Brugge - The Amsterdam of Beer

For those who have never heard of Brugge, it's a small, well preserved town in the a region of Belgium called West Flanders. The old part of town hasn't changed much since the middle ages (other than the standard decimation by war). It's a pleasant 3-4 hour journey by Eurostar (connect in Brussels) from London.

For those who have never heard of Amsterdam, you're probably the type of person who thinks caffeine is bad and you're not going to be reading this blog.

Belgium is the heart of the beer world. Interbrew, the owner of most international beer brands, had their start in Belgium. Belgium has produced more styles of beer than any other nation I can think of. I've had a fair amount bad beer in my days, and I've had a fair amount of Belgain beer. I can safely say that Belgians don't make bad beer. There may be one or two out there that suck (Stella anyone?), but the number beers with an amazing, unique taste dwarf the numbers.

My favourite bar in Brugge is easily 't Brugs Beertje. It's down a tiny little street and is flanked by two cosy Belgian style restaurants. You walk inside and no matter what time of the year, it's completely packed. There are three drinking rooms that stretch down the narrow central corridor. The front room is where the main bar is. That's where the best atmosphere is. To reach the next room, you have to squeeze yourself through the inevitable bottleneck at the end of the bar. There's more tables and chairs and, because its not completely enclosed, doesn't loose too much of the ambiance. The third room is past the second, then past the toilets. You think you're going outside, but there's a door to a back-bar. I have been to this place on three separate trips and the bar in the back has never been open - although you can still sit. You've got to either wait for table service, or go all the way to the front bar to get your beer. Personally, I'd rather stand in the front.

If you're lucky to get a seat, search for the beer menu. The menu is a massive, 20-page binder, packed with every Belgian beer you've never heard of. While there are a handful of taps, almost all of the beer selection is out of the bottle, but when the server brings you your drinks, they will pour the beer into the appropriate glass in the appropriate manor. Every beer has its own special glass and its own special pouring method. Belgians take their beer seriously.

Choose your beer carefully; Ask the staff for a recommendation; Tell them what sort of beer you typically like. If you choose too hastily, you'll end up with chocolate covered insect flavoured beer. The Belgians make beer out of anything and everything. Another very important consideration is that there is no standard alcohol level. In most places, the alcohol content of beer is fairly standard and you don't need to double check. For instance, in Canada, 95% of all beer is 4.5-5.5%. This is not the case in Belgium. I've had a 10.5% beer accidentally. I ordered it before looking at the fine print. It was excellent and I probably would have continued ordering it until I woke up in a hospital. Another way they trick you (the bastards) is they sometime use the proof symbol instead of the normal %. Alcohol proof is typically twice the alcohol % of ABV. Normally, when I see something that is 14°, I'll assume it's 7%. Be very careful!

The comparisons to Amsterdam are many. The vast selection, the numerous pubs and bars on every corner, the bicycles, and unfortunately, the British. Amsterdam has the Red Light District, Brugge has the Market area. The area I speak of isn't actually in the market. There is a small square just off the NW corner of the market. There you'll find four "pubs" with Sky Sports showing and jam packed with people who are in Brugge and ordering Strongbow or Guiness or anything that isn't Belgian beer. This is a good thing for two reasons. Firstly, Brits don't just drink beer - they get pissed out of their minds. They'd have to have a detox centre next door if the Brits were getting pissed on Belgian beer. Secondly, because all of the Brits are contained within a small area, the rest of the world are free to roam from bar to bar and avoid that bit of unpleasantness.

Like Amsterdam, Brugge is one of those places that I've been several times and would return at the drop of a hat. Everything about the place is fantastic. The architecture, the chocolate, the beer, the bars, the food, etc. I love Brugge.

10/10

Sports, Beer, no Mexican

The Sports Centre Cafe
49 St. Clair Avenue West, 416.928.9525


Toronto's entry for the best sports bar will surprise you. The Sportscentre Cafe boasts three distinct sections all with their own ways to spend the evening.


The entry to the bar is roughly five steps down from the street in the basement floor of what looks to be an office building. Did I mention the Sports Centre Cafe will suprise you? Well it did me because it took me about 15 minutes in the freezing cold to find the place. The awning shown above (courtesy of blog.to) is the only sign of a social gathering place whatsoever. Kinda reminds of Cheers in that way. Don't be fooled, nobody knows your name here, nor do they intend to learn it. You're actually pretty lucky to see a server within shouting distance if they're not motivated to get you out quickly. At any rate, the front room, which I had originally mistaken for the entire bar -- ironically, the same thing happened to me in Cheers -- has a cozy feel. Approximately eight booths, with private flatscreen TV's, are surrounded by a few island tables. There are a few blindspots in this area which can be overcome if you have a booth with one of those fancy flat-screens. Tables, well you might only want to sit two or three since someone might not be able to see. A walkway from the door to the back divides this section from the bar and a few high chairs and tables near the front window. Not a bad room on it's own, but no place for rowdiness.

If you're crazy enough to venture past the bathrooms, Buckhunter AND Golden Tee then you'll find yourself in what I like to call, the "theatre area." Pretty much just a bunch of tables sitting in front of a huge projection screen. It's touted to be one of the best places to watch a Leafs game and I'd probably agree. So if you're a loser, this is definitely the place to be. There's also a few flat-screen equiped booths along the side in case you're one of those platinum seat types that doesn't want to be slobbered on by the shoutin-mad Leaf Nation after another humiliating loss. Just remember, the Leafs play EEEEVERY Saturday night so don't miss your chance to view one of life's spectacles. Did I mention this back section has it's own bar? The ying and the yang I guess.

Speaking of spectacle, just over the back railing of the "theatre area" is the Sports Centre Cafe's "gaming gym" (also what I like to call it). In a hole about the size of a quarter of a basketball court is the gaming area. I didn't spend any time there, but I recall seeing everything you'd want, pool tables, air hockey, foosball, arcade basketball and God knows what else. I can't imagine the service in this section to be any better than the front, but at least the "theatre area" bar is nearby.

So things don't sound so great for the Sports Centre Cafe. It seems to have all the makings of a great sports bar, but it falls prey to bad food, bad service and a bad team. Maybe someday Sports Centre Cafe, maybe someday.

Rating: On a scale of 1 to 1,000. 1 = Horrible
1,000 = College Inn

Sports Centre Cafe receives .... 6

Not too bad.

Imported Beer

Simpld fact: beer does not travel well. Any beer that does travel is saturated with chemicals to the point that its not worth drinking. Because of this fact, major beer brands are licensed to local brewers to produce. Of course, there's also the transportation and duty savings, but every imported beer I've ever had tasted like shit. In Canada, Bud is brewed by Labatt and visa versa. Before they merged, Coors and Molson had a reciprocal brewing agreement. In the UK, all of the major lagers are brewed in the UK. Carlsburg, Kronembourg, and as every aussie with attest, Fosters. Taste aside, the biggest reason to stay clear of drinking excess imported beer (or cheap, local lager) is the resulting hangover. I've found that chemical preservatives lead to killer hangovers.

India Pale Ales were invented specifically for exporting to India. They used unroasted (or very little) malt which contained a much higher sugar content. When brewed, the extra sugar yealded a much higher alcohol volume. Since alcohol is a natural preservative, it kept the beer from going bad over the long voyage to India. Modern IPAs don't have as much in common with their ancestors. They're typically somewhere between a lager and an ale in taste and rarely contains more than 5.5%.

Growing up, having never left the continent, I didn't understand this important knowledge. I've always thought German beer was vastly inferior to my local Canadian brew. When compared to any of Canada's premium beers, it just didn't stand up. I chalked this up to the fact that, similarly to Canada, they only exported their rubbish and kept the good beer for the locals. Who drinks Molson Golden?

About four years ago, I went on a month long solo trek through Europe. One of my destinations, the fatherland of the pilsner (Czech Republic) was a fantastic introduction to the joys of European beer. It may have been the 50c 1/2L beers, but the Czechs have some fantastic beer. They've got a bunch of national lagers (Starropramen, Pilsner Urquell, Budwiser [the original]), but their local breweries were outstanding. Another stop on my trip was Munich during Oktoberfest. At the time, I didn't think there was any topping the Czech beer, but the Oktoberfest beers took my breath away. They were, by far, the finest beers I've ever had. The Bavians know how to make beer. I'll soon get to relive these amazing beers this September when I return to Oktoberfest.

When I got home from my trip, my mind was wide open to the possibilities of world beer. I found myself craving Czech and German beer. I found some Pilsner Urquell at the beer store and bought a case. I was devistated to find that, not only was it not what I remembered, but it was down right awful. What I learned that day is that beer doesn't travel well. Stick with the local stuff, no matter where you are, and you'll enjoy yourself and the morning after.

Pub Games

It's difficult to find good pub games these days. In the UK, they're mostly long gone. You'll find a few here or there, such as Bar Billiards (see image) which I got to play once in east London, but even the staples are difficult to find. Bar Billards was actually a blast to play and it can be played with a bunch of people. Me and some friends were in the area looking for a place to watch a world cup matchlast summer when we stumbled upon this game. There were some laminated rules for the game, but though the words were english, we had no idea what they said. We played as best we could for a bit until the cook came running out to scold us for doing it wrong. After a brief instruction we got to playing it for real. The game consists of hitting the white ball from the same position each time. You strike one of the other balls and try and get one or more balls into the holes on the table sufrace without knocking over any of the skittles.

I'm sure these sort of games exist more frequently outside of central London, but I rarely get out to the sticks. You won't find pool, darts or even foosball. Your only distraction is the weekly pub quiz that many pubs put on where you and your team mates put your wits against others in the pub. I rarely play since I can rarely answer any of the questions. They're all to do with British pop culture and music which doesn't make its way across the Atlantic very often. I have yet to hear any questions about Fawlty Towers.

The Brits seem to love their trivia, or at least the ones that like trivia, like it a lot. I can't understnd why NTN isn't everywhere here. It seems like it would fit perfectly with the quiz obsession here. Any pub that has a TV has Sky satellite. Sky would make a pretty penny by offering an interactive quiz service. Its a lot of fun when there's a few teams playing NTN around the bar. While you also compete against others around the world, the best competition is between the local patrons. I suppose it takes precious TV space away from whatever football match is on TV. But that's all pubs are becoming these days - a place to gulp down beer and watch football. Bring back the games. Thankfully, traditional pubs have a champion.

A Tale of Two Pubs pt 1 - Ordering Drinks

Part 1 of a series on bar layout.
Why do some bars take forever to get your drink?

The Castle vs The Prince of Wales

While this doesn't make or break a good bar, I have been known to skip by a perfectly good pub because I hate ordering a beer there. A good example are the two closest pubs to where I live. The Prince of Wales and The Castle. They're both very similar, in fact, they're both owned by the same company and share the same staff. They both serve similar food. Both have seperate smoking/non smoking sections. Both have a similar mixed decor of retro/antique/modern furniture. Both have a similar selection of beers (though the Prince of Wales usually has more ales on tap).

The main differences are: the atmosphere - The Prince of Wales doesn't really play music as far as I can tell, and it much brighter inside. The Castle is mainly candle lit with a few low-wattage bulbs and plays dj music. Either one would suit me fine for a quick beer. But, the biggest difference, and the reason I never go to the Prince of Wales, is because you can't get a pint to save your life. They typically have more bar staff working, and their capacity is about the same. Yet it consistently takes 5x as long to get your order as the Castle.

This phenomena is caused by several factors such as idiots paying for their £2.80 pint with a card or the higher number wine/champagne drinkers - namely, the PoW has more upper class twats. But the Castle has plenty of these idiots as well, so that can't be the only factor. What I've noticed is at the PoW, there's far too much bar surface area for people to congregate around. That causes a couple immediate problems.

In the UK, unless there's a well defined queue (line up) behind them, people will order a beer and just stand there with their friends talking and drinking - but they'll always respect the queue. So, you end up with the drink line getting pushed further and further away from the tills and taps. When the barman comes to take your order, they have to go all the way to the taps to pour the beer, bring it back to you, go all the way back to get the other drinks, bring them back to you, ask if you want anything else, then go all the way back and punch in the order, come back and tell you the price, take your money/card and go back to the till, then come back with your change. Multiply that by an average of 10 waiting customers and it takes too damn long. I might as well take my beer and go back to the end of the line.

The second problem is line jumping. Because of the very large bar surface area at the PoW, people will always find an open spot to wait for the bartender. You can't blame anyone for that, it's expected. But, because the bar is so large and the bartenders are running around with their heads cut off, they can't keep track of who to serve next. If you're beside a group of girls with their tits hanging out, you're doomed. If you're unfortunate enough to be stuck behind someone ordering because there's no free space at the bar, you're going to be waiting a very long time. You might as well walk down to the next pub and order a beer.

Now, I've gone on and on about what the PoW does wrong. But what does the Castle do right? The Castle has two potential queue points (two registers), but one main one. People can, and do, still loiter along the bar, but the bar's not nearly as big. Because of the queue, they typically loiter along the bar where the taps are. Behind the bar, there's room for three people to slide around each other, and everything (the lager taps, the import taps, the bitter pulls, the liquer, the wine, etc) is within arms reach of the till. At the most, the bartender has to make two steps to get around their co-worker. I've very rarely ever had to wait to get a beer at the Castle.

A couple years ago, I had my kitchen renovated and paid some professionals to design the new kitchen layout. They talked about the "work triangle" and how when you're preparing food, you want to be able to take one step to your fridge, to the counter and then to the oven. The Castle has that down perfectly.

A side note to all of this. In the UK there's no such thing as table service. Every once and a while you'll come to a place that does this, and they're called restaurants. So, a lot of these points are irrelevant if you live in north america and never have to get off your ass to get your beer.

New Years Tip

Putting beer/champagne in the freezer to rapidly chill is only a good idea (and I stress this important point), at the start of the night. This is true of any night, but most of all on New Years Eve. Champagne has much more built up pressure than beer does which means a lot more bang when it eventually gets too cold and explodes. At the beginning of the night, you're coherent enough to remember that there's a powder keg in your freezer. After three or four bottles, you tend to lose track of how much booze you started out with. You might forget about that last bottle and head to the bar. You might wake up the next morning with the freezer door blown off the hinges. It's not something you want to deal with on new years day.

The Cha Cha Cha

Ages ago I was in rambling around Europe, sampling all the libation delights of the old world. One that's stuck with me after all this time is the Cha Cha Cha in Budapest. The experience summed up a lot of what I've noticed about drinking in Europe. By day, it's a small drinking hole in a subway station in downtown Budapest. There's not a lot remarkable about it. There's room for four bar stools and a couple tables. At night, though, they pull out the foosball tables, extra tables and chairs, bring in a DJ, cover the lights with coloured fabric, and presto, a really cool bar. Drinking in public is not taboo over here. In some places, it's encouraged. You can crack open a case of beer on public transport and no one even lifts their eyes. The Cha Cha Cha was rocking that night. I was there with a bunch of crazed Belgians I had met at the hostel.

After chilling out for a bit and losing constantly at foos, we went up to the street and drank beer with a group of locals playing guitar. We went to countless shitty bars, but each one tend to have their own character and reason for existing. It's not to say that Europe is unique in this way, but it's certainly opened my eyes to the potential of drinking venues.

crazy old dude.avi - 11.1MB

Sports, Beer and Mexican

College Inn 4400 E 8th Ave, Denver CO (303) 329 9532

It's no coincidence that College Inn is my first official post. It's a sentimental favourite of mine, a place that I've been going to since I was 15. Since the legal drinking age in the US is an absurd 21 years old, that meant many years of visits, sans beer. So, being able to legally drink beer there now makes it that much sweeter.

What drew me to the place to begin with (besides its close proximity to where I lived) was their outstanding wings. It's been about eight years since I first chomped down on the crispy CI (that's what us regulars call it) wings and I have yet to find a place that matches. I've seen many changes over the years, some great, others not so. The price of wings is up to about 60 cents a wing, but there's always a discounted wing day and those are usually the best times to go. One of the better changes that I've noticed is their new non-smoking policy. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of smoking bans in bars, but in the past a trip to the old CI would have left every article of clothing smelling like you'd just spent the day in Joe Camel's private smoking room. The atmosphere completely changed when they went non-smoking (your eyes wouldn't hurt anymore from being in there too long), and fortunately, they've kept smoking on their heated patio.

Beer selection is rather diverse at College Inn. There's usually some sort of deal on the big beers, but they also keep a good stock of micro-brews such as New Belgium (Fat Tire) and Odells (5 Barrel). If you don't like beer, they also have Jaggermeister on tap as well!

What makes CI so special is that, unlike many of the new sports bars nowadays, it's all about the sports, food and beer. TV's are everywhere and they carry pretty much anything worth watching. The room is divided by a 360 degree island bar. To one side are the pool tables and classic bar entertainment such as Big Buck Hunter, Golden Tee and an MP3 jukebox. On the other side of the bar is tiered table seating with more TV's than one could imagine.

Like any worthwhile bar, CI has nightly events from Poker and Trivia nights to live music. Quite frankly, CI has it all. Whether you're stopping by for an afternoon brew, burrito and some NTN trivia (there's usually always someone to play against) or looking for a fun evening with a young professional crowd (University of Colorado Med School is currently located right across the street so you can usually spot more than a few scrubs kicking around) College Inn has what you're looking for

Merry Xmas to my Bro

This is the beginning of what I hope will be a very successful web log. Drew and I are no more experienced drinkers than the average alcy, but we have visited many bars and pubs all around the world. The intention of this web log is to provide a description of these lairs of the drink and to hopefully create a list of characteristics for the perfect bar.

Bars and Pubs will be judged in the following categories:

Drinks selection
Entertainment (not including music)
Background music (including jukebox)
Live music
Crowd/Scene
Character
Overall layout
Location
Pub Grub

I'm sure that as we move along with this we'll come up with other necessary categories.