De Kulminator
Vleminckveld 32
2000 Antwerpen, Belgium

I spent all of Tuesday afternoon at
De Kulminator, a beer bar in Antwerp.

The door is locked. One rings the bell. The owner opens the door and ask what you want. The appropriate answer is, “I would like to taste some beer, please”.  If he likes your looks, he lets you in.

There are 12 beers on tap. His wife, the waitress, warns that 8 are sours. But he has several thousand bottles of fine beer. 

He has let the place go; it a real dump. Piles of junk obscure the bar. Hoards of newspaper are piled on and under tables. There is room for 12 patrons, if they don't mind sitting thigh to thigh. 

The beer is particularly inexpensive. This Questor was seated with two younger guys. They got beer from their birth years. Dusty bottles of Chimay, 1991, were served. The waitress poured a big splashy head. The beer needed to breath from a long rest. 

This draft beer cost me €2.50. 

Cafe Le Lombard
Rue du Lombard 1 Brussels 1000 , Belgium
+32(0)25408082

Brussels is a beer city where every bar is a beer bar.
All of the bars on other website's lists are in the tourist district.
Le Lombard is one of them.
Le Lombard has got the look and the feel of a neat bar, but it's kind of a tourist trap.
Tourists were the only patrons at what would be Happy Hour.
The beer list and the food menu were both kind of pricey.
They did, however, have a good selection of beer... about 10 drafts, some unique.
Le Lombard also offered about 20 bottles.
So many bars, so little time.

A la Mort Subite
rue Montagne-aux-Herbes Potagères 7
B-1000 Brussels
telephone: 02-513.13.18

The Mort.
A restaurant and beer bar with long communal tables that can hold scores of thirsty patrons.
Imagine the conversations here over the past eighty-plus years.
Sit in one of the Mort's well-worn chairs and feel the history seeping through your ass.
Better yet, drink from the six taps of house beers: gueuze, faro, kriek, framboise, peche and lambic blanche. We made several stops here and tried them all. All very good, except the peche which was better; one of the very best on-tap beers of any style we have ever tasted.
Seriously.
Period.
Get over your girly-beer fears and sip this liquid peach of a brew. You may never go back to whatever goofy hop bomb you've been swilling.

Delirium Cafe
Impasse de la Fidelite 4A
1000 Brussels
telephone: 02-514.44.34
www.deliriumcafe.be

We found the Delirium Cafe off an alley (Impasse de la Fidelite) about mid-day. We went downstairs; floors above would open later. It was not busy, rather quiet. I saw taps - 14 in all - nice.
In my best Questing-voice I asked if there was a beer list. "What language?" came the question.
English would be fine, thanks.
Now I knew we were in trouble. The list is a 233-page soft cover book (had to have it - 5 Euros). Ya see, according to our bartender, this place guarantees that the number of different beers on-hand and chilled will at least equal the current year.
That would be 2,010 on our visit.
Not to worry; we were told there were about 2,500 in the cooler if we were up to it.
Where to begin?
Ah, a Silly Pink Killer on-tap to start (and a few more later). Then, what's this, Cookie Beer? Gotta have that - served with a cookie, but not a repeat. And so it went. After an hour we met a young American couple doing the continental tour thing.
Later another couple from Long Island joined in.
There were rounds and rounds of never-before-tasted beers with too many consonants in their names for a Georgia boy to pronounce.
The place turned jack hammer loud and packed like a rush-hour subway.
My last legible note said something about this being a required ticket punch for all Questors.

PS - It was very dark outside when we climbed those steps back to the alley. Very, very dark.

PPS - Although you must walk the Rue des Bouchers to get to the Delirium Cafe's alley, avoid the rip-off restaurants that line both sides of the street.