Beer travel forums?? How to get to Belgium?

[sablesurfer]

I am not sure there are any beer travel forums here, please point me to them if there are. I LOVE to always find beer on every travel I have done in last three/four years...

NC - Find the tiny little micro that was funded by dad (tourguide now)
Columbus - Travel all the back roads of the ghetto (SCARY) to find the last bottle of chill wave
Seattle - Visit Pike Brewing company and talk your way into a private tour of the (only?) gravity fed production brewery
Chicago - talk your way into the barrel room of Haymarket Brewery because after they said the brewer wasn't around you just were too much of a nerd and he showed up..

So, where do we talk about travel and offer tips about traveling or places to visit?

I want to go to Belgium. I want to avoid the 'beer tours' and I do NOT want to be on an itinerary. I might even want to rent some motorcycles like I did in Spain.

Who's been to Belgium, how did you get there? What is the cheapest time to go? When is the lowest tourist time to go? How do I find those small farm breweries...(like in Spain EVERY FRIKKEN town had a local winery and it was ALL AMAZING!!) Would 5 days in country give me enough time to see three or four breweries?

 

[yvonne]

Milk is for babies. When you grow up you have to drink beer.
Arnold Schwarzenegger

 

[drainbamage]

Sub'd for info. My wife and I have talked about doing the same thing and I'd like to hear any insight anyone has.

 

[MonsterBrew]

I agree there should be a beer travel section. I am not too familiar with Belgium travel, however in general Fall/Spring are the best times to travel in Europe because of lower airfares, smaller crowds, and more pleasant weather. This article seems to have some good insight into Belgian beer travel here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/travel/16beer-journeys.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

and this has a nice map of what each town has:

http://beermapping.com/maps/maps.php?m=belgium#lat=undefined&lng=undefined&z=9

I would just look up a couple towns/breweries that appeal to you and then find some more info once you get there. Sometimes you can find the best places just by talking to people or wandering around.

-Jeff

 

[Teromous]

I would like to recommend Good Beer Guide to Belgium. There is a revised edition that is available from the UK version of Amazon. If you want to wait you can order it from the US (cheaper) when it comes out (I think October). It is a pretty awesome guide book that even talks about how to get to Belgium, to the places you should visit, and even the places you should avoid (tourist prices and knockoff beers).

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

I was lucky enough to live in Aachen germany, right across the border from belgium for almost 4 years. My wife and I went to belgium countless times, exploring the big tourist cities (Brugge, Ghent, Brussels) as well as some of the really out-of-the-way small towns, (Namur, Rochefort, Tongeren to name a few).

We travelled europe a ton and I think the spring is by far the best time to travel, in April/may it's still not travel 'season' so you have easier time finding great accommodations, places are MUCH less crowded, but the weather is already great in Europe for the most part. Once schools are out in Europe things get crazy! It's also worth looking up when school breaks are, we once were greeted with massive lines at the airport when we didn't expect them (sometime in April) as it was the start of spring holiday school vacations.

We actually did a ton of road-biking in belgium to get around and that was a lot of fun and a great way to see some tiny places, i.e. stop at some spec on the map town and have lunch/beers at a cafe. We always used trains/busses/bikes, and never once had to drive anywhere. Although we did bum a ride with friends to Achoffe once, which would be challening to get to any other way.

You really can't go wrong with almost anywhere in belgium in my opinion, in the smallest of towns there is a at least one pub with a few decent beers on hand, and of course the proper glassware.

FWIW, we really loved a weekend spent visiting both Achoffe in the middle of the ardennes, we hiked about 5 miles through the woods from our B+B to get there, and it's a long story but we ended up hugging a belgian at the end of the night. Super fun folks! Bastogne is right nearby and is super interesting for WWII history and fans of Band of Brothers. If you know where to look you can still see the foxholes in the woods easy company dug!

Also we really liked Orval, again we biked about 30miles to get there from the closest train station, and also did a day trip biking to Avioth, france, which is a town of like 5 houses and this really awesome gothic cathedral and a great french place to grab lunch.

FWIW we hated brussels, but through all our travels we never liked bigger cities. IMO there is more culture in the smaller cities.

Hope this helps a bit. Belgium is awesome and i could blow through 2 weeks there no problem.

Cheers!
Steve