Back from Brussels

Unfortunately the Arvika festival started without me this year, but that’s ok since I spent the weekend in Brussels. Even though it’s used as a curse in Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Belgium can be a nice place in the summertime. But my arrival was less than graceful, since I hit my head on the airport bus. Hard. It bled a lot in the beginning, and one guy on the bus asked if I had been shot.

By the time we reached Waterloo a few miles south of Brussels I had bled through an entire package of napkins, and the driver looked at me with a increasingly worried face. But we managed to get to Gare du Midi without getting arrested, and then it was downhill from there on.

I noticed that the 400 year old statue Manneken-Pis has in recent decades got a partner, Jeanneke Pis, in the name of increased equality between the sexes. But most of all I noticed that next to her is where the infamous Delirium Tremens Café is located. Some years ago a copy of that bar opened in Gothenburg and boosted 2000 different kinds of beers (just as the original), but was sadly closed. The original place features a cool interior with large barrels for tables and a tap system that resembles a cellar in northern Sweden.

The impressive tap system at Delirium Tremens Café.

But Belgium is more than the well-known brands Delirium Tremens and Delirium Nocturnum. It is also Chimay, Duvel, Affligem, Leffe, Hoegaarden, St Bernardus and much more. Not to mention Godiva, Leonidas and Neuhaus. Tried them all on location and enjoyed every second of it.

• More photos from Brussels