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| Waking view from Hotel Rubenshof bedroom |
Blue skies and high temperatures in Antwerp for the second day of the 20th
BierPassie Weekend.
The Beer Passion Festival in Groeneplaats opens at 1pm so there was time for a leisurely walk north from Antwerp Zuid to the historic centre, keeping to the shady side of the street.
As Steve was having a lie in it was nice to wander at my own pace, stopping to take photos en route. Unfortunately it was 15 minutes before 11am opening time when I passed
Coffee & Vinyl at Volkstraat 45.
At the junction of Kloosterstraat and Goedhoopstraat you can find the comic mural (stripmuur)
Nero by
Marc Sleen (1922-2016).
There is also a mural on a junction box showing a
Stripmurenroute with the location of other comic murals in Antwerp. To find the other murals on the
route could be a project for a future visit to Antwerp.
Kloosterstraat is a good street for finding interior decor and antiques shops.
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| 2 Kloosterstraat - looking south |
Continuing along Oever and Hoogstraat I reached the sun drenched Grote Markt.
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| Den Hopsack |
Regaining the shade, I walked to 24 Grote Pieter Potstraat to find
Den Hopsack.
Den Hopsack is mentioned in
Joe Stange & Tim Webb's
Good Beer Guide Belgium as 'a mellow music club serving 50+ beers including De Ranke and Senne'.
There were flyers in the window for a free gig by Lise at 8pm and art by Peter Callens.
As the bar does not open until 8pm I took a photo through the window to record the interior. It looks like a place worth revisiting on a future trip.
Now it was time to look for more classic cafe bars featured in
Regula Ysewijn's book
Belgian Cafe Culture.
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| Den Engel (left) and Den Bengel (right) |
Cafe Den Engel, Grote Markt 3, had seats outside in the full glare of the sun.
Regula Ysewijn writes 'Cafe Den Engel (the angel) ... is housed in a guildhall called 'White Angel'. ... The large guild houses on the Grote Markt were reconstructed in the 19th century in neo-renaissance and neo-gothic style to recreate its former glory. The original guild houses were demolished in the 18th century to enlarge the Grote Markt. ... In 1903 it became Cafe Den Engel. The interior with the wooden wall panelling and mirrors is from the same period.'
I was reluctant to sit inside with a coffee so continued into Braderijstraat and noticed that (rhyming) Cafe De Stengel (the stalk) is situated nearby!
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| Conscience - Jan Bosschaert (panorama) |
Wandering down the narrow twisting cobbled street of Oude Beurs involved passing a group on a walking tour and finding another
comic mural, at the junction of Wolstraat and Moriaanstraatje.
At the next corner is
Cafe de Kat, Wolstraat 22. Again I had arrived at a suitable coffee place 15 minutes too early as opening time here is 12 noon. Regula Ysewijn writes 'The story of De Kat starts around 1912 with first landlady Aurelia who gave the cafe its name. Apart from the tables all other interior dates from those early years. All the elements: the bar, the piano and mirrored wall panelling were designed to match and have the same inlaid wooden detail.'
With over an hour to wait until the opening of BierPassie at Groenplaats, I retraced my steps as far as
Caffe Mundi, Oude Beurs 24, where it was a relief to finally sit at an outside table in the shade and enjoy a flat white coffee.
Back at Groenplaats, the railings would be parted to allow entry at 1pm.
My first 20cl taster was
Botanik from the Gouden Carolus Indulgence range which is only available in 75cl bottles. I was keen to try this beer after visiting
Het Anker brewery in Mechelen with Simon on 23 March earlier this year. This 8.5% ABV special blonde beer was brewed using barley, wheat and Belgian hops. The ageing process for Botanik included two weeks with four natural botanicals - elderflower, angelica root, cloves and rosemary.
An advantage of this festival is the chance to taste a beer from a large bottle without needing friends to share it with.
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| Richard, Graham, Tim, Simon and Steve |
Friends soon arrived and we were able to find a rare shady spot although it was standing room only.
We were standing near the Brouwerij Huyghe bar where several Delirium beers were served as well as some new limited edition beers -
Paranoia and JI.PA.
Paranoia (5.6% ABV) was developed for the French market. I tried JI.PA (6.8% ABV / 45 IBU) but it was not a favourite. However, Keith Moore picked Delirium Black (Oak aged 2019), a 2 jetons (4 euros) 20 cl pour, as his favourite beer of the festival.
We had time for a few more beers before going to
De Groote Witte Arend for lunch at 2.30pm.
However, instead of lunching there I went to
Aura Brasserie, Hoogstraat 34, an old favourite, for a lunch of omelette, salad and bread accompanied by a 25cl bottle of
St Feuillien Grisette Blanche Bio.
A few draught beers are also available at Aura Brasserie which only opens on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and often features live music in the evenings.
By the time I rejoined the others in the courtyard at De Groote Witte Arend, they were only midway through their substantial meals.
Draught Brasserie de la Senne
Taras Boulba was the 4.5% ABV blonde beer I enjoyed here (25cl glass for 3.5 euro).
We finally departed just before 5pm and headed to nearby
Pelgrom at 15 Pelgrimstraat which Steve and I had previously visited on Thursday.
As hoped, the cellars here were reasonably cool although we could not sit in the main cellar area facing the bar this time.
With a range of 24 draught Belgian beers to choose from we were happy to stay here until 7.45pm and sample a few of them. It stayed cool but the noise levels rose when another group joined our table. My favourite beer on this occasion was
Troubadour Magma a 9% ABV Tripel IPA (45 IBU) by
Brouwerij The Musketeers.
Another Antwerp tradition for our group is a visit to
De Vagant at nearby Reyndersstraat 25 for Jenever shots. I accompanied the group there but drank a cup of coffee instead of flavoured Jenever.
The barman was interested to hear our opinion about Brexit and we reassured him that we look forward to remaining in the EU.
An hour later we were back at Groenplaats to spend the last of our beer tokens at BierPassie.
Saisons are my current favourite Belgian beer style and it was a treat to have a glass of chilled
Saison d'Erpe-Mere served from a 75cl bottle. This Saison does not use any herbs or spices to create its fruity and spicy profile (7.5% ABV, IBU 35).
There was a lively atmosphere at the beer festival and the Dixieland Street Band did a final circuit before we caught the tram (underground) from Groenplaats to Antwerp Centraal station.
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| (photo: Steve Kelly) |
From here it was a 500 metre walk north past Chinatown to reach
Beerlovers Bar, Rotterdamstraat 105.
It was very generous of Simon to pay for our drinks here!
With 12 draught beers available from the tap wall, I chose Embrace the Haze a Double New England IPA by
't Duo costing Simon 4.80 euros (25cl) and served in a stemmed glass branded with the bar's pentangle logo. Cheers!
Beerlovers Bar is a verified venue on
Untappd (
beerloversbar) so it is possible to use the app to keep track of what beers are on tap etc.. My Untappd (
timofnewbury) checkin for this beer also mentioned the 'tinny soundsystem' and was reposted on my Twitter account (@
timofnewbury).
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| L to R: Simon, Steve, Graham, Richard & Keith |
We had started off sitting inside at a big table near the entrance doorway but moved outside to a pavement table for our second beers (with Simon still paying the tab).
My glass at the empty seat in the photo now contained
Golden Tricky by
't Verzet, a 7.5% ABV, 40 IBU pale ale with tropical flavours from Australian Ella hops.
Around midnight we departed and Steve and I were able to catch a tram back to the stop near Hotel Rubenshof while Simon and the others (less Graham) headed to Dageraadplaats. Graham was staying on in Antwerp while Steve and I would next meet up with the others in Brussels on Sunday.
