Belgium Trip Day4: Knokke-Zoute

Today we visit the upscale coastal town of Knokke. We stayed at the Hotel Carlton, just steps away from the beach, with a wonderful room view of the North Sea from out balcony. There is a large boardwalk that seems to run for miles up and down the beach. It is divided into lanes for walkers and bikes and scooters. Just past the boardwalk are rows of white storage sheds with names or numbers on them, these are personal storage areas for frequent visitors. On the beach are rows and rows of white umbrellas and chairs, just take a seat and someone will be along shortly to collect a rental fee. Large rock jetties stick out into the water every few hundred yards with people clamoring about, upon closer inspection they are fishing for crabs. I decided to try my luck after watching a few locals, first find a piece of string, then break a small mussel off of the rocks and open him up, tie the string around the mussel. Find a small tidal pool or crevice under the rocks and toss in the bait. Every few moments pull it out and a very small crab will be attached. Whole families would be catching these small crabs and putting them in a bucket, too small for bait, not sure if you can eat them, but they catch them.

Chantal and I stroll the boardwalk and stop in a few open air cafes for snacks and bier. Tonight I dined in a local restaurant with Christine, Marie, and Chantal. We enjoyed a nice glass bottle of wine and a bier. My entree was a garlic sauteed langoustine lobster or shrimp, wonderful meal.

Belgium Trip Day #2 Brussells

We borrow a car and leave for Brussels, after some confusion between Flemish/French communication problems, we make it! Today we will meet up with Juliett and Jean Christopher, the whole reason we are here, their wedding! The best way to see Brussels in a hurry is ride a double decker tour bus, complete with head phones and plenty of translation options. The tour is typical of most historical tours, famous building, bridge, house and so forth. A wonderful piece of information was presented during the tour, Belgium has 400 plus varieties of beer! With that much ground to cover, it looks like many repeated trip will be necessary.

((Post visit addition)I think visiting the oldest citizen of Brussels should be a requirement to all tourists. Something about the irreverence of it all that makes me grin, a small boy, peeing into a fountain, the manekin pis. The real comedy of the situation probably doesn't hit until you get home and look at your photos. After clamoring amongst the other people to get your clear photo in front if the fountain.....convince someone to take your picture.....show them how to work your camera....smile....thanks....flip the digital camera to view....looks good....time for more pictures...buy a souvenir.....move on. Even then you didn't catch it, nope, not until you get home and see the photos on the screen that you notice it, it looks like the boy is pissing on you! Ha!)

We take a break from buying a bunch of mankin pis souvenirs and enjoy a light lunch and a beer off a side street. A nice Hoegarden and some Greek food, street vendor style. The table are set up in the middle of the street, forcing you to walk on the sidewalks, right in front of the vendors. These polite gentlemen will even pull out a chair for you, even from 10 feet away. I suggest walking up one side and down the other and take your pick. Back to Antwerp tonight.

Belgium Trip Day #1 Brussels, Antwerp

We land in Brussels mid day after a comfortable flight, greeted by family we take a quick tour of the surrounding area and head to Antwerp to sleep off the jet lag. The ext day we will venture back to Brussels to visit JC and Juliet and tour Brussels.

Czech Pilsner, or the Sophie Pilsner

My brother is having a little girl, so in honor of her arrival I am dedicating this batch to her. He is naming him after our grandmother Sophie (Oehl) Dybala. My Grandmother contributed a mustang wine recipe and a beer recipe that I plan to use in the future. The recipes were found in a Czech Cookbook written by my mother.

Czech Pilsner

1/4 lb. Crystal 1o L
2 1/2 lb Bohemian Pils 45 minute soak at 155 degrees.
5 lb Extra Pale Extract Boil
1 oz German Magnum Hops for 60 minute boil.
1 oz of Saaz hops the last 5 minutes of the 60 minute boil.

California Labs Pitched yeast.

6/19/06: SG 1.10

SG 1.013 at bottling, I got a late start on this is the season, the temperature is a little warm for brewing. Nice refreashing Pilsner, I will be sure to crack one open when she is born, and distrubute the rest to family.

Beer Spa in the Czech Republic

Chodovar, Czech Republic.

The Chodovar Family Brewery has been offering a rejuvenating beer spa treatment. The major bath ingtredient is a dark bathing beer, produced from original and traditional methods. During your soak it is recomended that you drink unique non-pasteurised Rock Lager, the active yeast are supposed to help your digestive system while you relax. This all takes place in the vintage cellars of the brewery.

A two person bath will cost you around $50 US, this includes your drinking and soaking beer but not a bathrobe, that costs a little extra.

Puerto Vallarta Trip: Mexican Beers

It's honeymoon time is Puerto Vallarta and I will probaly do more poolside, umbrella drink lounging than searching for odd ball beers. The list of Mexican beers is preety short and most can be obtained in Texas.

So far the list is short:

Leon Negra (Grupo Modelo), an amber lager
Sol
Bohemia, More on this later, but this beer is named after the Czech brewers that came to Mexico to teach brewing!
Carta Blanca
Superior
And my favorite from the baja, Pacifico! I first got hooked on Pacifico in college, when my friends and I would sit in lawn chairs in the middle of the Blanco River, enjoying it by the cooler full!

We also visited a few small Tequila factories, one was made from 100% Blue Agave and they used some real old school techniques.

Mustang Wine, Local Grapes

The back fence of my current office has a large spread of ripe mustang grapes. A co worker and I have decided to pick a cooler full for me to attempt to make some mustang wine.

This is a recipe from my Grandmother, the notes warn that if it has been a rainy year the wine will have less of a punch. This also calls for a cheese cloth to be placed over the open fermenter to keep the flies out, thats' how it was done on the farm.

10 lbs of sugar
Grapes, crushed, leave skins.
1 or two yeast packages.

Ferment 10 days, rerack then bottle.

This produced a high octane grape wine, this is probablt better suited to drink in the deer blind to stay warm. Next back I will cut back on the sugar and try to mellow out the flavors.