Abbaye de Notre Dame d'Orval

A new day and a new monastery!

From Rochefort we drove South trough a beautiful and somewhat wild

landscape to Orval, just on the border to France. This is where you

fins the ancient monastery Abbaye de Notre Dame d'Orval, where the

unique trappist beer with the same name is brewed.

We were lucky enough to have François de Harenne, the manager of the
brewery, as our guide and host. He showed us all parts of the brewery
and shared many interesting facts and stories about this beautiful
beer. Brother Xavier, the chairman of the brewery company (fully owned
by the monastery) also came by to say hello.

Then we finished it all with a beer and a sandwich at the nearby Inn.

Abbaye St Remy - Trappist Rochefort

From Westmalle we drow South through a beautiful landscape to

Rochefort. Here you will find the Abbaye St Remy where the lovely

trappist beer Rochefort is brewed.

We met with brewing engineer (and

one of two brew masters) Gumer Santos, who was kind to show us around

the beautiful brewery. Afterwards we tasted some Rochefort 8 in their

tasting room.

In the evening we had a nice dinner in the village (I had pork with a

trappist sauce) and then stayed over in a small hotel.

Abdij der Trappisten van Westmalle

Yesterday evening we started our Trappist pilgrimage by driving from
Amsterdam to Westmalle. After checking in to a simple but sufficient
hotel we walked over to the official café of the Westmalle monastery,
Café Trappisten.

Of course we had to try a glass or two of their trappist beer
Westmalle when we were there - they also served what they called half
and half, a mix of Westmalle dubbel and tripel. We tried it together
with some of the monastic cheese. Nice!

This morning we visited the monastery, thanks brother Modestus.
Unfortunately we could not enter the brewery itself but it was
interesting to see the church and the courtyard. We also took the
chance to say hello to the cows that is the origin of the cheese :-)

Meetings and friends

Rise and shine! This morning I had lots more energy, so started early fixing the last things with Hypoxia, then sent it to the print shop. Always nice :-)
Met my old friend Krister for breakfast in Gamla Stan and then had a lunch meeting at Gondolen. If you haven't been there you should try it, their lunches are not much more expensive than others in Stockholm and service, food and views are all very good. I had some lovely wild boar.

In the afternoon I met up with former Kosovo colleagues Anders and Pettsson for beer and Raggmunk at Soldaten Svejk, my home away from home in Stockholm. We continued to Akkurat to check out their Belgian beers (as I am writing about Belgian beer bars we had to do thorough research) and here Micke, another old friend, met up. Ingrid and Pettsson had never tried geuze, so of course we ordered a beautiful oude geuze from Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen.

Somehow Micke and I ended up at Man in the Moon in the end, which was good for although the place as such is not very special they had a surprisingly healthy beer list, and also lots of vintage beer to reasonable prices. In other words an excellent opportunity to taste a 10 year old Chimay Bleue. Very interesting, with round sweet notes, almost a bit like sherry.

Belgian beer tasting in Stockholm

Tonight I arranged a Belgian beer tasting in stunning Stockholm. This time, it was not only stunningly beautiful, but also stunningly cold. Cue glowing, warming Belgian beer :-)
All in all we were 15 happy tasters, some friends, some paraglider pilots, some new faces. We started softly with a Maredsous 6 (blond), then continued with a wild shot, a La Trappe dubbel, La Trappe being from the Netherlands and the only Trappist beer not from Belgium.
As a tripel we retreated to the most classic in the genre, the Westmalle tripel (also a Trappist, from Northern Belgium).

After that we started to navigate the more unchartered waters of Belgian beer, although  no less beautiful. A Lindemans Cuvee Renée surprised the uninitiated being a Geuze and hence very sour (but also refreshing). The Vlaamse bourgougne/Oud Bruin-style Liefmans Goudenbrand was a new acquaintance for me, and a very pleasant one.
To round it off, we enjoyed the hoppiness of Houblon Chouffe, a beer from the charming little brewery in the Ardennes.

After lots of sniffing, tasting and comparing, we realized that the bottles were empty and the time was 23.45. So we did the only right thing - closed the tasting and walked over to Pressklubben, where we tried some more Belgians :-)

Belgian beer tasting

While in Stockholm, I arranged a Belgian beer tasting for mostly friends and fellow paraglider pilots. It's always a pleasure to spread the Belgian Gospel and see how the guests start to discover this new splendid universe.

We tasted following beers (in this order):
St Feuillien blonde
Chimay Grand Reserve
Westmalle Tripel
Oud Beersel Geuze
Bios Kriek
Orval

I was busy talking people through the tasting, but Fredrik Angrimer snapped a few photos with his mobile: