Das Boot

This This morning we actually let ourselves sleep in for once. We got up around 9:15 (I sound just like my parents.) We headed out and immediately got Belgian waffles topped with strawberries, bananas, and whipped cream for breakfast. I would absolutely leggo my eggo for these any day. 

After that we headed out to explore the city. We found a little market and both bought some adorable scarves. On thing I noticed here is that the stand owners don't bother you or shove things in your face trying to make you buy everything. I've been to markets like that and it just takes all the fun out. Of course we saw some more enormous, amazing buildings: 

We then came upon another market. Every vendor pretty much had a sheet out on the ground with a bunch of junk laid out.

We hunted around and I found this adorable little clock that I bargained down from €10 to €5, oh yeah!!! 

After that we headed to the Cantillon Brewery, which is the last brewery in Brussels! 

When we went inside the guy greeted us and we got a self-guided tour and two beer samples for €7, woohoo! He gave us a little pamphlet and told us to walk around the building and follow the red numbers that correspond to pages in the pamphlet. 

He said the brewery is as-is with no decorations or tourist frills, which is awesome!! He gave us a short intro and left us to explore and learn. The first few stops were the typical mashing tun, hop boilers, etc. 

The coolest part was definitely the cooling tun room. 

Typical beers use bottom fermentation (lagers) or top fermentation (ales, Trappist beers, abbey beers, or white beers). Cantillon makes lambic beers which use spontaneous fermentation. This means they spread the wort out on this flat bed and let the natural yeasts from the Belgian air come in through the vents and ferment it. These microorganisms are specific to Brussels so this can't be made anywhere else. How awesome!! 

Another neat thing about this brewery is that they store the beer in used wine casks rather than stainless steel containers. This gives it a wine-like flavor.

They have to wait to seal the barrels for 3-4 days after filling them with beer because the fermentation process is so wild that the barrels would explode! Since the beer is matured in barrels, the lambic beers do not foam, which is quite unique! 

We noticed that there were cobwebs everywhere and soon learned that they leave them there on purpose. Using insecticides is harmful to the beer so instead, they let the spiders catch the insects that come into the brewery! "A lambic brewer will never destroy a cobweb and killing spiders is very much frowned upon." Yay nature!

We then got to see the barrel cleaning rooms, bottling, and cellars. 

Of course, at the end we got to taste. It was definitely unlike anything I've ever had before. The wine taste is quite obvious. The gold is the famous geuze and the other is a Kriek which is soaked in cherries. They taste almost like olive juice.

After the brewery we walked around the city a bit more. 

We went to a park and this adorable little dog came up and sat on Julie's foot and just let us pet him. Such a teddy bear. 

Then snack time:  

That night we headed back to Delerium Village (the area of bars) and split a liter of beer. They made us out down a €30 deposit for this €11 beer because so many people steal this adorable glass: 

Das boot!! Of course we got our deposit back, no worries. 

Brussels was an awesome place with so much to see. It was the only place I've ever been that speaks French so that was pretty cool. 

Now we are on the train to Amsterdam, Netherlands!!