We have spent quite a few happy evenings at the Delirium Cafe in Brussels, but last weekend I was lucky enough to go to the source. Our friends Michelle and Grant managed to wrange us onto the end of a private tour of the Huyghe Brewery in Melle. The Hughe Brewery makes two of my favourite beers.

Photo by Grant.

The first beer is called Delirium Tremens, and prominantly features a pink elephant, one of the stereotypical hallucinations experienced by those with the “trembling madness” caused by withdrawal from alcohol. It is a very young recipe, as it was released to the public on December 26, 1989. It is a strong, golden ale that is made from three different strains of yeast, and contains 8.5% alcohol. The producers love calling it “the best beer in the world” because it won the 1998 World Beer Championships. While I don’t really like the taste of the beer, the sight of those cute pink elephants on the glass will often win me over. After the tour I bought two Delirium Tremens mugs and four bottles of the Delirium Noel seasonal brew, simply because they had skiing elephants in Santa hats on their label.

My second favourite Hughe beer is Floris Passion, and beer purists will insist that it shouldn’t be called a beer at all, as it is a white beer with a great deal of passion fruit syrup added. It is an even younger recipe, as the range of Floris fruit beers was first released in 1993. We were given the so-called Floris Kriek to try. This beer, while delicious, is not a true Kriek lambic. The brewers use one specific strain of yeast, rather than the a variety of wild airborn yeasts required for a traditional kriek. I returned home with six Floris Passion beers and two Floris glasses. When unpacking, I discovered that I had sadly broken both the glasses, but luckily the beers themselves were safe. We will have to return to the Delirium Cafe for some replacements in the near future.

Photo by Grant.

The brewery is in Melle, a small town that doesn’t have much else to speak of. We tried to find lunch, and we were first drawn to a cafe called Melle Rose Place. However, it was full of smoke, so we spent a long time walking up and down the two main roads to see if we could find a smoke-free restaurant. Finally, we settled on a small frituur (fries shop), which turned out to be excellent. I ate my fish-burger while watching the arrival of Sinterklaas and his entourage on television.

Photo by Grant.

The tour was conducted in Flemish, and our translator was a retired professor who was mostly deaf. So while we didn’t get to hear much about the brewery, we were able to walk through the various stages of brewing. We explored the warehouses containing the blank bottles, painted to resemble grey ceramic rather than glass. We finished the tour with a beer tasting in the old museum, filled with Hughe memorabilia from 1654 to today.

Photo by Grant.

Every October, Hasselt hosts a Jeneverfeesten. Jenever is a liquor that is typically made from fermented barley, rye, and corn, and then redistilled. It is then flavoured with additives as diverse as coriander, carroway, passionfruit, lemon, or vanilla. The only jenever that I knew of before moving here was what we call gin, which is jenever that is flavoured with juniper berries. Now I have become very partial to chocolate jenever, which at 17% alcohol is delicious but dangerous.

We spent the day in Hasselt, sampling a wide range of their delicious jenevers, and snacking on freshly baked speculoos cookies. My favourite part was watching the cocktail jugglers assemble the winning cocktail, a mojito-inspired concoction of lime and mint.

Adrian’s dad and his wife are visiting at the moment, and last weekend we took them to Namur (in Wallonia) to watch the Combat de l’Echasse d’Or (fight for the golden stilt). This competition involves two teams of twenty men, with either red and white stilts (the Melans) or black and yellow stilts (the Averesses). In a ninety minute battle, the two teams attempted to knock the stilts out from each other. When the last of the Averesses fell, the Melans turned upon each other. Finally, only one man was left standing. Standing on one stilt, he lifted the other up into the air in victory. He won the l’Echasse d’Or, and will return next year to defend his title.

I am so happy that we have moved to Belgium. Everything seems to have fallen together perfectly. I have a great job, we have a lovely apartment, two cute kittens, and live in a fascinating country. Adrian finally has his own lab, and he has a team of students and staff who are benefiting from his wisdom and mentorship. On weekends we are able to explore new places and learn about other cultures. During the week we both go to jobs that we enjoy, and then come home to watch the sun set over the city that is becoming our own.

Last week we took our friend Lina to the small Walloon town of Dinant. It is a beautiful little town situated on the River Meuse, featuring a citadel accessible by cable-car, allowing us to look down over its onion-domed Collegiale Notre-Dame (Church of Our Lady). Dinant is also the birthplace of Adolphe Sax, who invented the saxophone, and the couque, Europe’s hardest biscuit. We bought a few tiny sticks of the honey-flavoured couques to try, and they were very delicious, if a little difficult to consume.

While we were there, we also discovered that today was the day of the annual pie-eating contest. I looked it up on my iPhone and discovered that the record stood at fourteen. Wow, we thought, fourteen pies in fourty-five minutes. That is impressive. The pies were like quiches, and called flamische, as they were cooked over the flames. The Confrérie des Quarteniers de la Flamiche Dinantaise (Brotherhood of the Officers of the Dinant Flamische) assembled on stage, the choir began to sing, and the competition began. We quickly realised that the record was fourteen slices, not fourteen pies. And why was this number so low? Because the men insisted on using their knives and forks, pausing between mouthfuls to enjoy a glass of burgundy wine and to answer questions over the microphone. Even in an eating competition, the European instinct was to savour every mouthful. All the contestants simply ate until they were full, then pushed back their plates and watched the others with a smile. No records for gluttony were broken in Dinant that day.