reims and Epernay in the Champagne region of France. I can't believe we have not visited Champagne before as it is just over 2 hours from where we live in Luxembourg and an easy trip to make from Saturday to Sunday.

Paula and I traveled down with a few friends (Jen, Gilbert, Keil, Nora and Kristal) and we visisted 3 Champagne houses on Saturday in Reims and then another 2 on Sunday afternoon in Epernay before driving back to Luxembourg.

Check out some pix from our trip....

Brassigaume Beer Festival in Belgium

The weekend of 17 and 18 October was the 9th edition of the Brassigaume beer festival, a great gathering of some regional brewers from the Luxembourg province of Belgium but also beyond this area including some UK beers and a good number of craft beers from Italy. Paula and I attended the festival last year and had to go back this year.

The festival is held each year in Marbehan, Belgium which is conveiniently located only 5 minutes walk from a train stop less then 30 minutes from Luxembourg!

We arrived late in the afternoon on Saturday the 17th and quickly had a beer glass in our hands and some wooden tokens to purchase samples. The entrance fee was only €3 per person including your glass and samples (about 15 cl each) were only €1.40 each.

Over the course of the next 4 hours or so we had several nice samples including some from Belgium (La Rulles, Sainte Hélène, Val Dieu, Brasserie de Cazeau), some from the UK (Brasserie Great Heck and Tiger Top) and some from Italy (Birra del Borgo, Brasserie Panil and Birra Orso Verde). I think our favorites of the night were a few from Birra del Borgo as they had an interesting porter with tobacco, an ale blended with Cantillon Lambic (how can you go wrong there?) and another lambic-ish beer with peaches.

We also spend a good deal of time chatting with old friends and new friends. I ran into 3 Belgian friends from work, a few beer friends from the UK, another American living in Luxembourg that I met at Mi-Orge Mi-Houblon just a few weeks earlier, a few American G.I.'s stationed in Italy that just happened to be Phillies fans. We also spent a bit of time talking to our friend Chris that is the owner of the great beer store Mi-Orge Mi-Houblon. Chris is a man of many hats. In addition to running a beer shop, he is also a school teacher, a sometime brewer and he also is heavily involved in the planning for Brassigaume it seems. Chris has a min-store setup at this festival so between selling beer, we talked about beer and tasted beer! He was kind enough to invite Paula and I to try a few very interesting lambic blends made by a Germany guy who attended the festival. All of his blends were very interesting and gave me some thoughts for my own lambic blending project that is in process.

All in all, another successful beer festival in Belgium and we were home before midnight to boot.

Check out a few pictures from the festival

Travels through Belgium, Luxembourg and Scandanavia With Family

It may have been over 2 and 1/2 years from the original time we had planned it, but my cousin Keith, his fiancé Suzanne, and Paula and I finally made our trip together through Belgium on a beer hunting mission. We started off on Tuesday, September 22, when Keith and Suzanne arrived in Brussels and we quickly wisked them off to Brugge and the surrounding countryside.

Brugge
Our first destination near Brugge, after a quick stop in the town of Roeselare for lunch, we were off to a personal visit to the new Struise brewery in an old school. Upon arrival at the brewery, we were greeted by Urbain and his great hospitality. He treated us to several of his cutting edge beers and a tour of the current setup of the brewery and what is to come.

Check our pictures from our afternoon visit to Struise!

After leaving struise we were off to Brugge and a cute little B&B we had stayed at before, just a few blocks from a working old windmill. Once we checked in we headed out into the city for some site seeing and then dinner at Erasmus, one of the best restaurants in Belgium. Erasmus is known for their excellent food and equally excellent beer list. After dinner, Paula and Suzanne headed back to the B&B and Keith and I made our way to two different beer bars..the famous Brugs Beertje and then a cool little cellar bar, Poatersgat.

A few of our pictures from Brugge

After a day and night in Brugge, we were planning to spend Wednesday the 23rd in Antwerp, Belgium but we had a few stops along the way. First, we had a 10 am tour appointment at Rodenbach to roam around the massive wood foeders where they age their fantastically tart Rodenbach Red and Grand Cru beers. Although we had joined a tour of Dutch senior citizens, it was alot of fun to just roam around this historic brewery and to get two samples at the end of the tour.

After the tour, we were looking for lunch and had one place in mind, De Zalm in Roeselare, just a few blocks from Rodenbach. Besides having a nice lunch menu, De Zalm is most well known for serving on handpump the very rare Rodenbach foederbier which is Rodenbach straight from the wooden foeders so it is completely flat and very sharp and sour.

Check out our adventures at Rodenbach and De Zalm

Once we had filled our stomachs with some good Belgian lunch food, we were back on the road and how heading in the direction of Picobrouwerij Alvinne Heule, Belgium. Alvinne is run by brewers Glenn and Davy who are both great guys that happen to make some wonderful beers. Paula and I have visited Alvinne on a few occasions in the past year and have enjoyed their beer offering, their great beer store and their hospitality. This day we were heading to Alvinne for a visit with Glenn and Davy and some shopping. Glenn and Davy were gracious enough to let us come in for a tasting that included 4 different versions of their Melchior beer including: regular Melchior, calvados barrel aged, bourgogne barrel aged and bourbon barrel aged. Having all 4 of these wonderful beers side by side make the differences due to the different barrels come out really well.

Can I Blend a Lambic in Luxembourg?

That is the question I have been asking myself for nearly 2 years! Luxembourg is a wonderful country in its own right and with the close proximity to Belgium and all the wonderful beer that country has to offer, I can't really complain. Not too much at least. Luxembourg does lack a bit in the beer department, especially when it comes to my favorite beer style...lambic.

Earlier this year I read online that you are able to visit certain lambic brewers in the Payottenland outside of Brussels and purchase jugs of lambic straight from the barrel..no bottles. A few months back Paula and I made a day trip up to the Girardin brewery outside of Brussels and purchased a 10 litre jug of their young (jonge) lambic straight from the barrel! We brought it to a party that evening and had it to drink in our apartment for several night and it was a hit! Fresh, tasteful, yet inexpensive.

This got me thinking...if I could purchase one jug of lambic from one brewery, could I purchase several jugs and "blend" my own gueuze or fruit lambic? Of course this experiment would be for fun and informational purposes only as what I would be don't is not brewing.

Fast forward to a recent weekend in September and Paula and I decided we needed to make another trip to Brussels and to spend the night. Aside from visiting some of our favorite bars and sites, we also stopped at 3 lambic brewers on our way into Brussels.

Our first stop was to Lindeman's, the lambic brewer that people are probably most familiar with due to the huge success they have selling their framboise, kriek and other lambics in the U.S. and around the world but those fruit lambics are usually sweetened with syrup and not real fruit like more traditional brewers do (see Cantillon and Drie Fonteinen). Lindeman's does however brew their lambic in the traditional method with spontaneous fermentation and they do sell this lambic directly from the brewery if you ask nicely. We showed up on this Saturday and it took about 20 minutes to find someone to help me. I wandered around the warehouse with crates and crates and kegs and kegs of their beer everywhere, destined for various parts of the world. I finally got the attention of a worker who was cleaning the brewhouse and he took my plastic jug and dissappeared behind some huge tanks and came out about 10 minutes later with my jug full of 10 litres of jonge lambic. After paying the equivalent of about $18 (what a steal for what amounts to about 13 wine sized bottles of lambic) we were off to our 2nd destination.....

...Girardin. We returned to this great little brewery to claim our second jug of lambic or to refill our first jug I should say. This time we got a 10 litre fill of their old (oude) lambic as I wanted something older to help with the blending of a gueuze. We were in and out in 10 minutes and on the road into Brussels and to our 3rd and final destination.....

...Cantillon! My favorite of all lambic brewers and probably my first or second favorite brewer of any kind. We had visited on several occasions before and have become friendly with the brewer Jean. I arranged ahead of time to pickup a 5 litre "bag in a box" of their lambic. It was a real treat for me knowing that I could get a box of Cantillon to take home. Before we left Cantillon we sat down for a complimentary glass of Rosé de Gambrinus! What a great way to start our day in Brussels.

After spending the rest of this fine day and night in Brussels, we were back in Luxembourg on Sunday before 5pm or so and then it was on to the task of trying to blend my beer purchases and how to blend these 3 different vessels of beer without having alot of extra containers to blend into. I took out a pen and pad of paper and a number of tasting glasses and I was off. First I was looking for a solid blend of all 3 beers for my "Luxembourg gueuze". I settled on a blend that included approximately 6 parts oude lambic from Girardin, 3 parts Cantillon lambic and 1 part Lindeman's. I next moved onto the idea of a 10 litre jug of a blend to be used as a fruit lambic. This blend was mainly Linedman's with a few litres of Girardin and a touch of Cantillon.

What did I do with the remaining 5 litres or so of beer that did not fit into the 2 jugs containing 10 litres each of my blends? Well I put some of it in a ceramic Cantillon pitcher we have and th rest in some plastic cereal containers to store in the fridge and to drink over the course of the next few nights.

On Monday I purchased 16 packages of fresh Belgian raspberries and blanched them and then added to the blend I made for this fruit lambic. What a sweet, sweet and messy process but boy did it smell amazing. Most of the fruit fit in but I had to drain some and drink it to make room for the full 16 packages. We tasted the beers we had to drain from the jug and it already had a slight pinkish color an taste of raspberries. I put both jugs in little coolers and put them down in our cave to age.

A few days later I went to check on them and noticed that the framboise blended was fermenting again due to the addition of over 1.5 kgs of raspberries! I was amazed. Over the next few weeks and months I will take samples of each blend to see how they are doing and when they are ready to be bottled. More updates on that to come in the future!

In the meantime, check out some pictures from our adventures....

Ed's Wedding and Family Visiting!

Paula and I made our first trip home since Christmas to take part in Ed and Kelli's wonderful wedding on Friday, August 7th. Paula and I were both part of the wedding party and we had a great time. In addition to taking part in the special day, we also got a chance to catch up with pretty much all of our family which was great.

Check out pictures from our great weekend!

Ed's Bachelor Party at the Belgium Comes to Cooperstown Beerfestival

For Ed's bachelor party we took in the Belgium Comes to Cooperstown beer festival at the Ommegang Brewery. We camped over Saturday night and aside from the 4 hour festival, we visited friends at several different campsites throughout the huge Ommegang farm and drank wonderful beers from the U.S. and Belgium.

Pictures from the festival and camping fun

A Weekend in Ireland with U2 and a Few Pubs!

Luxembourg Beer Festival at the Cactus Supermarket

DMB at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland

For the 4th of July weekend we took a trip down south to Switzerland to make our first visit to Zurich and to also take in a Dave Matthews Band concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival which was right on Lake Geneva.

A Long Weekend in London to See DMB

After dropping Paula's Mom and Melissa off at the Luxembourg airport for their return to the U.S., we were off on a flight of our own from Frankfurt to London, England! We planned a nice weekend to do some site seeing, take in 2 Dave Matthews Band concerts and visit with some friends in London!

A Visit From Paula's Mom and Cousin

Near my birthday in June (June 22nd for those that don't know) we got a visit from Paula's Mom and her cousin Melissa and we made the most of it by traveling to Brugge, Belgium and throughout Luxembourg and neighboring Trier, Germany.

More Posts Coming Soon!

I can't believe it has been two months since our last post. That does not mean that we have not been busy during those two month. It has actually been the complete opposite! From early June until now we have traveled to London, Switzerland, Belgium, Ireland and back home to the good ol' U.S. of A.! On these trips we have pub crawled through London and Ireland, seen the Dave Matthews Band 3 times and U2 once and best of all got to visit with family and friends back in the U.S. and got to see my brother get married!

As this coming weekend is a holiday weekend in Luxembourg and this part of Europe, most things will be closed and I will have more time to post pictures and interesting words about our travels!

2009 Tour de Luxembourg

This week the Tour de Luxembourg was held throughout the Grand Duchy this week and the final stage ended with a few rounds of a very hilly course in the Clausen section of Luxembourg City. The race consisted of 15 international teams with the 2 main riders from the Saxo Bank team, Frank and Andy Schleck of Luxembourg, who are national heros around these parts! Paula and I showed up about 2 hours early to get something to eat and drink and to take in the sites and sounds of yet another cool event in Luxembourg. We planted ourselves about 50 yards from the finish where we had a great view of the riders as they were crossing the finish line.

The crowd was crazy each time the riders came around the course and especially when Frank Schleck won the overall Tour!