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Thursday, September 30, 2010

BRUSSELS BEER & FRIES WEEK! PART DEUX: WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS

Somebody sunk serious money into this place and I suspect they’re much richer for it. If you want an authentic Brussels experience, this might not be the place, but if you want a good time with a stellar beer selection, Bob’s your uncle at Delirium Café.

Scanning the Guinness World Record beer selection - 2,000 kinds of beer! - we start with a faro from Lindeman’s - sweet, tangy and kind of Smith-Brothers-cough-drop-y. Not for the faint of heart, but big fun. The ‘café’ gets its name from Delirium Tremens - the Belgian beer whose name, roughly, means ‘the shakes you get from alcohol withdrawal.’ It would be hard for that to happen here.

For our second round, the group gives me free reign and, feeling nostalgic for the beer of former interviewee Armand Debelder, I order a vintage oude gueuze and an oude kriek from 3 Fonteinen: - both kept in a temperature-controlled walk-in cooler behind Delirium’s basement bar.

I’m with El Bulli sommeliers Ferran Centelles and David Seijas and on first sip of the gueuze, they pucker and screw up their faces before saying. “Wow…wow.” The kriek is a curiosity, but the gueuze is true discovery for all of us.

Motivating a group of sommeliers and getting them to try something new can be like herding cats, but I love sharing that moment.

Delirium Café - MAP
Impasse de la Fidelité 4A
Brussels
+32.2.514.44.34
http://www.deliriumcafe.be/

P.S. - Pick your visiting times carefully - this place is a zoo on a busy night.

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