Brussels: German Art, Chocolate, and Sour Beer

This past weekend was my first adventure outside of the Netherlands! I went to Brussels, which is fairly close to the Belgium-Netherlands border, and then Cologne, which is in the west of Germany, also very close to the Netherlands.

Early Thursday morning Jen and I set off on a train from Rotterdam to Brussels, which was only a two hour ride, and met some students and our teacher from our theory class at the Wiels Contemporary Art Center. I thoroughly enjoyed Wiels, mostly for the exhibition of Franz Erhard Walther's work, which achieves a lot of the goals I have for my own work. It was mostly fiber-based, comprised of muslin and canvas sewn objects and designs, some of which could be picked up and used. One part of the exhibition was a large black rug on which were neatly folded sewn canvas pieces in different shapes and patterns, which could be picked up and worn or held in groups of people in order to create a dynamic relationship between the people and the object(s). So of course I was flipping out a bit. Some other pieces were large, simple, three-dimensional shapes covered in primary colored fabric, so that they looked a lot like pieces of a playground and I really really wanted to climb on them. The most frustrating thing about the exhibition was that only one section of it could be touched, even when the majority of it screamed "play with me!!!"

It is the colors and shapes of children's toys so WHY CAN'T I TOUCH IT?!

It was a gorgeous spring day, sunny and 22 degrees (70 F), and we spent most of it traversing Brussels, at one point walking an hour from the south of the city to the north to get to the other two exhibitions. By the time we reached them we were sweaty and tired and my Doc Martens were rubbing blisters into my bloated feet, and I wasn't as enthralled with the rest of the artwork. Despite this I continued to revel at how beautiful Brussels was and how much it felt like a city in a way that Rotterdam does not. The sidewalks were filled with people, there was trash on the ground, the metro occasionally smelled like urine, and diversity of ethnicity and class was apparent on every corner. In a strange way, it felt like home.

With aching feet and stiff legs our class ended the day with drinks outside in the center of Brussels, and eventually everyone left to go home to Rotterdam, leaving me to explore the city by myself. I knew I would be traveling alone, but I wasn't sure what to expect or how I would feel about it. It was a unique kind of high to know that I was let loose in a brand new city, tied to no one or nothing but myself. It reminded me of when I first moved to New York City, when I would walk for hours alone because each city block had something new to see. Brussels is similar but in a microcosm, so I walked all night taking photos and stopping to eat an obligatory Belgian waffle with speculoos and a heap of whipped cream.

Narrow winding alleys filled solely with restaurants made for tourists

Grand Place, or Grote Markt

Brussels Town Hall, a Gothic building from the Middle Ages

Spent a lot of time just drooling on windows

The stairs of the Stock Exchange is the place to meet friends and drink a beer

The thing which made my trip to Brussels as memorable and exciting as it was was probably Use It. Now, this is a shameless plug: http://www.use-it.travel/home
Use It is an organization that employs locals in various European cities to compile advice and recommendations for tourists- particularly young, low-income, student tourists, which is what makes it so amazing, as all of the places it sends you are cheap, yummy, and where all the local youth go. I used my Use It Brussels map to plan my Friday, during which I ate a delicious and nourishing lunch in a tiny vegetarian/vegan restaurant above an alternative grocery store, I ate the best ice cream I have ever had (chocolate and salted caramel) at Comus & Gasterea (sorry B&J's), and Thursday night of course I had to try a gueuze beer. Gueuze is what you might know as a sour beer, derived from the lambic, and it's the pride of Belgium. Some people say it tastes like puking beer rather than drinking it, so it's definitely an acquired taste. I went to a bar called Moeder Lambiek, known for having hundreds of craft beers and 46 on tap, and had a Cantillon Gueuze, which was most certainly sour and acidic enough to remind one of vomit. After wandering around wide-eyed by myself going into a bar was an entirely different experience, as I felt very out of place being a young female having a beer alone. After trying to look occupied with a notebook I finished my sour and went home to the hostel on the metro, feeling a bit disappointed and lonely.

The Church of St. Catherine, and a plaza with lots of fish restaurants

Comus & Gasterea, owned by a grumpy old ice cream man

So good I could cry

Next to my hostel

The highlight of Brussels was the Cantillon Brewery, also recommended on my Use It map, which lies a little outside of central Brussels. On the way there I stumbled upon a huge open-air market, which lay underneath an impressive, soaring iron ceiling and contained all the usual cheap produce, secondhand clothing and fish smells I had grown used to from Rotterdam's Blaak Market.

After looking around a bit I made my way to Cantillon, on an unassuming side street with no apparent front door, and paid seven euros for a self-guided tour. By self-guided I mean they let you loose in the brewery with only an informational pamphlet and allow you to walk wherever you like amongst the employees and equipment. I could have picked up a bottle as it moved down the conveyor belt! Instead I walked very slowly and spent a lot of time grinning to myself and bouncing up and down. I met a family from Pennsylvania (American accents sound so much nicer to me now) and I took tons of photos knowing my dad who would thoroughly enjoy seeing how the Flemish make beer.

Cantillon Brewery, founded in 1900 and remains independently family-run.

The mashing tun, where 1300 kg of crushed wheat and malted barley are mixed with hot water to make the wort.

From 1938!

Upstairs are the hop boilers, where 10,000 liters of wort are mixed with hops.

Cleaning out the grain crushing machine

The granary in the attic, where they keep the grains.

THE FERMENTATION VAT. This is where the magic happens. Unlike the usual, highly sterile process of making beer, the lambic is spontaneously fermented, i.e. it is pumped into this large, shallow tank and left open for the wild yeasts in the air to react with the grain sugars. They even leave vents (below) for the air to breeze into the attic over the wort. This is contrary to everything I ever learned about brewing beer, which was to always keep your wort and equipment sterile and never let wild yeasts into the fermenter. Cantillon is actually just making beer the way it was made centuries ago, by accident, leaving grains in water in the open so that yeast in the air caused it to start fermenting- oops- beer! Therefore they add no yeast of their own to the wort, only grains, hops, and water.

BRING ON THOSE WILD AND CRAZY YEASTIES

The fermented wort is pumped downstairs into traditional oak or chestnut casks

The wort is left in open casks for a few weeks, so they don't explode, and then they are sealed.

 From the Lambic you can make a gueuze, or many different fruit beers. A gueuze is a Lambic with added sugars to carbonate it, since all Lambics are naturally flat. All these beers are very sour because the spontaneous fermentation eats every bit of grain sugar out of the wort, leaving no sweetness. To make a fruit beer the Lambic is mixed with 150kg of local, pesticide-free, fresh fruit and left to soak for three months, during which the added sugars carbonate the flat Lambic to make Kriek (sour cherries), Rosé de Gambrinus (raspberries), Vigneronne (grapes) and Fou'foune (apricots).

Cobwebs are left intact so the spiders can keep bugs out of the fresh fruit!

Bottling the beer

The brewery has a nice little bar too

Included in the tour were two beer tastings, so at the end I got to try a Lambic and a Rosé, the raspberry fruit beer. The Lambic just tasted like a flat gueuze to me, very sour and not something I'd like to drink again. It had a wine-like flavor that reminded me of the mead that I made with my dad. The Rosé however was delicious- ruby red and still just as sour, but the sourness you would expect from raspberries, and it tasted and smelled exactly like the fruit picked right off the bush. I really wanted to get a glass of Kriek because I love cherries, but they were all out and I was again feeling awkward hanging out in a bar alone. I also really wanted to get some bottles or souvenirs for myself and the beer lovers I know, my dad and my mom's girlfriend, but I had to keep traveling light. I will definitely try to find some Cantillon in the States.

Before getting on the Megabus to Cologne I went on a mad rush grabbing the two things I really couldn't leave Belgium without- frites and chocolate. Not many people know that fries aren't really French, but Belgian- and they make them the best. Really crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, with mayo of course. For chocolate I went to the closest shop to the bus stop, which was Neuhaus, and bought seven pralines for six euros. Pricy, but worth it. I'm a tourist after all.

On to Cologne, bye Brussels! I didn't want to leave, and will take any excuse to go back, this time with friends.