A Whitby pubs guide

Whitby is without a doubt one of the most wonderful places I’ve ever visited in the UK. From the stunning drive across the North York Moors on the way and that glorious first glimpse of Whitby Abbey and the sea beyond, I was enchanted and spent most of my time quite in awe of the beauty of the town. I mean, look at it!

It’s somewhere I’d always wanted to go, especially as Dracula is one of my favourite books, so Ross took us off on a weekend for my birthday. Once we started researching the pub situation in the town, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that there were plenty of places worth a visit as well as a brewery (called, unsurprisingly, Whitby Brewery). Now, this isn’t a definite guide to Whitby’s pubs as there were plenty we didn’t get to, but more than enough for a weekend’s visit!

A weekend of craft beer in Prague

This year I decided that for Christmas, I’d surprise Ross with a weekend away somewhere – and that somewhere I picked was Prague. It’s somewhere I’d wanted to go for a while and I thought it’d probably have a decent amount of pubs and bars for us to visit, so I booked us a trip for the start of January. Prior to visiting, my only experience of Czech beer was mainly limited to not-too-exciting pilsners. Once I’d told Ross about the trip, we started researching and looking for some places serving craft beer in Prague and came across a fair few so we’d already had an idea where we wanted to go before we arrived. Here’s how we spent a weekend in Prague.

Nine must-visit places in Brussels for beer lovers – and two to avoid

Brussels and beer go hand-in-hand and it’s very easy to get a good beer at a decent price in the city. We recently spent a long weekend in the city and during that time we explored a variety of the breweries, bars and bottle shops on offer – some great, some less so. I’ve come up with a (by no means definitive!) list of places to visit in Brussels for beer lovers, and two that aren’t worth the hype.

Cantillon

A real slice of brewing history, Cantillon should be one of your first ports of call in Brussels. It’s an absolute gem of a brewery dating back to 1900. Their self-guided tours mean you can explore on your own time – and then you get beer at the end. Perfect. See my other post for more on our visit to Cantillon.

Brussels Beer Project

From the old to the new! During our visit, Brussels Beer Project’s taproom had been open mere weeks but it was definitely one of my favourite places for a drink. They are firmly bringing Belgian beer into the future and every single one of their beers I tried was fantastic. See my post on Brussels Beer Project for more.

Moeder Lambic Fontainas

As it was only a short walk from where we were staying, we spent quite a lot of time in Moeder Lambic Fontainas. Luckily, there is a LOT of beer to sample. An extensive draft menu is provided on each table and there’s also a board with guest beers or specials – some of which are brewed in collaboration with the bar itself. You can also request a bottle menu and there are bar snacks are on offer; my French isn’t too great so the only ones I could pick out were cheese and bread but I think there were also some meat options too. It’s also all table service, so the beer comes to you. One more things to mention: if you’re based in Manchester, the upcoming Café Beermoth takes a lot of its inspiration from this bar.

Moeder Lambic Original

Slightly further out of the city centre – we walked it and I probably wouldn’t advise it as my feet were killing me by the time we got back – the original Moeder Lambic bar is much cosier and has more of a local bar feel to it. But the beer choice is good – they had about 12 Belgian beers on draft along with an extensive bottle list. It’s another one that’s table service.

A La Mort Subite

After a disappointing experience in Delirium Café (see below in my ‘ones to miss’ section), I was very happy to grab a pew in this lovely bar. Established in 1928, it still has its original décor with ornate wall details and lots of mirrors and a lovely atmosphere – it’s a nice mix of locals and tourists. They serve their own Mort Subite beers on draft and in bottle along with other Belgian beers and some Trappist beers too. Snacks such as sandwiches and omelettes are served at all times, and they also have a mysterious bar snack called ‘kip kap’ on offer. Some Googling on my return home revealed it is some type of lunch meat in gelatine that may or may not be made from pig cheeks. The beer is slightly more expensive than some other bars, but it’s worth it for the venue – and again, it’s table service.

Au Bon Vieux Temps

A small sign hanging over an alley leads the way to this cosy little pub. From the outside, it doesn’t give much away – but once you walk through the doors you find yourself in a traditional, wooden panelled-filled bar. The beer selection may not be as good as some other bars – it’s all bottles – but the venue is worth taking a look at, especially the large stained glass window. The lady behind the bar came over to us to take our order, but we paid at the bar on our exit so it’s not a full table service.

A La Becasse

Similar to Au Box Vieux Temps, you’ll find this traditional bar down an alleyway. The speciality here is their lambic beer (by Timmermans) which is served in jugs poured from a large barrel on the bar. It’s been owned by the same family since 1877 and a traditionally-attired waiter will provide you with table service.

Beer Planet

A well-stocked and organised little shop, Beer Planet is a great place to stock up on beer in Brussels. Everything is arranged into categories and styles, so it’s easy to find what you’re looking for – and if Belgian beer isn’t your thing, there’s also a decent selection of international brews too.

De Bier Tempel

It feels slightly more touristy than Beer Planet, but it has a good range of bottled beers from across Belgian and a huge selection of glasses to buy. It does have some odder products though – I spotted a Delirium hat shaped like an elephant for example! It gets busy and be careful if you’ve got large bags with you as it is quite densely packed.

 

But although there are plenty of great venues to visit in Brussels, we visited two which I found to be a total disappointment and not really worth a visit. So, I’d recommend giving a miss to:

 

Delirium Café/Delirium Village

Delirium Café’s big selling point is its 2,000 beers – and this is what pulls in the punters. Located in a very touristy area (surrounded by restaurants with waiters stood outside trying to coax you in – a pet hate of mine!), the Delirium Café is part of the ‘Delirium Village’ which features other bars owned by the group including a tequila bar. The village is located in an alleyway, and when we visited on a Saturday night it was absolutely rammed. On entry, we were met by loud chart music and groups of men singing (plus lots of signs warning of pickpockets) downstairs, so we ordered a drink each – there’s no table service here – and headed upstairs. This was much quieter, but was full of tourists including groups of American students and families using selfie sticks. It wasn’t somewhere we wanted to spend much time, despite the beer range, so we moved on fairly quickly and I’d definitely say there are better places to visit in Brussels for your beer. But, if you do fancy the Delirium experience, you could try the Little Delirium Café which is just around the corner from the Grand-Place and much quieter.

Belgian Brewers’ Museum/Belgian Beer Museum

Set within one of the stunning buildings of the Grand-Place, this is a museum operated by the industry association ‘Belgian Brewers’. Entry costs €5 and as we had some free time, we thought we might as well go and check it out. Entrance to the museum is down a flight of stairs where find yourself in a room of tables and chairs and traditional brewing equipment. Hand over your €5 to a barman and you’ll be presented with a brochure and a token for a beer after you’ve finished exploring the museum. But there is minimal exploring to do – this first room is half of the museum, the rest is a small, modern brewery which features a video about brewing in Belgian. Get yourself to Cantillon instead, it’ll be much more enjoyable.

See more on Belgium: Belgium 101: Beer, chocolate and castles

Cantillon Brewery, Brussels

From the new to the old! My last post featured a visit to Brussels Beer Project which started brewing in 2013 – but now we’re going back more than a hundred years to Cantillon.

Established in 1900, this brewery focuses very much on its heritage and producing beers in the same way they always have done – including spontaneous fermentation of their beers.

We wandered over from our apartment near the Bourse along a main road, before turning into what appeared to be a residential area – it didn’t seem an obvious location for a brewery! But then we spotted it; a large building with a huge wooden door and no hint of what was beyond. Could we go in? Was it open? We didn’t know, so we just took the plunge and opened the door.

What we found was a very welcoming place indeed – a working brewery with a bar right at the front and a very jovial chap welcoming us in and introducing to how the tour would run. Costing just €7 – which includes two beers at the end – they offer a self-guided tour around their premises. Starting at the front desk (which also sells beers to take away and some merch), you’re given an in-depth booklet with numbered sections to correspond to the parts of the brewery.

And it truly is a working brewery – there’s staff milling around doing their day-to-day jobs, spaces chock full of brewing equipment and lots and lots of bottles fermenting away. I can’t imagine any breweries in the UK allowing anything similar!

They say pictures speak a thousand words, so here’s just a few of inside the brewery.

After we’d finished wandering around, we headed to the bar. We were each given a glass of their gueuze (aged for one year, rather than the mixture of one, two and three year-old drinks that’s in their standard brew) and told to return with our glasses for another. Lambic beers are generally not my thing, but I did find myself enjoying it. I think it’d be hard not to in such a fantastic venue. I followed this with the Kriek while Ross went for the Rose de Gambrinus (same as the Kriek but made with raspberries instead of cherries), before heading off.

Our visit to the Cantillon Brewery was an all-round excellent experience. It really makes you appreciate the beer that much more when you can get a feel for the effort that goes into it and how much dedication the brewers put into it. The guidebook you receive gives some hint to the challenges they face and their tenacity in keeping the brewery going during periods when lambic fell out of favour. Times are much better for Cantillon nowadays but they face a new challenge; the struggle to keep up with demand, especially as moving and expanding are out of the question.

The brewery is open Monday to Friday 9am-5pm and Saturday 10am-5pm – with last entrance at 4pm.

A guide to drinking beer on the Faroe Islands

Located in the North Atlantic between Scotland and Iceland, the Faroe Islands are a place not on the radar of too many travellers. These 18 islands, a self-governing part of Denmark, are small and not the easiest place to get to but we visited for three days earlier this year. Although you can fly direct from Edinburgh in the UK, we decided to combine it with our recent trip to Iceland (see my previous post about bars in Reykjavik) so we flew out from Reykjavik City Airport to explore these mysterious islands.

Despite the Faroe Islands not being the busiest place in the world, the islands are well set up for tourism. The national carrier, Atlantic Airways, offer a range of packages featuring flights, hotels and hire car which we went for, English is widely spoken (along with the native language of Faroese, and Danish) and the infrastructure is good as most of the islands are connected by bridges or deep-sea tunnels. Driving around you’ll regularly find signs providing tourist info in multiple languages, well-maintained footpaths, and road signs pointing out places to see – along with the natural beauty of the islands.

But the most important question is – what is Faroese beer like? Here’s a little guide to drinking on the Faroe Islands and what you need to know.

Breweries

The Faroe Islands are home to two breweries. Foroya Bjor  (‘The Beer of the Faroes’) was founded in 1888 and also makes soft drinks while Okkara (‘Ours’) is a much newer brewery – set up in 2010 according to Wiki. In terms of the types of beers they produce, Foroya is a more traditional brewery while Okkara is more craft orientated. Confusingly, they both make beers called ‘Gull’ and ‘Classic’.

Okkara’s range includes a duo named after two sea stacks close to the islands: ‘Risi’, an American barley wine style beer, and Belgian-inspired ‘Kelling’ (the tale of the sea stacks is fantastic); Belgian Quad ‘Brandan’ and red ale ‘Rinkusteinur’.

Meanwhile, Foroya’s beers have a focus on traditional styles and include ‘Black Sheep’, ‘1888 Golden Ram’ and ‘Gull’.

In general, if you prefer to your beer more on the craft side, Okkara will probably appeal to you more but as each brewery has a fairly small range you’ll probably get the opportunity to sample most of them if you’re visiting.

Booze ban

Like neighbouring Iceland, the Faroe Islands also had an alcohol ban in place for a number of years – and it wasn’t lifted until 1992. Beer is now available widely in restaurants and bars, but there are some venues that only have a half-licence which only allows for the sale of beer and wine and not all alcoholic beverages.

Buying beer in the shops

Again, like in Iceland, beer is not available in the shops or supermarkets. You can only buy alcohol in the state-run shops, Rúsdrekkasøla Landsins and there are just six of them across the islands. In the capital Torshavn, there’s one in a large shopping centre. Sadly, they have quite limited opening times – including closing at 2pm on a Saturday and not opening at all on a Sunday, so during our brief visit we didn’t get to pop in and see what they sold or what the prices were like.

Buying beer at the airport

Vagar Airport is an odd little airport. The runway is absolutely tiny and it’s surrounded by mountains and just generally seems a strange place for an airport (plus, the landing was a bit on the wobbly side for me!) When we got off the plane and into the terminal building, the first thing you find is the duty free shop. It must be cheaper than the alcohol shops – or maybe just more convenient – as we saw a fair few of the locals stocking up. You go through the same shop on both arrival and departure, so if you do want some local beer to take home you can buy it on the way back. Gift packs are available for both breweries offering six different beers and it’s about £13 to buy both packs together, or they also sell packs of cans and bottles from both Foroya and Okkara.

Beer in restaurants

Restaurants on the islands do seem to have a decent beer selection.  The islands’ most famous restaurant is probably Koks, and sadly that was out of our price range but I’ve read recently that Mikkeller have made a special beer for them now. During our visit, we found ourselves in a cosy, fish restaurant named Barbara and also modern sushi place Etika, and both had some local bottles.

Bars in Torshavn

For a fairly small place, Torshavn has a good range of bars and places to drink. Generally, the Faroese choose to go out later (for example, they were still going at 4am and there was a kebab shop near us and I do believe it stayed open right up to 6am), so if you’re off for a few drinks early on you may find yourself the only people in the bar! Each bar we visited had at least a few options from either, or sometimes both, breweries on draft. Sirkus was a particular favourite as it had plenty of space, was full of character and had a really good bottle selection with most of Okkara’s current range available. Other places we frequented included Cafe Natur which had options from Foroya (including their Nordic berry cider while we were there) and regular live music and the bar in our hotel, Hvonn Brasserie. also had beers from both breweries on draft although it had no real atmosphere. It did appear there was a club close to the harbour as we could still hear them going quite late on, but I’ve no idea where it was!

**UPDATE: As of October 2017, Mikkeller now have a bar in Torshavn which can be found at Gongin 2 next to Barbara Fishhouse. See their website for the current beer list.

So there’s a brief intro to beer on the Faroe Islands. Aside from getting the opportunity to sample beer I’d never get the chance to elsewhere, the islands have stunning scenery and there is so much to explore – but the beer was the icing on the cake. Take a look at some of my images from the Faroe Islands below – or visit Ross’ Flickr for some much better pictures! Alternatively, if you’re looking for more info on the country, see my guide to visiting the Faroe Islands on my travel blog.

 

A beer lover’s guide to Iceland

Last autumn we had a Scandinavian holiday and spent time in Copenhagen, Stockholm and Iceland. Being a very lazy blogger, I’ve so far only got round to posting about the Danish part of our holiday (although I have had a half-finished Sweden post saved in my drafts for months!) but with the opening of the glorious Mikkeller in Reykjavik, now seems a good time to blog about some of Iceland’s other beery delights.

Iceland’s beer scene isn’t as developed as some other countries (well, beer was banned until 1989 so they’ve got some catching up to do) but there are a number of breweries and a decent number of bars especially in Reykjavik. There’s also an Icelandic beers badge on Untappd (the delightfully named Brew Lagoon).

The most well-known Icelandic brewery outside of the island is probably Einstok – some of their beers are usually available in Booths.

We spent a few days in Reykjavik then hired a car and drove the south of the island to Vik, before heading back to the airport via the Blue Lagoon. Here are some of my recommendations for places you should visit in Iceland for beer:

Keflavik Airport

A good place to start, because this is where most visitors will arrive. It’s about 40 minutes away from Reykjavik (the capital does have its own airport but it’s mainly for domestic flights) and there are frequent bus services. But the most important thing to note is the duty free shop. It is also tax free, so prices can be about 15% cheaper than anywhere else on the island. The shops are on both sides – when we landed the shop at arrivals was full of Icelanders stocking up. and we got some to drink in the hotel (Einstok Arctic Berry Ale, it was lovely). Not beer-related but another useful tip – if you go to the Blue Lagoon (more on than that later), they have a large shop at departures selling the products which are on sale at the Lagoon’s gift shop but at a much cheaper price.

 

Vinbudin

Alcohol is not on sale in regular shops, you can only buy it at the state-owned off licence chain Vinbudin. It has about 50 shops across the island. We didn’t go to any during our visit – we didn’t spot any when we were in Reykjavik and although we spotted one while we were driving through a town (I can’t remember which one), it had very limited opening hours, so I’d recommend buying beer at the airport if you’re not planning on going out too much.

 

Micro Bar

Micro Bar was our drinking establishment of choice while we were in Reykjavik.

It’s located within a hotel, so has a mix of clientele and definitely had the best selection out of all the places we visited. It has a number of beers on keg, as well as a huge list of bottles – but be prepared to pay for it!

 

 

Prices for the keg options weren’t too bad but some of the bottles were on the steep side so we stayed away from these. The draught beers seemed to change quite regularly so if you’re in the city for a fair amount of time there should be something new for you to try. They also do flights if you’re keen to sample everything.

Frederiksen Ale House

This was the first venue we visited in Reykjavik and we had dinner here on the first evening. The bar itself is quite large with plenty of seating, and the majority of the visitors seemed to be locals.

It had Einstok, Viking and Thule on draught – these are the three brands which pop up pretty much anywhere you are. Viking and Thule are OK, but I definitely prefer Einstok. And while we were there, it was happy hour and it was two for one on pints. I’ve just had a look at the prices on their website, it’s about £4.80 for a pint normally, so can’t complain for the price!

The food was excellent too – I can’t remember what he had, but here’s Ross’:

And I went for fish and chips (excuse the blurry pic!):

Ölstofa Kormáks og Skjaldar

Located on a little side street off a street with many bars/cafes, this is a cosy little spot. It’s known for Brio, its own beer which has scooped a number of prizes – although I didn’t try it (I went for a wheat beer by Borg Brugghús instead). It seems more the type of places where locals would drink rather than tourists, and had the vibe of being more of a community place instead of a cool craft bar.

 

Blue Lagoon

I’ve got to mention the Blue Lagoon. The guidebooks say it’s touristy, and it is, but we both enjoyed ourselves while there. It did wonders for my ezcema and it was lovely to swim round in the warm water (it was raining while we were there, but this didn’t detract from our enjoyable – in fact it made it a bit better because it was noticeably quieter). You’re given a wristband which is used to open and close your locker and to pay for anything while you’re in there. This is particularly useful as there is a bar in the water! It’s not got a huge range, but there is beer which is nice. There’s something very satisfying about enjoying a pint while relaxing in warm water. Two non-beer tips – 1. you can buy face masks at the bar but there are tubs of it for free around the lagoon and 2. you can take phones/cameras in with you but it just means you’ll have to keep one arm up in the air, so don’t bother!

Northern Light Inn

We decided to do the Blue Lagoon at the end of our trip, and is it in the middle of nowhere. The town of Grindavik is about a 10 minute drive away (we found it as we needed to put fuel in the hire car before returning it), and the Blue Lagoon does have a hotel. But there is also the Northern Light Inn which is about a 3 minute drive away from the lagoon. We stayed here and loved it! It’s got a restaurant and honesty bar  so you can get some decent booze (bottles of Einstok and wine mainly), and also provides useful services including free transfers to the Blue Lagoon and the airport as well as a Northern Lights wake up call. It wasn’t cheap but our hire car company (Blue Car Rental) gave us the option of returning the car at the Blue Lagoon so the free airport transfer made it a good deal for us.

 

So there are some of my tips for enjoying Iceland if you’re a beer lover. It’s by no means an exhaustive list but I hope it helps someone out! Before we visited, I didn’t know what to expect from the beer scene in Iceland – especially after being spoiled by Copenhagen. But there are some very good bars and amazing beer (the lovely water probably helps) so although it can be a bit pricey, it’s definitely worth it. As proof of this, we’re planning on going back this year to see more of the island and obviously visit the new Mikkeller bar!

To finish off, here’s an image of one of the most fantastic places we visited – Jökulsárlón. It had a real ethereal feel to it and is somewhere that really has to be seen to be believed!

 

 

Three beer-filled days in Copenhagen

Copenhagen is a lively and fast-paced city and fantastic place to visit for craft beer lovers. Forget Carlsberg and Tuborg, Denmark’s capital has so much to offer beer fans and a diverse selection of pubs and bars. I admit I didn’t know much about Danish beer until our visit but  three days exploring Copenhagen definitely gave me a good education!