I wandered through the local supermarket a few days ago. Firstly, I was astonished by its size – easily four times the size of our Supermarché. Secondly, it was astonishing to see the abundance of items that we pay a fortune for at the Australia Store in London. The rows of cordial (grenadine in all the flavours of the rainbow), Milo (malted powder that never properly dissolves in cold milk), Weet-Bix (vastly superior to Weetabix breakfast bricks), and the wide array of TimTam chocolate biscuits.

I bought Hayden a small jar of “my first Vegemite” to try on his first birthday. Though Adrian says that the reduced salt will detract from the true Australian experience.

There are some downsides to shopping in Australia, though. This is the extent of the foreign beer selection:

And if one takes a close look at a bottle of Stella:

It’s made by Fosters.

Happy Oktoberfest Friends. Our trip to Munich was cancelled at the last minute, so instead we celebrated with some German friends in Liège. Maybe next year Hayden can have his first taste of bier und brezel (beer and pretzels).

Our closest brewery is Cantillon (pronounced, I believe, con-tee-YON) – a fifteen minute walk from our home to this century-old establishment. The Cantillon family specialise in producing especially sour Gueuze-Lambic beer. This type of beer gets its yeast from “spontaneous fermentation” – the microorganisms from the inside rafters and outside air. Thus, this beer can only be brewed at certain times of the year, and will change its taste if the location is altered.

They state on their website that “this beer is not only unique because of its brewing process, but also because it can be conserved for a long time. When kept in a good cellar, a Cantillon Gueuze will still have an exceptional taste and flavour after 20 years.”

Thus, we have bought and cellared a collection of their beers that we hope to use to celebrate Hayden’s 18th birthday.

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.