ale trails

Podge’s Beer Tour has begun! After an early start and a trip through the Channel Tunnel, we found ourselves at the Mulenhof Café in Oostvleteren. The café is a beautiful old building with a giant windmill outside and beer-themed décor inside. I had a lovely meal of tajine with pork cheeks and chicken wings, followed by the Black Albert Sabayon, a whipped dessert consisting of egg and Black Albert beer.

Our next stop was the De Struise Brouwerij barrel room, where the brewer explained the workings of barrel-aging and lambics, followed by tastings of a couple beers.

We then went to Ichtegem to visit Brouwerij Strubbe, passed down from father to son for seven generations. The brewer focused more on history than technique, but it was still a fascinating talk. Again, tasting commenced, and I heartily recommend trying Ichtegem’s Grand Cru if you can find it.

We then reached Aalst, our home base for the tour. A lovely tapas restaurant called Tapasco provided dinner and another beer, followed by a last round in the hotel bar. The town square was fairly quiet, but I expect that will change with the weekend coming up.

Let me start by saying this: the Full English Breakfast is a wonderful way to start your day. There’s enough food to keep you going for quite some time.

After breakfast, we took a tour of several museums. The first stop was the Polar Museum, celebrating those who ventured to both poles in the name of discovery. The exhibit includes a lot of artifacts, and a lot of information on the crew, some of whose storied I’d not heard before. The exhibit includes a replica of a lifeboat Shakleton used, as well as a memorial to the various dog teams.

The Fitzwilliam Museum is worth seeing just for the architecture, but it had a number of interesting exhibits, including a special feature on Egyptian funerary customs entitled “Death on the Nile.” This is a museum I’d like to spend more time at on a future visit.

After lunch, we visited King’s College Chapel, a beautiful 500-year-old church. Once again, the architecture was amazing. The chapel includes a museum showing the construction of the edifice.

Our last stop was the Archaeology and Anthropology Museum. Although small, the collection was laid out very well, and offered insights on cultures from every corner of the planet.

The rest of the evening included a return to The Mill and a few new pubs: The Elm Tree, The Free Press, Cambridge Blue, Kensington Arms and Live and Let Live. Many of these are tucked away on side streets in generally nondescript buildings, making them feel like they are neighborhood secrets. But it was clear from the traffic we saw they were anything but.

This was a series of firsts for me, chief among them my first transatlantic flight and my first time in Europe.

Getting from Heathrow to King’s Cross Station involved the London Underground. I was very surprised the Underground had no ‘stop request’ function that I could see. Pittsburgh’s light-rail system only stops at requested stations, or if someone is waiting on the platform.

After reaching our lodgings, the Earl of Derby in Cambridge, and having a pair of Old Speckled Hens at said pub, we began exploring the city. I’m struck at how beautiful it is here; a mix of old and new architecture and a mix of people. It’s also very easy to get around by walking.

We sampled several local pubs: the Flying Pig, the Castle Bar, the Mill, the Maypole and the Hopbine. The Castle is a more modern affair, with a mural of the London Underground, but with musicians standing in for the stations. The others are all intimate affairs, with cozy furniture and a closeness that adds to the ambience. I could easily visit any of them again — and I’m sure we will before we leave.