Four days in Brabant, advise please.

Vlaams-Brabant? :0
You can go pay a visit to Cantillon brewery in Brussels.
If you really want to look for some local stuff in east of Brabant, small breweries, here are a few, all not so far from Leuven:

- Wolf brewery (Aarschot)
- Hof ten Dormaal (some great BA beers)
- De Vlier (champagne like beers, and focus on using elderflower)

In the west of Brabant, you have all the Geuze breweries, so that's already nice of course.

In Waals-Brabant (French speaking), you've got:

Tilquin
Brasserie du Brabant

 

Don't feel limited to those two provinces, if you have lots of time and a particular wish list. Within a couple hours you can be anywhere in the country. Think of a Belgian province a bit like a US county. BUT if time is limited I totally support staying local, and this is a useful question. Good point @Koen1987 about the lambic/gueuze makers, that is key. If you can muster 9 fellow visitors, Jandrain-Jandrenouille in Brabant Wallon (as you see the name in French) is a nice visit -- but only for groups by appointment, as I'm hinting. Another idea: stop in at ABS drinks in Winksele, near Leuven (Flemish Brabant) and ask their advice.

 

Or stop at my place in Leuven, and ask for advice But it's true. If you drive 2 hours, starting from the center of Belgium (Brussels/Leuven), you're already out of our country

 

there's AB inbev in Leuven
enjoy the tour, not the beer

 

Haha, even the tour is crap now I've been there in May (for free). They are doing some construction works, new fermentation hall etc. You get a "nice" video with some historical overview, an introduction to beer making (15 min), and you can see the bottling site for 5 minutes. They you can taste a Stella or Leffe Royal. And you'll receive a "gift": Hoegaarden Radler and Leffe Nectar.
Paying = 8,5 euro.

 

I don't mean to sound like a snob -- I drank a Leffe Royal Cascade just 2 days ago -- but please don't do this.

 

Leuven does have de fiere margriet, so at least there is a good cafe for beer. And you can go play popinjay at Toewip while drinking the classics (vertical archery and beer always go well...).

As Koen suggested above, go visit Hof ten Dormaal. It is one of the best brewery experiences I've had in Belgium. It's an easy bike ride from Leuven and you can also stop at De Vlier on the way (which is basically like sitting in someones living room).

 

With all this Leuven talk (which I really appreciate), no mention of The Capital? Anyone been there?

 

Capital blows. Try picking from an alphabetical list of 1200 beers, not sorted by style, country,...
And prepare multiple picks as they probably dont have your first, second and third pick available.
And to finish off, waiters dont have any beer knowledge, so they cant help you either. My younger brother asked if he could recommend a black ipa, waiter responded such thing did not exist. My bro then proceeded to pick a black ipa from the (alphabetical) list.
That place is just a joke. When in leuven, go to the blauwe kater, m-cafe, fiere margriet or oude markt, but dont go to the capital.

 

You know what I mean by my "like." Crucial info. Prost!

 

Haha, true story Last time I've tried, my first ten beers were out of stock. It's purely made for tourists, they actually don't like (belgian) people with some beer knowledge. I also don't like them announcing they have "2000" beers, when it's only approx. 1300 (Counted the book once), and some are even duplicates (small and big bottles).
So agreed, go to one of the above mentioned places for a nice beer. M-cafe has some changing taps and sometimes nice foreign beers as well.
Leuven beer shop in the center is not cheap, but his selection is quite nice.

 

Had the same problem... Big list no beerstock