In de Verzekering tegen de Grote Dorst

Bus 128 from De Lijn drops you off very close to the café. Take it at De Brouckere in the center of Brussels and you'll get there in little under an hour.

Only open on Sundays for a few hours yes, and never heard anything about pre-ordering a bottle. You could ask them about the availablity of some of your wants probably.

 

http://www.dorst.be/en/welcome

 

To clarify for readers of the above, esp. in case I was the source of any misinfo by mistake... the pre-ordering refers to buying stuff to go, at a lower price than consuming in the cafe. That service seems to still be offline but I've been assured it's coming back. You don't have to pre-order to drink at the place. Online purchase BTW also was for delivery or shipping besides pickup in person, as of recently, but anyway, you have the link, above.

 

Its well worth the journey, great family owned place and very friendly.

I really enjoyed my afternoon there had drank some amazing lambics with some amazing people.

Its not all about drinking whales but soaking up the atmosphere of the place

 

Just looking at their menu here http://www.dorst.be/sites/default/f...bbedb360/a0da851f35b92af974510205bbedb360.pdf

Can someone explain the difference between the beers listed on the first few pages and then the separate list towards the end? And what the different colours mean? I may just be stupid...

 

The weird thing about that menu is I put the .pdf into Google Translate and it gave me prices, which don't appear to be in the original...how very odd.

 

For example:

3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze Vintage 1999
, 75 cl
98.00
3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze DE BOECK 2002
, 75 cl
45,00
3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze Lente 2011
, 75 cl
70,00
3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze ZOMER 2011
, 75 cl
70,00
3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze HERFST 2011
, 75 cl
70,00
3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze Winter 2011
, 75 cl
70,00
3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze VINTAGE 04/2003
, 37.5 cl
18.60
3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze VINTAGE 05/2003
, 75 cl
32.20
3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze VINTAGE 04/2004
, 37.5 cl
12.60
3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze VINTAGE 04/2005
, 37.5 cl
10,60
3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze VINTAGE 11/2006
, 75 cl
20,00
3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze VALENTIJN CUVEE 02/2007
, 75 cl
18,00
3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze Vintage 12/2007
, 75 cl
17,00
3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze Vintage 03/2008
37, 5 cl
9.60
3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze magnum 2004
150 cl
58.0

Some of the translation is a little off but you get the idea...

 

It's just an issue with the PDF or renderer. The prices are there in the original, but something is making them not visible. You can still e.g. copy/paste the prices if you select where they're supposed to show up.

 

I assumed that must have been the case.

Do they serve food? And is there much in the area other than the cafe?

 

I haven't been so I'm not 100% sure, but judging from reviews they only serve cheese. Brasserie Sofie seems close and serves food.

 

No real food. It's only open 3-4 hours a week, so, not a shock. There's a not a ton else -- small village. But they can give you great local recs.

 

I would be happy with beer and cheese How would you rate it versus, say, Kulminator? I'm packing quite a lot into a few days.

 

For the record, I can't verify the cheese! ... No way to compare with a place like Kulminator -- it's really just about the lambics, with a great variety of them (but not a bottomless well of rarities stockpiled over years) in a particularly nice village pub.

 

I'm not really looking to drop hundreds of dollars on whales, just looking to get some good quality lambics I see they have 3F Millenium as an example but I really couldn't ever justify spending that much on a single beer, by myself.

 

I hear ya. So, I'd say it's one of the great places to sit down to some quality lambics, but, it's a bit out of the way from most of the cities, and there are lots of places that have more variety of lambics than you can appreciate in one sitting.

But I have promised myself an Eylenbosch gueuze, the next time I go. 've only had the kriek.

 

Yup, the Eylenbosch vintages are ones that i'm definitely trying as I don't ever expect to be able to get those again.

 

highly recommended, but expect some oxidation. interesting in a different way than most other gueuze bottles i've tried. only a single vintage ('88) was available in June 2014. i don't think that menu is even *close* to current. btw, they will let you take empties home for show, but for these rarities, take away is not available. w asked. then bought a second. also, once you're in the door, they will let you stay. be friendly and they serve dried sausage too. the cheese we had was 3F gueuze washed cheese. fantastic.

tried the kriek and famboise at kulminator later the same week. clearly sweetened and not on the same level as the gueuze. at 20+years of age, the fruit was gone and both were more artificially sweet without funk or tartness and see,ed worlds away from traditional krieks or famboises. Just my opinion and YMMV. IMO, worth the effort to try oe for te experience,

i will note that corks broke on all three. they were soaked through and wet. keep in mind that these are highly respected and rated bars and i don't hold either responsible. both warned us at the time of order that the bottles might be off. we went in knowing the risk. know that you accept a certain risk anytime you order a beer this old...particularly now since most brewers/blenders weren't expecting to hear back from us 25+ years later. it's only in the last few years that even well respected brewers like Cantillon have noted the change in beer geek tastes and changed to corks that hold up better over time.

 

Unfortunate, but to be expected I guess.

So I guess similar to Lindemans? I had heard that the gueuze itself was also sweetened?