1-2 days in Belgium WTD

For Brugge:

Beerbars:
- Rose Red (Cordoeanierstraat): place to be for sour beers. They might still have some Zenne y Frontera for sale.
- Brugs Beertje (Kemelstraat): very nice bar with great beermenu. Nothing that special, but all solid beers.
- De Garre (De Garre): special little place with a great choice. Beer to try is their housebeer: De Garre Trippel.
- Le Trappiste (Kuipersstraat): located in a cellar. Great choice with a lot of (European) IPa's. Very nice atmosphere.
- Gambrinus (Philipstockstraat): beerrestaurant with over 300/400 different beers on their menu. Great food, even have a brewersmenu.

Breweries:
- Halve Maan (Walplein): they make 6 different beers (Staffe Hendrik, Straffe Hendrik Quadruppel, Straffe Hendrik Heritage (oak aged), Brugse Zot (blond & bruin) and Brugse Bok). Nice tour especially the museum. You won't learn that much new, but it is a working brewery in the city center. Their bottlingplant is located outside the center and the beer is transported through a pipeline.
- Bourgogne de Flandres (Kartuizerinnestraat): New brewerylocation, only operational since the beginning of the year. They make a really good mixed fermentation beer. They brew only for onsite consumption since they don't have a botllingsystem. The bottles of their beer are made at the main brewery.

Beershops:
Most shops in the citycenter are targeting tourist, so their prices are quite inflated. There are two shops that I can recommend though:
- Bierboom (Langestraat): Small selection of beers but you can taste them at their bar.
- 2BE (Wollestraat): located in a cellar. Big selection and not as pricey as the other shops. Is set in a cellar next to the Beerwall.
- If you just want the more 'normal' beers (Orval, Rochefort, Duvel, ...) you can find them relatively cheap in the supermarkets. My suggestions are the Louis Delhaize (Oude Burg) and Delhaize (Noordzandstraat).

If you want to get more special and cheaper beers you'll need a car:
- Dranken Rotsaert: Zedelgem. Often have special Geuzes.
- Dranken Geers: Oostakker (near Gent). Very big selection and often have special geuzes.

Chocolateshops:
We have a lot (too many) chocolateshops in Brugge. All the big brands (Leonidas, Neuhaus, Pierre Marcolini, ...) are here but a lot of low-quality shops also. My suggestions are:
- Chocolate Line (Simon Stevinplein): Very special pralines f.e. with sundried tomato, ginger, olive oil, ... Quite pricey though.
- Chocolatier Dumon (Simon Stevinplein and Eiermarkt): Great chocolate, small shop.

Hopefully this gets you started...

 

any restaurant suggestions for Brugges?
i've never had luck in finding something that isn't touristy or very expensive

 

Depends on the pricerange :-). La Tache is my personal favorite, but is more for special occasions.

Kok au Vin (Ezelstraat): they have a nice lunchmenu: main €20, small bite + main €22, main + dessert €22 or small bite + main + dessert €27 (traditional Belgian/French cuisine)
La Tache (Oostendse Steenweg): 3 course meal €37 (traditional Belgian/French cuisine)
B-In (Oud Sint-Jan): lunch (starter + main): €15 (traditional Belgian/French cuisine)
Salade Folle (Walplein): between €15 - €25 (Salads, quiches and pasta)
Stoepa (Oostmeers): between €15 - €25 (Asian, fusion food)
Chang Thong Thai: (Kleine Hoefijzerstraat): €25 - €40 (Thai)
Blackbird (Jan van Eyckplein): €15 - €20 (Brunch, light lunch)

 

Chocolate: You'll see quite a few boutiques for the Neuhaus chocolate company. Neuhaus has a factory outlet store located just southwest of Brussels at Postweg 2, 1602 Vlezenbeek, Belgium (I'd call it the suburbs). I had a car when I was there this spring, so I don't know how easy it would be to reach by public transport, but this is really the only chocolate store you need to go to. They have unlimited free samples of everything, and their prices are significantly discounted. They have everything from the fancy boxed sets you'll see in the boutiques to 3kg bulk containers of truffles. We ate so much chocolate in the outlet that it was basically our lunch that day. I ended up walking out of there with something like 10kg of assorted high end chocolates for just over 100 euro, all of which I'd previously sampled so I knew they were all just what I wanted.

 

i'd prefer traditional belgian and i'd prefer 15 euros

 

It's possible to get there from Brussels center by public transport by metro. The last stop is Erasmus. Afterwards, just a 5 minutes walk.

You can also go to Ghent or Antwerp, very beautiful cities to visit.
Ghent has Gruut brewery. Antwerp has the city brewery "Antwerps Brouw Compagnie" of Seef Bier. You can also have a drink at Kulminator (lots of vintages) or Gollem (nice selection of geuzes, taps and burgers)

 

If you go into the city center they have a TON of chocolate places and then you have Delirium, Ala Becausse, and other locations to sit outside and drink. I know I spent a lot of times near the city center sitting at the 2nd Delirium location as my GF walked around shopping.
you can walk to Cantillion from the City Center as it is maybe a 20-25 minute walk, and Moeder Lambic is a bit shorter.

 

Could you do a list for Antwerp for me? Fabulous list.

 

I know next to nothing of the beerscene in Antwerp, so I won't be able to help you there.