Tuesday 2 March 2010

My kind of festival

This weekend it's the ZBF. Belgium's national beer festival. And a favourite of mine. I go every year (just about).

Why do I like it?

- The venue is a short walk from the station.
- I can get a seat.
- It doesn't take too long to get served
- The measure is a decent size.
- The prices are reasonable
- There's the full spectrum of Belgian beer, regionals as well as micros.
- People quite often bring beer for me.
- Andrew likes the sausages.
- I can have a Stout - Lambic - Stout session.
- There are falling over beers for me to finish off with.
- I can score loads of free beers with all my memberships.
- I always meet old friends.
- The journey home isn't too long.
- A shop in Antwerp Centraal sells Guinness Special Export for that journey.

This year will be special. Both kids are coming along. Should provide loads of material of the glass-eating kind. My blog will eat off it for weeks. A bit like a buffalo carcass. But not as smelly. And definitely without maggots.

If you're there on Saturday afternoon, maybe you'll have the chance to buy me a beer. You wouldn't want Andrew and Lexie to go hungry, would you?

6 comments:

Des de Moor said...

See you there, Ron! Are you planning to go to the pre-event at Alvinne too?

Ron Pattinson said...

Des, no, I'm just going to Belgium for the day.

Steve said...

Hope you guys have a good day, cos I always like the entertaining blog entries afterwards. And it's even a family event... can't be bad. Enjoy.

Alan said...

Sounds like fun. On a different note I am the brewer at a brewpub in Colorado, USA. I stumbled upon your site a few months ago. I bought your Mild! book and it inspired me to start a "Revival Series" of beers at our pub. I really appreciate this site and your work. Here's a bit a local beer writer posted about our first release. Hopefully we got the facts right!

http://www.examiner.com/x-383-Colorado-Springs-Craft-Beer-Examiner~y2010m3d2-Phantom-Canyon-revives-the-past

Matt said...

Does ZBF ever have English beer? It would be easy enough to get it there, especially from London/the South East. Obviously CAMRA festivals always have Belgian, German etc beers.

Ron Pattinson said...

Matt, it's Belgian-brewed beer only.