Honeymoon in Belgium

The best suggestion I have is to look for Thijs (BA callsign brabander) and send him a mail. You will get most of the info you need. He is a real generous and helpful guy. Have fun and best wishes.

 

The best suggestion I have is to look for Thijs (BA callsign brabander) and send him a mail. You will get most of the info you need. He is a real generous and helpful guy. Have fun and best wishes.

 

Search the Benelux section (where this thread is going to be transfered to) for other threads already discussing this. You'll probably find lots of info.

 

Ohhh Yes Thijs alias BRABANDER knows everthing!!!!!!! hahaha

 

First off congrats! I hope I marry someone who likes and beer and would be into honeymooning in Belgium. It is a beautiful and fun place to visit.
--What are your favorite places to go for beer (bar, brewery, and/or in-store bottle purchase)?
Well you guys on the East Coast seem to get quite a lot of Belgian goodies so I don't really know what to say. You have to go to Cantillon though. Touring the place is great and you can buy bottles for much cheaper than you get here even with the exchange rate. Kulminator is super cool and is the place to go to drink vintage bottles. De Bierboom in Bruges might be worth a visit for cheap bottles. Delirium is cool for a beer or two even though it's touristy.
--What beers should I look for to drink and/or purchase that are impossible to get here?
In regards to De Bierboom they have Prearis which is a pretty good quad that was hard to find when I was there. I would highly doubt it gets US distribution and not much Belgian distribution at this point. After reading reviews I guess it's not impossible to find here, but if you like tripels taste the Tripel Van De Garre from the namesake bar in Bruges. You might be able to pick up the Chimay Doree and Westvleteren at certain bottle shops. De Struise has a bottle shop in Bruges if you don't make it out to Oostvleteren and they might have something super special on tap.
--Where should we spend most of our time if we're there for a few weeks?
For a few weeks you can pretty much cover the country. All the big cities and some time out in the Ardennes.
--What have been your favorite site-seeing sites, regardless of whether they are beer-centered?
Gent blew me away. I loved all the canals and the feel of the city was wonderful. Bruges just has a crush of tourists especially in the center, but Gent was much more laid back and just as beautiful. It also has Dranken Geers on the outskirts of town for beer.
--What should we know about travel there? Are the trains easy and safe? (I've heard conflicting info)
I never had a problem with the trains. Even with a bunch of college kids jumping on for a time on one of my trips it was all good.
--Is it easy to visit breweries to do tours or tastings?
Cantillon and De Halve Maan were all easy to do tours of. It seems like them and other big breweries like Het Anker are pretty easy to go to. If you want to check out the smaller breweries like Fantome you better get in contact beforehand. A lot of the Trappist monasteries don't even let you in to see brewery.
--If we are to venture out of Belgium, what are your favorite alternatives--Paris? Amsterdam? Germany?
Since it is your honeymoon I would suggest Paris. I wanted to hate on it so bad when I was there, but you really can't. It's kinda perfect. Amsterdam is cool as well and has the wonderful Bierkonig which was one of the best bottle shops I visited when I was in Europe. I would assume Köln and Düsseldorf are your German destinations? I can't say anything about them until I visit this September, but they seem fairly close and are great for beer and art.

 

Congrats on the upcoming wedding! As posted above, Paris is really pretty great. The downside, if you want to call it that, is that you won't have enough time to do everything you want to do there. My wife and I were there for 4 nights and left with a list of things we need to do "next time". And we didn't even encounter any rude Parisians, which was simultaneously a pleasant surprise and a little disappointing. Berlin and Amsterdam are both great cities. Berlin is probably my favorite city in Europe (with the caveat that there are lots of cities I still need to get to), however I'd imagine it's also the toughest city of the three for you to reach from Belgium.

I was only in Düsseldorf for a half day but I loved it. It's a great night out, lots of great bars and lots of great Altbeir. Not much in terms of a tourist destination, but a great town if you just want to go out for a night. Cologne has more to see as a tourist, but I really haven't made a dedicated Cologne As Beer City run yet so I can't say. I like to assume it's exactly like Düsseldorf with Kölsch substituted for Alt.

Where ever you end up, have a good time!

 

Amsterdam is a fun beer town, with plenty of variety. You can get Dutrch, Belgian, German, British, Scandinavian and American beers.

The selection of beer is much smaller in Düsseldorf, but you get to drink in the wonderful Alt brewpubs. And drink their wonderful Alt. I love the place and the buzz the Altstadt gets in the evening.

Cologne is more subdued and the Altstadt is much less lively. There are some nice brewpubs and a few other old-fashioned places. Kölsch is a lot more subdued than the homebrew Alts, nothing like as hoppy. Früh's Kölsch is a delightfully subtle beer, but you have to have it served from the wood. Bottled it's not the same thing.

I've pub guides to all three cities:

http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/dusspubs.htm
http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/kolnpubs.htm
http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/amsintr.htm

 

First of all, congrats on your engagement! I can't speak to most of your questions from specific experience yet, but my fiancee are going on a similar honeymoon this August, so I figured I would chime in with the results of the research I did to plan the trip. We are going to Munich (with a day trip to Salzburg), Bamberg, Brussels, Ghent, Brugges, and Amsterdam.

--What are your favorite places to go for beer (bar, brewery, and/or in-store bottle purchase)?
From what I can tell, there's some good bars in most of the big Belgian cities, and even some of the small ones. I searched for each city I'm visiting on Beerfly and then sorted by rating. All the big ones came up that way.

--Where should we spend most of our time if we're there for a few weeks?
Definitely travel around to different cities within Belgium and spend some time outside of the country. However, one thing we decided is to have a minimum of 3 nights in each place. That way you always have 2 non-travel days at each place (excluding day trips) which lets you breathe and also explore each place a bit rather than just checking it off a list.

--What should we know about travel there? Are the trains easy and safe? (I've heard conflicting info)
We are doing all of our travel by train, so we got a rail pass. The one issue with the pass is that especially during the summer you need to book reservations in order to use the high speed trains, which are the easiest way to get from big city to big city. However, they are only $12 per person per reservation (except for Thalys, which is way more but can be avoided on most routes), so not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things.
I haven't heard anything about trains being unsafe (especially the nicer high speed ones) but as far as I can tell they are super easy to travel on. You can pull schedules for the high speed lines up to 3 months in advance on raileurope.com, and also book reservations (and even get a railpass) through that site. If a route is unavailable on raileurope.com it means that part of the trip requires a local train. In that case, you can find out each step of the trip by going to Eurail.com and clicking on the Planning tab.
You don't need reservations for the local trains, so the best thing to do there is to figure out when you need to be at the station where you're getting on a reserved train and just plan to catch a local train that will get you there by then.

--Is it easy to visit breweries to do tours or tastings?
It depends if you have a car. There are a few in and near the cities we're visiting that we will check out, but if you're willing to drive I think you can get to a lot more. As another poster noted though, you may need to get in touch with some of the smaller breweries to make sure it's cool to visit. I know that one of the breweries that's in the countryside actually has an inn that you can stay at, but I can't remember which one.

--If we are to venture out of Belgium, what are your favorite alternatives--Paris? Amsterdam? Germany?
I have never been to Amsterdam before, and everyone I've talked to has told me that it's an amazing place to visit. It's also really easy to get to from Belgium (Netherlands is even included in the same railpass).
We chose Munich based on a recommendation from a friend, because it's the best place to experience Bavarian culture, which is what most folks think of when they think of German beer culture. I would recommend ordering the Beer Drinker's Guide to Munich (it should cost between $10 and $20, and it even includes some bogo coupons for certain beer gardens), which describes and reviews 50 or so beer halls and beer gardens. I suspect that after you read this book you will definitely want to go to Munich.
I think Bamberg would be worth considering if you're really into Rauchbiers or want to visit a slightly smaller town. It's also a beautiful town - check out some pictures on Google Images.
The only issues with Munich and Bamberg are that they are a few hours away from Belgium. However, with a railpass and some planning, it's definitely manageable.

Anyway, good luck planning your trip, and feel free to bm me if you want any more info. Cheers!

 

Leuven is a cute town too. Check out Bruges for sure, Brussels, Ghent, Amsterdam too. As for beer, 2 minutes on Beerfly will find you enough info to keep you quite occupied. Have fun.

Oh and trains are no more dangerous than walking down the street. Don't sweat it.

 

On trains:
Use DB Bahn's site for planning and finding routes. It won't give you quotes for travel that doesn't involve Germany, but it will give you the timetables and is easily the most usable and user-friendly of all the rail sites. Seat61 has links to all the nation-specific rail lines where you can get a quote. For most countries, buying 2+ weeks ahead of time will result in substantial savings and in my experience, the Eurail pass has never been worth the cost.

I've taken trains through nearly all of Western Europe and they've all been safe and comfortable. With the exception of Italy (which has the occasional "planned" rail-worker strike), they've also been on time most of the time. The only real concern is for your belongings if you take a night train and are sharing a cabin with others.

I know both Orval and St Bernardus offer accommodation, but there are likely others as well. You can't actually visit most of the Trappist breweries (the brewery itself is usually in isolation inside the monastery), but some will allow you to visit parts of the monastery or will have a cafe. This fantastic post has a lot of info on many Belgian breweries and when you can visit.

I'd take Hamburg over Amsterdam, but I agree that if you want to focus on beer/beer culture Munich is a much better choice. All 3 offer scenic places in the surrounding areas (e.g. Zaanse Schans near Amsterdam, Lubeck/Sylt/etc near Hamburg, Andechs monastery/Salzburg/etc near Munich), but I think Hamburg and Munich offer more attractive surroundings in the city (Englischer Garten in Munich is fantastic).

Depending on how much time you have on your honeymoon, you can make it to many cities if you plan a route ahead of time to minimize travel time or take night trains.

 

Hamburg is rubbish for beer. Amsterdam is way better. A much wider range available and far more nice pubs. In fact, in terms of variety, it trumps Munich. Though Munich does have some great spots: Augustiner Keller, Weisses Brauhaus, the Löwenbräu brewery tap.

Amsterdam is a far more atractive city than Hamburg. Though, living here, I may be biased.

 

I completely agree on the beer on both counts (Munich is good for German beer styles and little else), but disagree on the attractiveness. Though as a visitor/tourist, I may be biased the other way .