As we rode our bikes down narrow Wallonian country lanes not far removed from the outskirts of Tournai and our base camp at the Hotel d’Alcantara, a clear and warm Saturday afternoon suddenly turned blustery and overcast. The Cochonette-laced warm fuzzies from a lengthy session at Brasserie A Vapeur on its monthly brewing day dissipated rapidly in the face of a brisk headwind, made more formidable by legs still tired from the previous day’s mountain biking excursion in the woods and fields of the Pays du Collines.
However, the sobering return workout was all for the best, because a celebratory and surely taxing evening lay ahead.
Awaiting our return at the hotel were three Danes of the apocalypse: Kim Wiesener, Kim Andersen and Allan Gamborg. Coincidentally, they had gathered in Wallonia for the European soccer championships being held in the summer of 2000 at various venues throughout Belgium and the Netherlands, and after being made aware of the beercycling visit, conspired to include us in their itineraries.
These three cosmopolitan natives of Denmark are bosom friends of long standing, each of them multilingual, well-traveled and professionally accomplished in his chosen field. When a soccer match is taking place, each of them also is prone to reverting with dazzling speed to a childlike state, one understood internationally and intuitively by all sporting males.
Their life stories would fill a volume, and such a biographical rendering lies beyond my immediate task of describing the 2000 beercycling trip, but according to tradition, I’m permitted one digression. Here it is, in one of several versions.
Back in the day …
----
My friendship with the Danes goes back to 1987, and is inexorably intertwined with that of my illustrious longtime partner in crime, Barrie Ottersbach, who was unable to join us in Tournai in 2000.
That fateful summer of ‘87, an unsuspecting Kim Wiesener was the tour leader for a “youth” travel group visiting the Soviet Union and Poland, and Barrie and I were enthusiastic and only marginally youthful participants (we were 27).
Legend has it that Kim fell under Barrie’s spell (or was it the other way around?) on a hair-raising Aeroflot flight from Copenhagen to Moscow, where I joyously met the group, having arrived in the capital of the evil empire by way of a 36-hour train trip from Hungary during which I was kept company by a bag of fresh cherries, two loaves of bread, a salami from Szeged and two bottles of Bull’s Blood wine.
On the morning following the boozy evening of the group’s belated arrival, all of us were supposed to meet in the hotel lobby before setting out for a bus tour of Moscow. Kim was mildly concerned when Barrie failed to appear for roll call; I reassured him that all was well, and that Barrie was in safe hands, having ventured into the Soviet underworld with “Bill,” the friendly neighborhood black market sales representative who I’d met earlier under similar circumstances.
At that point, and not even a full day into the excursion, Kim understood that it would be a long journey, but he was reassured when Barrie appeared later that afternoon brandishing a softball-sized wad of colorful rubles. For the remainder of our stay in the USSR, Barrie gleefully depleted the ridiculously huge bankroll on lavish restaurant meals, caviar, vodka and champagne; beer was difficult to find, and the rubles worthless elsewhere in the world. For a brief time, Barrie himself occupied a sales representative position on the fringe of the black market, profitably reselling rubles back into hard currency for those members of our group who were too frightened or squeamish to trade on the streets.
This introductory lesson in entrepreneurial initiative duly completed, we moved on to Leningrad by overnight express train just in time for an impromptu Fourth of July celebration. Kim, Barrie and I gathered on the grassy, mosquito-infested bank of an urban canal, a scene made complete when a bottle of the finest Russian vodka materialized from Kim’s backpack. Illuminated by the White Night, we were introduced for the first time to Allan, who was passing through the city with a tour group of his own.
Ominously, as the bottle was passed around, its contents ingested and people slowly got to know each other, Kim and Allan began speaking in hushed tones about Denmark’s answer to Barrie: Kim Andersen, hereafter to be known as Big Kim. Their descriptions of Big Kim were offered to us in impeccable English, although occasionally they would lapse into Danish or even Russian in search of the proper words to explain this larger-than-life phenomenon.
Brief stays in the oppressed Baltic lands of Latvia and Lithuania followed Leningrad, and then Warsaw and Krakow, with too many anecdotal tales to remember, much less relate: Hoisting Nick’s American flag above the hotel in Leningrad, and then watching him trading it to a railway employee for a huge tub of caviar … an elderly fellow tourist mistaking the liquid in our vodka bottle for mineral water and gulping it down on a scorching hot day at the Polish-Soviet border as we waited for the train’s wheel carriages to be changed … building the “Leaning Tower of Pivo” from empty export Carlsberg cans in a Riga hard currency bar … the well-endowed Danish lass Metta’s provocative push-ups at a meet-and-greet with Lithuanian students … wild going-away parties in Warsaw, where Barrie and I drank wine with our leggy blonde Polish tour guide and a few of the group’s stragglers before departing for the city’s cavernous train station and commencing desperate and futile foraging for food and drink prior to the long ride to Prague and our first taste of draft Pilsner Urquell.
Our amazing, hyperkinetic tour leader Kim W. was right in the thick of most of these anecdotes, and at the conclusion of the trip we exchanged addresses with him, promising to keep in touch. In fact, Barrie and Kim agreed to meet later that summer, when Barrie would return to Copenhagen for his flight back to the United States. You can bet that even then, Kim’s wheels were spinning: What could be done to bring Barrie and Bik Kim together in Copenhagen?
In the meantime, Barrie and I embarked upon the beer-based itinerary that we had plotted in advance for the remainder of our time in Europe, first traveling from Prague to Munich, where we met Don Barry and Bob Gunn for three epochal days of Bavarian beer hall carousing, then in the company of Bob to Paris and the D-Day beaches. Barrie and I crossed to Ireland aboard the “Guinness ferry”, meeting Tommy, a newspaperman and good friend of Don’s, and later watching U2 perform at the Cork soccer stadium, then experiencing the wonders of Brian and his “High-B” Hibernian Pub, and marveling at the classic pleasures of the Irish countryside.
As the revelry continued, I didn’t think there would be enough time for me to accompany Barrie to Denmark and then double back to Brussels and my own return flight, but at a pub somewhere in Ireland, after my tenth pint of Guinness, I changed my mind.
Barrie and I concocted a plan to surprise Kim Wiesener with my delightfully unexpected presence, and we refined the insidious plot over smoked salmon and Bailey’s Irish Cream (both charged to ever groaning credit cards) while aboard the ship back to France. In Paris, we caught an overnight train to Copenhagen, and contrary to so many plans that Barrie and I have made over the years, this one came perfectly to fruition.
Soon after debarking in Copenhagen we were reunited, burrowed safely in Kim’s tiny apartment with chilled Tuborgs in hand and songs in our hearts. Following opening toasts, our devious host divulged his own surprise: An evening with Big Kim had already been arranged. Finally, Ottersbach would meet Andersen, and the world was advised to forget the “Thrilla in Manila”; instead, onlookers were to get ready for the “Battle of the Titans,” to be held in the beer venue called the Elephant & Mouse, or Mouse and Elephant, where we were informed there would be copious quantities of draft Elephant beer, Carlsberg’s fine, sturdy and strong lager.
It was to be our first visit to the M & E, a small and dignified pub near the main square, where the only sign of identification above the front door is a small plaque depicting – what else? – a mouse and an elephant. On the second floor of the pub, a handmade elephant head adorns the wall behind the wall. Draft Elephant Beer pours from the snout; the tusk is the tap handle.*
Big Kim arrived along with Graham, a British friend who, like Kim Wiesener and I, chose to nurse just a couple of half-liter glasses (at $7 a pop, somewhat financially burdensome at the time) while watching the spectacle unfold. As predicted, Big Kim and Barrie proved to be perfectly matched human beings, both with a fondness for alcohol of any sort, hot and spicy food in large quantities, impossibly tall tales and jokes, and endless, infectious tsunamis of irresistible laughter.
Big Kim and Barrie approached the high-gravity Elephant Beer at full throttle, and much merriment ensued. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth one, Barrie stumbled; accounts vary, but we’ll gently infer that some of the Elephant Beer didn’t stay down.
Advantage, Andersen.
After several hours, and with monetary reserves reaching dangerously low levels, we decided to continue drinking at an establishment where Metta (of Lithuanian push-up fame) worked as a bartender. As we stood on the street corner contemplating taxi strategies, Big Kim suddenly broke free of the group and wildly staggered into the middle of the street in an effort to hail a cab to take him home. We quickly subdued him, dodging cars and loading him into our own taxi to proceed to the next planned stop.
With this unforced error of Big Kim’s, Ottersbach had again pulled even.
Now it was a brutal battle of attrition, with the clock ticking and everyone involved drunk and fatigued. Both Barrie and Big Kim made it through big export bottles of Pilsner Urquell at the second bar, after which we returned to Kim Wiesener’s apartment for obligatory nightcaps, the outcome still very much in doubt. Barrie and Big Kim both opened their bottled beers. Barrie finished his, but Big Kim stole away, ostensibly to use the toilet, and was found a short time later sleeping on the host’s bed.
Seemingly, it was a victory for Ottersbach, but as all concerned were physically unable to tally points in their besotted condition, the Battle of the Titans was fittingly declared a draw.
Many years have passed since that epic summer and our first meeting with Kim, Allan and Big Kim. Certainly all of us have changed, but the friendship lives on. We five have met many times, in many places, and too many for me to remember (Allan would love for me to relate the story of the “Danish lunch” at his apartment in 1989, the orange couch and the real meaning of P-F-L, but it will have to wait for another session), but they’ve all been special – as I knew the meeting in Tournai would be, even if Barrie couldn’t be a part of it.
----
So it was that the cyclists returning from the Renaissance brewer’s regularly scheduled seminar met the football-loving Danes at the hotel as scheduled, and we began haggling over the details of the evening’s festivities. The non-negotiable idea, as conveyed to me with much wagging of fingers, was to partake of the scheduled feast of lobster tail and ale at the Cave a Biere at the precise time of the hour-long break between matches, both of which were far too important for the aficionados to miss.
Barrie’s absence was widely lamented, and each of us resolved to drink one or more beers for him, although we recognized that it would have taken far more than that to keep him going had he actually been present.
We set off on foot to search for a suitable place to watch sports, and a big screen television was duly located in a café just off the main square. There we settled into the Turkey-Portugal match with the help of draft Hoegaarden Wit, which served as a gentle restorative following the biking and imbibing rigors of the day. I stole away and walked down to the riverfront to tell the matron at the Cave a Biere that we’d be a bit late for dinner owing to the imperative of sports. She rolled her eyes and smiled indulgently: Let boys be boys, and there’d still be enough food and beer left whenever we made it back.
Soon it became apparent that the critical match-up wasn’t taking place on the television screen. Much in the same way that Big Kim’s initial meeting with Barrie resembled a gladiatorial marathon, the merry Dane’s previous experience with Kevin Richards – an all-day beer-drinking session during one of Big Kim’s visits to New Albany – had been both effusive and expansive. Now there was renewal.
Appropriately, upon our arrival at the Cave for what was intended as a brief respite between matches, Kevin began urging Big Kim to join him at the high-gravity end of the Belgian brewing spectrum, and together they began despoiling the café’s excellent selection of Trappist ales: Rochefort, Chimay, Westmalle and Orval. The rest of us gamely followed suit, and to my surprise, as the stock of Trappists began to deplete to the accompaniment of a happily ringing cash register, the second soccer match was largely forgotten.
In short, yet another memorable evening had begun, and in the fashion of such gatherings, all betting ceased, and an internal logic took over. It would have to be respected.
Lobster tails and side orders of potatoes and vegetables soon appeared on the table and were quickly devoured, and the steady stream of Belgian ale, divided among the usual suspects, produced the expected tomfoolery and an escalating series of tales that purported to depict exploits of past drinking bouts. I recall a cell phone appearing, and an attempt to call Barrie. In the general cacophony, it isn’t clear whether the call ever went through, although our absent Musketeer later swore that not only was the call duly received, but that the phone was never properly shut off and he was left with twenty minutes of jocularity recorded on his answering machine for perpetual enjoyment.
The otherwise stern matron of the Cave seemed much amused at our antics and presided over the international gathering with grace, going so far as to pose willingly for a photo with Buddy. I made no attempt to take notes on the beers or to record what I’d sampled, seeing as all were old favorites that had treated me well before, and could be expected to be as forgiving again.
Bob blessed the raucous group numerous times: “Here’s to us … ” Kim, Allan and I recalled our previous 1999 meeting in Moscow, reliving the evening of the metal detector at the brewpub, the private table dancer who wasn’t minding the mint, and shoes filled with Volga mud. Big Kim and Kevin continued knocking them back at a prodigious pace.
At some point much later in the evening, through the haze of three too many Trappists, but after there had been a monetary settlement, I watched as Kevin, Big Kim, Allan and Bob Reed suddenly rose from their seats and filed out with the solemnity of a funeral procession – except it was they who were embalmed. Their destination was unclear. Apparently it was time to go, so Kim Wiesener and I pulled Buddy from the arms of our hostess and the three of us began weaving back to the hotel through darkened, damp streets, kicking at the litter left behind by revelers on a festive summer’s evening.
It was a stone cold sleep. I was curious next morning, so I asked Kevin: When you left the Cave, was it because Allan had called a taxi to take all of you back to the hotel? Kevin scratched his head and confessed to not remembering whether they had been driven or walked. Moments later, I asked Bob the same question, and he couldn’t recall, either. Suspecting it would be useless to ask Big Kim, I received confirmation of the taxi order from a shrugging Allan.
We went our separate ways on Sunday morning after breakfast, the Danes moving out by rental car to attend the next Eurocup match-up, and the bikers heading west by train to Poperinge and the second phase of the journey.
In the next installment, we commence a love affair with the good people of Poperinge.
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* Sadly, the pub is no more.
Showing posts with label Tournai Belgium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tournai Belgium. Show all posts
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Thursday, September 18, 2014
2. Belgian Beercycling 2000: Tournai warm-up, Cave a Bieres and Pays du Collines.
The city of Tournai seldom surfaces as part of prospective Belgian beer-hunting itineraries, and on the surface of it, the omission is perfectly understandable. The city itself no longer possesses working breweries, and there is only one specialty beer café, Cave de Bieres, that is worthy of mention in the British writer Tim Webb’s essential book, “The Good Beer Guide to Belgium and Holland.”*
In spite of this, we elected to make this city of 70,000 people our home for the first three full days of the biking and beer-hunting Belgian holiday. Our choice reflected Tournai’s relative proximity to good beer and the breweries that make it, and also because our choice of accommodations, the Hotel d’Alcantara, had inexpensive bikes available that we could use to reach the beer.
In the end, our choice proved to be a quite good one. To be sure, Tournai’s tourist infrastructure is scant compared with better known Belgian destinations, but as a bonus beyond the reasons of beer proximity cited above, Tournai is intriguing in its own right. The city was founded as a Roman settlement, and like most comparably sized urban areas, it was ceded, swapped and passed around to various feudal and imperial powers for much of its history. There is a relaxed and pleasing mixture of new and old Europe.
Tournai suffered damage in both of the 20th-century’s European conflagrations, but in WWII it had the distinction of being the first Belgian city to be liberated from the Nazis. Tournai’s trademark postcard photo is of the imposing, five-towered Cathedrale de Notre-Dame; there is a squat but massive 13th-century bridge across the Escaut River; and the Grand Place (or central square), which otherwise functions as a huge car park, boasts a strange on-again, off-again sidewalk fountain made possible by EU developmental funds. The square is ringed by respectable, if not spectacular, pubs and cafes where the thirsty beer traveler can reliably find mid-range selections as well as predictably good espresso and snacks.
Roughly ten miles west of Tournai is the French city of Lille. We didn’t have time to visit Lille, but it is considered a center of northern French brewing, with many beer bars in the city center and breweries in its outskirts. The Brunehaut brewery is located ten miles south; it dates from 1992 and makes several fine ales available for sampling in Tournai. One beer that stood out from the rest was a specialty Brunehaut ale spiked with genever, Belgium’s distilled counterpart to gin.
Twenty miles northeast of Tournai is the region known as the Pays du Collines, which is a rural area of low hills, towns, patches of woods, farms, and a recently renewed focus on eco-tourism. With the invaluable assistance of a Hotel d’Alcantara staffer, we booked a guided mountain bike tour of the Pays du Collines for our second day in town.
Ten miles east of Tournai there is perhaps the best concentration of small breweries that you’ll find in Belgium, all of them situated in perhaps a two-square mile area: Dubuisson, maker of the incredible Bush strong ale (known as Scaldis in the USA); Dupont, brewer of classic Saison ales; and Vapeur, the archaic steam-powered museum/brewery that we scheduled for a visit on Day Three.
Before mountain biking Friday and brewery schmoozing Saturday, there was an open biking day Thursday. We had plenty of raw adrenalin, but not much of a plan. Having examined the four bikes and found them to be rickety but serviceable, we chatted with the friendly hotel manager, who suggested charting a course for Mont St. Aubert, a few miles north of Tournai. This choice was as good as any, so we followed the manager’s directions.
Along the way, our quartet received an introduction to the joys of biking and bruising over dry cobblestoned streets; wet cobblestones were yet to come and provide thrills of an even greater magnitude. These gave way to smoother paved roads as we left the inner city area and entered the more modern districts on the outskirts. We followed the signs into the countryside, where we could clearly see the hill ahead looming of us. Climbing it was a challenge, with each of us having only a handful of gears in operating condition, but we made it to the top and were rewarded with a spectacular view of Tournai and the surrounding region.
Actually, some of us made it in better condition than others. When you see Buddy Sandbach at the Public House, ask him the French pronunciation of “Ralph.” Curiously, it’s almost the same as the American.
Bob Reed had thoughtfully procured a map of the area, and using it we rode off on country lanes, through the surrounding farmlands and their reassuring aromas of fodder and dung, eventually coming to the town of Pecq. From there we took immaculately groomed bike paths along the river back into Tournai.
It was unlikely that we rode more than 15 miles all day, but the historical significance of this inaugural bicycling foray simply cannot be exaggerated. It didn’t matter at all that the bicycles were inferior. During the course of European travels dating back to 1985, I’d traveled by rail, bus, boat, automobile, and on foot. All of the previous experiences were special in their own way, but in the year 2000 – for the first time in years – I felt exhilaration and the pure joy of discovery. Perhaps rediscovery is a better word. Kevin Richards and I had talked about it for months, and now we’d done it, and I immediately understood that I was hooked. Puffing up Mont St. Aubert, I knew that Europe would never again be the same for me.
We were judicious in keeping it short the first day, and spent the remainder of the afternoon walking through town, pausing to have a restorative ale in the since-departed street level café of the Hotel Europ (a Bush Blonde, arguably the easiest drinking 10.5% ale that Belgian brewers have conceived), then dining on beefsteak and fries at a nearby restaurant.
One must wait until 5:00 p.m. to enter the aforementioned Cave a Bieres, Tournai’s finest specialty beer café, which is located by the river in a former storage cellar. It’s worth the delay.
Cave a Bieres is a variant of “shotgun” bar filling space below street level in a venerable old European warehouse. The walls and vaulted brick ceiling are painted white, with a small bar, big wooden tables and chairs lining both sides of a central walkway, and Belgian brewing memorabilia nailed everywhere. The café is run by a male head waiter and a female chef, perhaps husband and wife, perhaps not, but with the latter being firmly and fixedly in charge of the proceedings, which in addition to a bottled beer list of 75 to 100 choices includes typical Belgian café snacks, and as we were to discover on Saturday evening, excellent full meals on weekends.
Settling in, I concentrated on regional ales: Brunehaut, Quintine and Dupont. Vapeur was available, but there’d be plenty of that on Saturday at the monthly brewing day in Pipaix.
On Friday morning following an exemplary hotel breakfast, it was time for yet another new adventure. We were met in the lobby by our guide for the day’s pre-arranged mountain biking excursion. Etienne, a teacher, coach and superbly conditioned all-around athlete, loaded us into his pristine van for the trip to the rural Pays du Collines.
At a sparkling new athletic club in a town on the periphery, we were introduced to our bikes and to Etienne’s bubbly aunt, who would be following us in her car and stopping with us to provide periodic commentary in English. Etienne confessed to speaking only French, but as usually is the case in such times, we were able to communicate wonderfully through gestures and snippets. With regard to mountain biking technique, Etienne showed us what to do, and we followed his lead.
Off we pedaled into the beautiful natural area for an unforgettable day. For Bob, Buddy and I, it was a first-time experience on a mountain bike off road in the rough – over steep hills in the mud, across dirt paths in wide, cleared fields, and through old railroad cuts in the woods. Kevin and Etienne bonded immediately, finding in their love of all sporting endeavors a common language. Along the way we stopped at a traditional farmstead to view an ancient mill under restoration and visited a museum of local culture.
Two hours into the ride, Etienne took us to his mother’s rectangular brick farmstead for juice, coffee and pastries, and then later in the village of Ellezelle there was a much appreciated re-hydration sag at the Brasserie Ellezelloise. The isolated country micro/brewpub makes high quality ales familiar for their stopper bottles, including Hercule, an intense, high-gravity sweet stout, and a style rarely seen in Belgium.
The brewery’s beer occasionally is found at other outlets in Ellezelle, including specially scheduled festive appearances at a local waist-high pedestal, upon which a statue of a mythical regional witch squats and glowers. The statue often is compared to the Mannekin-Pis in Brussels by virtue of its plumbing, meaning that on normal days one puts coins in the adjacent slot, and if the person is unlucky, only water comes out from beneath the witch’s skirt … but during those magical times, beer flows instead.
At the end of the afternoon, we retired to the posh local club within the athletic complex and drank a round of Hoegaardens: To Etienne, a superlative guide and true gentleman.
For a second consecutive evening back in Tournai, the consensus choice for dinner was couscous (kews-kews), the North African ethnic delight that is as widely available in Tournai as Chinese or Mexican food is in Louisville.
Perhaps it should be noted at this juncture that my newfound joy in biking was not accompanied by what I viewed as unnecessary restrictions like dieting or moderation in drinking. It struck me that the whole point in hard riding during the day was to justify the pleasure of massive meals and fine ale at night. This acknowledged, couscous proved to be ideally suited for an exercise regimen like ours. The tiny rice-like granules are in fact pasta; grilled sausages and skewered meats accompany the rich vegetable-based sauce, all of it uniquely spiced and smothered with fiery harissa sauce. Chickpeas and pine nuts appear alongside raisins and dates. The red wine is memorable.
At the hotel, sated, with a final round of ales safely beneath our belts, we slept well. Saturday would be the highlight of the Tournai segment of the trip: The ride to and from the monthly brewing day at Brasserie A Vapeur (the steam-operated brewery), followed by televised Eurocup soccer in Tournai, then a special meal of lobster at the Cave de Bieres, and best of all, the delightful company of three of my best European friends, Danes Kim Andersen, Kim Wiesener, and Allan Gamborg. They were in Belgium for the Eurocup, and had booked rooms at the a’Alcantara to meet us for one evening’s dining and drinking.
Tomorrow: Would the novice beercycling team survive?
---
* It's been 14 years. Is this still the case? And does the Cave still exist?
In spite of this, we elected to make this city of 70,000 people our home for the first three full days of the biking and beer-hunting Belgian holiday. Our choice reflected Tournai’s relative proximity to good beer and the breweries that make it, and also because our choice of accommodations, the Hotel d’Alcantara, had inexpensive bikes available that we could use to reach the beer.
In the end, our choice proved to be a quite good one. To be sure, Tournai’s tourist infrastructure is scant compared with better known Belgian destinations, but as a bonus beyond the reasons of beer proximity cited above, Tournai is intriguing in its own right. The city was founded as a Roman settlement, and like most comparably sized urban areas, it was ceded, swapped and passed around to various feudal and imperial powers for much of its history. There is a relaxed and pleasing mixture of new and old Europe.
Tournai suffered damage in both of the 20th-century’s European conflagrations, but in WWII it had the distinction of being the first Belgian city to be liberated from the Nazis. Tournai’s trademark postcard photo is of the imposing, five-towered Cathedrale de Notre-Dame; there is a squat but massive 13th-century bridge across the Escaut River; and the Grand Place (or central square), which otherwise functions as a huge car park, boasts a strange on-again, off-again sidewalk fountain made possible by EU developmental funds. The square is ringed by respectable, if not spectacular, pubs and cafes where the thirsty beer traveler can reliably find mid-range selections as well as predictably good espresso and snacks.
Roughly ten miles west of Tournai is the French city of Lille. We didn’t have time to visit Lille, but it is considered a center of northern French brewing, with many beer bars in the city center and breweries in its outskirts. The Brunehaut brewery is located ten miles south; it dates from 1992 and makes several fine ales available for sampling in Tournai. One beer that stood out from the rest was a specialty Brunehaut ale spiked with genever, Belgium’s distilled counterpart to gin.
Twenty miles northeast of Tournai is the region known as the Pays du Collines, which is a rural area of low hills, towns, patches of woods, farms, and a recently renewed focus on eco-tourism. With the invaluable assistance of a Hotel d’Alcantara staffer, we booked a guided mountain bike tour of the Pays du Collines for our second day in town.
Ten miles east of Tournai there is perhaps the best concentration of small breweries that you’ll find in Belgium, all of them situated in perhaps a two-square mile area: Dubuisson, maker of the incredible Bush strong ale (known as Scaldis in the USA); Dupont, brewer of classic Saison ales; and Vapeur, the archaic steam-powered museum/brewery that we scheduled for a visit on Day Three.
Before mountain biking Friday and brewery schmoozing Saturday, there was an open biking day Thursday. We had plenty of raw adrenalin, but not much of a plan. Having examined the four bikes and found them to be rickety but serviceable, we chatted with the friendly hotel manager, who suggested charting a course for Mont St. Aubert, a few miles north of Tournai. This choice was as good as any, so we followed the manager’s directions.
Along the way, our quartet received an introduction to the joys of biking and bruising over dry cobblestoned streets; wet cobblestones were yet to come and provide thrills of an even greater magnitude. These gave way to smoother paved roads as we left the inner city area and entered the more modern districts on the outskirts. We followed the signs into the countryside, where we could clearly see the hill ahead looming of us. Climbing it was a challenge, with each of us having only a handful of gears in operating condition, but we made it to the top and were rewarded with a spectacular view of Tournai and the surrounding region.
Actually, some of us made it in better condition than others. When you see Buddy Sandbach at the Public House, ask him the French pronunciation of “Ralph.” Curiously, it’s almost the same as the American.
Bob Reed had thoughtfully procured a map of the area, and using it we rode off on country lanes, through the surrounding farmlands and their reassuring aromas of fodder and dung, eventually coming to the town of Pecq. From there we took immaculately groomed bike paths along the river back into Tournai.
It was unlikely that we rode more than 15 miles all day, but the historical significance of this inaugural bicycling foray simply cannot be exaggerated. It didn’t matter at all that the bicycles were inferior. During the course of European travels dating back to 1985, I’d traveled by rail, bus, boat, automobile, and on foot. All of the previous experiences were special in their own way, but in the year 2000 – for the first time in years – I felt exhilaration and the pure joy of discovery. Perhaps rediscovery is a better word. Kevin Richards and I had talked about it for months, and now we’d done it, and I immediately understood that I was hooked. Puffing up Mont St. Aubert, I knew that Europe would never again be the same for me.
We were judicious in keeping it short the first day, and spent the remainder of the afternoon walking through town, pausing to have a restorative ale in the since-departed street level café of the Hotel Europ (a Bush Blonde, arguably the easiest drinking 10.5% ale that Belgian brewers have conceived), then dining on beefsteak and fries at a nearby restaurant.
One must wait until 5:00 p.m. to enter the aforementioned Cave a Bieres, Tournai’s finest specialty beer café, which is located by the river in a former storage cellar. It’s worth the delay.
Cave a Bieres is a variant of “shotgun” bar filling space below street level in a venerable old European warehouse. The walls and vaulted brick ceiling are painted white, with a small bar, big wooden tables and chairs lining both sides of a central walkway, and Belgian brewing memorabilia nailed everywhere. The café is run by a male head waiter and a female chef, perhaps husband and wife, perhaps not, but with the latter being firmly and fixedly in charge of the proceedings, which in addition to a bottled beer list of 75 to 100 choices includes typical Belgian café snacks, and as we were to discover on Saturday evening, excellent full meals on weekends.
Settling in, I concentrated on regional ales: Brunehaut, Quintine and Dupont. Vapeur was available, but there’d be plenty of that on Saturday at the monthly brewing day in Pipaix.
On Friday morning following an exemplary hotel breakfast, it was time for yet another new adventure. We were met in the lobby by our guide for the day’s pre-arranged mountain biking excursion. Etienne, a teacher, coach and superbly conditioned all-around athlete, loaded us into his pristine van for the trip to the rural Pays du Collines.
At a sparkling new athletic club in a town on the periphery, we were introduced to our bikes and to Etienne’s bubbly aunt, who would be following us in her car and stopping with us to provide periodic commentary in English. Etienne confessed to speaking only French, but as usually is the case in such times, we were able to communicate wonderfully through gestures and snippets. With regard to mountain biking technique, Etienne showed us what to do, and we followed his lead.
Off we pedaled into the beautiful natural area for an unforgettable day. For Bob, Buddy and I, it was a first-time experience on a mountain bike off road in the rough – over steep hills in the mud, across dirt paths in wide, cleared fields, and through old railroad cuts in the woods. Kevin and Etienne bonded immediately, finding in their love of all sporting endeavors a common language. Along the way we stopped at a traditional farmstead to view an ancient mill under restoration and visited a museum of local culture.
Two hours into the ride, Etienne took us to his mother’s rectangular brick farmstead for juice, coffee and pastries, and then later in the village of Ellezelle there was a much appreciated re-hydration sag at the Brasserie Ellezelloise. The isolated country micro/brewpub makes high quality ales familiar for their stopper bottles, including Hercule, an intense, high-gravity sweet stout, and a style rarely seen in Belgium.
The brewery’s beer occasionally is found at other outlets in Ellezelle, including specially scheduled festive appearances at a local waist-high pedestal, upon which a statue of a mythical regional witch squats and glowers. The statue often is compared to the Mannekin-Pis in Brussels by virtue of its plumbing, meaning that on normal days one puts coins in the adjacent slot, and if the person is unlucky, only water comes out from beneath the witch’s skirt … but during those magical times, beer flows instead.
At the end of the afternoon, we retired to the posh local club within the athletic complex and drank a round of Hoegaardens: To Etienne, a superlative guide and true gentleman.
For a second consecutive evening back in Tournai, the consensus choice for dinner was couscous (kews-kews), the North African ethnic delight that is as widely available in Tournai as Chinese or Mexican food is in Louisville.
Perhaps it should be noted at this juncture that my newfound joy in biking was not accompanied by what I viewed as unnecessary restrictions like dieting or moderation in drinking. It struck me that the whole point in hard riding during the day was to justify the pleasure of massive meals and fine ale at night. This acknowledged, couscous proved to be ideally suited for an exercise regimen like ours. The tiny rice-like granules are in fact pasta; grilled sausages and skewered meats accompany the rich vegetable-based sauce, all of it uniquely spiced and smothered with fiery harissa sauce. Chickpeas and pine nuts appear alongside raisins and dates. The red wine is memorable.
At the hotel, sated, with a final round of ales safely beneath our belts, we slept well. Saturday would be the highlight of the Tournai segment of the trip: The ride to and from the monthly brewing day at Brasserie A Vapeur (the steam-operated brewery), followed by televised Eurocup soccer in Tournai, then a special meal of lobster at the Cave de Bieres, and best of all, the delightful company of three of my best European friends, Danes Kim Andersen, Kim Wiesener, and Allan Gamborg. They were in Belgium for the Eurocup, and had booked rooms at the a’Alcantara to meet us for one evening’s dining and drinking.
Tomorrow: Would the novice beercycling team survive?
---
* It's been 14 years. Is this still the case? And does the Cave still exist?
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
1. Belgian Beercycling 2000: From Brussels to the Tournai base camp in less than 15 drinks.
Here’s to us.
May we never quarrel or fuss.
But if by chance we should disagree,
#%@* you, and here’s to me.
-- A toast to cycling togetherness, as masterfully articulated by Bob Reed.
I was in the process of stuffing bags into a coin-operated storage locker at the disconcertingly subterranean Centrale (rail) Station in Brussels when suddenly Buddy Sandbach popped around the corner, having spotted Kevin Richards strolling out on the concourse. Buddy was freshly arrived in Brussels from Amsterdam, where he had spent several days fulfilling his longtime dream of viewing Holland’s many and varied species of, er, tulips.
Kevin and I had flown together from Louisville, via Atlanta. Buddy’s unexpectedly early debut in Brussels put us squarely ahead of schedule, which loomed large, for it might easily translate at some point down the road into free time for an extra beer.
And besides looming large, free time for an extra beer almost always is a good omen.
After a pitfall or three in pursuit of a place to store Buddy’s various bags and prized bulbs -- these obstacles being overcome in spite of the best efforts of an obstructionist baggage room bureaucrat named Eric – the transaction finally was arranged, stairs were mounted, and we met the bustling streets outside the station. Signage and a handy public map determined the course that would take us to the famed Grand Place, the ornate central square pictured on boxes of Belgian chocolate shipped worldwide.
The giddy enthusiasm one feels when returning to a great city, as in my case, or visiting it for the very first time like Kevin and Buddy, always makes it easy to ignore trifles like kamikaze taxi drivers and intermittent drizzly rain, and so we dodged these impediments and rushed into a bustling, vibrant urban environment filled with touristy restaurants and their multi-lingual menu offerings, the delivery vans of florists and family butcher firms, tacky souvenir stands, suavely attired Euro-businessmen and even the occasional tattoo parlor.
Would they really etch a genuine facsimile of the famed Mannekin-Pis-Boy into your virgin rump while you wait? I wasn’t eager to know, but too cynical to rule it out.
The Grand Place remains the place for aficionados of gilded guild halls, and the ambience was duly photographed even if it cannot be adequately captured on film. When the clicking of shutters had subsided, I broke the news to my friends as gently as I could: From the beer traveler’s rarified point of view, truly noteworthy cafes from which to view the splendid architectural setting weren’t likely to be found around the square itself, where rents are sky high and cautious sightseers demand predictable pilsners.
However, there was time to kill before Bob Reed’s arrival at the pre-arranged meeting point of the front door at Maison des Brasseurs (a brewing museum), and the steadily escalating rain suggested to us that any nearby café would do in a pinch. Accordingly, we entered the café known as the White Rose, which had an above average list and provided the perfect vantage point to watch for Bob.
The uniformed waiter brought the first of three rounds to our low wooden table by the open window. Through it wafted the echoes of scattered throngs in the square and the steady drumbeat of rain on cobblestones, and while the White Rose isn’t the best beer café in Brussels, it is by no means the worst. My first three beers of the trip were Palm (Belgian pale ale), Rodenbach (sour red ale from West Flanders) and Rochfort 8º (heavenly Trappist ale) -- three choices you’d love to have anywhere while mulling the meaning of life.
Many soggy tourists crossed the expanse beyond our window, and among them we soon spotted an angular Bob loping across the pavement wrapped in a brilliant reddish-orange rain poncho. We motioned him inside and had another round. Soon the rain dissipated, and we were back on the streets in search of food and drink.
Historically, Brussels and environs are lambic country, and on previous trips to Belgium I’d begun to develop a taste for the funky nectar. The next two cafes we patronized both were located in the warren of streets beyond the Grand Place, and they yielded good examples of Belgium’s indigenous, spontaneously fermented specialty.
At Notredame, there was Timmerman’s Faro; although by definition sweetened, the characteristically tangy lambic character still was present. At Toone, a textbook example of sharp, sour and rigorously authentic lambic, Cantillon Gueuze, was chased afterward with a smooth glass of Antwerp’s signature De Koninck ale. Three hours, six beers, and a veritable cross section of Belgian brewing … and all before dinner.
Our quartet’s quintessentially Belgian evening meal was composed of four pots of mussels, just as many baskets of crusty bread for soaking up the broth, and mounds of fries. After all, one must always eat vegetables for a balanced meal. My delicacies were washed down with famously balanced, deceptively drinkable Duvel, Belgium’s signature golden ale. It followed a draft portion of forgettable Jupiler mass-market lager, allegedly “bought” for us by the restaurant’s street hawker as an enticement to eat there, and which served as a valuable calibration beer in the sense that everything else I drank the entire day represented an improvement on the Jupiler.
Soon the mussels were gone, as was our afternoon in Brussels. It was time to return to the train station to reclaim luggage and embark for the hour-long ride to Tournai, a city located in French-speaking Hainaut province that we had chosen as our base for three days of cycling in the Wallonian countryside. Blessedly, we were early getting back, so there was the chance to have that extra, cherished, final beer -- and free time for an extra beer always is a good omen -- at a café across the street. Mine was Brugs Tarwebier, a citrusy, representative Belgian-style wheat ale. Blessedly, there was no orange slice to throw angrily at the server.
Rumbling through the suburbs aboard a nearly deserted train, our bountiful harvest of opening day libations suddenly became even more fruitful as Kevin magically produced a bottle of 40-year-old Noval port wine, technically a tawny port with indication of average age as pertains to the blending stocks, and not a vintage port as such, but no matter. Kevin Richards had cleverly procured the bottle from our fifth wheel, Kevin Lowber, who would be meeting us in Poperinge later in the trip. Having done so, he resolved to drink it early and often, and dissenting voices could not be found.
With little choice except to thumb our noses at propriety and universally accepted decanting protocol, we happily took turns imbibing the sinuous, concentrated nectar from two of Buddy’s souvenir Parisian shot glasses, watching tidy fields and shuttered small villages fly past as dusk approached. A taxi waited in front of the queue at the Tournai station, and two hundred Belgian francs later, we were deposited at the gate of the hotel.
This momentous first day in Belgium ended without bicycling, but with Chimay Trappist “blue” ales on the pleasant, landscaped terrace of the Hotel d’Alcantara, our base in Tournai. As we drank, toasting ourselves and the surroundings, which included bright hotel flower boxes and the lovely vista of a floodlit church spire, four ancient bicycles were spotted chained together in the corner of the walled courtyard. In a few hours, these would be our introduction to European biking … and my travel world would begin to change.
In the next installment: Tournai, couscous, a beer “cave” and steam-powered beer.
May we never quarrel or fuss.
But if by chance we should disagree,
#%@* you, and here’s to me.
-- A toast to cycling togetherness, as masterfully articulated by Bob Reed.
I was in the process of stuffing bags into a coin-operated storage locker at the disconcertingly subterranean Centrale (rail) Station in Brussels when suddenly Buddy Sandbach popped around the corner, having spotted Kevin Richards strolling out on the concourse. Buddy was freshly arrived in Brussels from Amsterdam, where he had spent several days fulfilling his longtime dream of viewing Holland’s many and varied species of, er, tulips.
Kevin and I had flown together from Louisville, via Atlanta. Buddy’s unexpectedly early debut in Brussels put us squarely ahead of schedule, which loomed large, for it might easily translate at some point down the road into free time for an extra beer.
And besides looming large, free time for an extra beer almost always is a good omen.
After a pitfall or three in pursuit of a place to store Buddy’s various bags and prized bulbs -- these obstacles being overcome in spite of the best efforts of an obstructionist baggage room bureaucrat named Eric – the transaction finally was arranged, stairs were mounted, and we met the bustling streets outside the station. Signage and a handy public map determined the course that would take us to the famed Grand Place, the ornate central square pictured on boxes of Belgian chocolate shipped worldwide.
The giddy enthusiasm one feels when returning to a great city, as in my case, or visiting it for the very first time like Kevin and Buddy, always makes it easy to ignore trifles like kamikaze taxi drivers and intermittent drizzly rain, and so we dodged these impediments and rushed into a bustling, vibrant urban environment filled with touristy restaurants and their multi-lingual menu offerings, the delivery vans of florists and family butcher firms, tacky souvenir stands, suavely attired Euro-businessmen and even the occasional tattoo parlor.
Would they really etch a genuine facsimile of the famed Mannekin-Pis-Boy into your virgin rump while you wait? I wasn’t eager to know, but too cynical to rule it out.
The Grand Place remains the place for aficionados of gilded guild halls, and the ambience was duly photographed even if it cannot be adequately captured on film. When the clicking of shutters had subsided, I broke the news to my friends as gently as I could: From the beer traveler’s rarified point of view, truly noteworthy cafes from which to view the splendid architectural setting weren’t likely to be found around the square itself, where rents are sky high and cautious sightseers demand predictable pilsners.
However, there was time to kill before Bob Reed’s arrival at the pre-arranged meeting point of the front door at Maison des Brasseurs (a brewing museum), and the steadily escalating rain suggested to us that any nearby café would do in a pinch. Accordingly, we entered the café known as the White Rose, which had an above average list and provided the perfect vantage point to watch for Bob.
The uniformed waiter brought the first of three rounds to our low wooden table by the open window. Through it wafted the echoes of scattered throngs in the square and the steady drumbeat of rain on cobblestones, and while the White Rose isn’t the best beer café in Brussels, it is by no means the worst. My first three beers of the trip were Palm (Belgian pale ale), Rodenbach (sour red ale from West Flanders) and Rochfort 8º (heavenly Trappist ale) -- three choices you’d love to have anywhere while mulling the meaning of life.
Many soggy tourists crossed the expanse beyond our window, and among them we soon spotted an angular Bob loping across the pavement wrapped in a brilliant reddish-orange rain poncho. We motioned him inside and had another round. Soon the rain dissipated, and we were back on the streets in search of food and drink.
Historically, Brussels and environs are lambic country, and on previous trips to Belgium I’d begun to develop a taste for the funky nectar. The next two cafes we patronized both were located in the warren of streets beyond the Grand Place, and they yielded good examples of Belgium’s indigenous, spontaneously fermented specialty.
At Notredame, there was Timmerman’s Faro; although by definition sweetened, the characteristically tangy lambic character still was present. At Toone, a textbook example of sharp, sour and rigorously authentic lambic, Cantillon Gueuze, was chased afterward with a smooth glass of Antwerp’s signature De Koninck ale. Three hours, six beers, and a veritable cross section of Belgian brewing … and all before dinner.
Our quartet’s quintessentially Belgian evening meal was composed of four pots of mussels, just as many baskets of crusty bread for soaking up the broth, and mounds of fries. After all, one must always eat vegetables for a balanced meal. My delicacies were washed down with famously balanced, deceptively drinkable Duvel, Belgium’s signature golden ale. It followed a draft portion of forgettable Jupiler mass-market lager, allegedly “bought” for us by the restaurant’s street hawker as an enticement to eat there, and which served as a valuable calibration beer in the sense that everything else I drank the entire day represented an improvement on the Jupiler.
Soon the mussels were gone, as was our afternoon in Brussels. It was time to return to the train station to reclaim luggage and embark for the hour-long ride to Tournai, a city located in French-speaking Hainaut province that we had chosen as our base for three days of cycling in the Wallonian countryside. Blessedly, we were early getting back, so there was the chance to have that extra, cherished, final beer -- and free time for an extra beer always is a good omen -- at a café across the street. Mine was Brugs Tarwebier, a citrusy, representative Belgian-style wheat ale. Blessedly, there was no orange slice to throw angrily at the server.
Rumbling through the suburbs aboard a nearly deserted train, our bountiful harvest of opening day libations suddenly became even more fruitful as Kevin magically produced a bottle of 40-year-old Noval port wine, technically a tawny port with indication of average age as pertains to the blending stocks, and not a vintage port as such, but no matter. Kevin Richards had cleverly procured the bottle from our fifth wheel, Kevin Lowber, who would be meeting us in Poperinge later in the trip. Having done so, he resolved to drink it early and often, and dissenting voices could not be found.
With little choice except to thumb our noses at propriety and universally accepted decanting protocol, we happily took turns imbibing the sinuous, concentrated nectar from two of Buddy’s souvenir Parisian shot glasses, watching tidy fields and shuttered small villages fly past as dusk approached. A taxi waited in front of the queue at the Tournai station, and two hundred Belgian francs later, we were deposited at the gate of the hotel.
This momentous first day in Belgium ended without bicycling, but with Chimay Trappist “blue” ales on the pleasant, landscaped terrace of the Hotel d’Alcantara, our base in Tournai. As we drank, toasting ourselves and the surroundings, which included bright hotel flower boxes and the lovely vista of a floodlit church spire, four ancient bicycles were spotted chained together in the corner of the walled courtyard. In a few hours, these would be our introduction to European biking … and my travel world would begin to change.
In the next installment: Tournai, couscous, a beer “cave” and steam-powered beer.
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