Really, that statement is too limited in scope. Never, ever in our wildest beer geek dreams would we limit a week's worth of beer testing to only the Trappist Abbeys so popularly known for their liquid money-maker all over the world. Instead, this trip was a specially designed mission to learn about the culture, the history and the people of Belgium... through one glorious week of brewery tours and bar hopping.
You see, my friend is the reason I got into brewing. I remember vividly the first time we brewed a batch in his old St. Louis home. The art was foreign to me. It was like an initiation into a sacred ritual, one I came to respect and honor.
I believe to a certain degree my friend views brewing in a similar fashion. There is something eerily satisfying about watching your yeast swirl around in a 5-gallon carboy (19 Liters) while it eats every available microscopic molecule of sugar, converting it to a much prized alcohol. Its reaction creates a foam head that slowly bubbles through a safety lock to keep out contaminants. I believe home brewers gain something from their hard work besides excellent beer. It's a feeling of content, of happiness that you hand crafted something that can so easily go wrong.
Through their own trials and tribulations at home, home brewers learn that excellent beer is something to be respected and since myself and my buddy had never done one of those "post high-school international trips" to see the world and learn valuable life lessons, we thought, "Why not commemorate our 30th birthdays this year by engaging in a beer tour of Belgium?"
And so we did just that. Sleeping in hostels, walking several miles around each city each day, brewery tours, sight seeing tours, cathedrals, museums, bars and restaurants.
Amsterdam, Netherlands first.
Then a train ride into Belgium to see Antwerp.
Ghent.
Brugge.
And finally Brussels.
Some days we were victorious. Others, we were conquered. That week, we lived a beer lover's dream.
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