4:45am my alarm clock goes off, waking me up in our IBIS hotel in Lea Bridge Road Leyton, instantly I am thanking myself for sticking to only a few pints of 3.1% Citra from Brodies in the King William 6 hours previous. It is an early departure time of 5:45am from Leyton Orient Supporters Club as we set off for a day coach trip to Bruges. It’s going to be a long day, we are going via ferry but it’s been over a year since I visited Belgium so it will be worth the coach trip for

If you haven’t listened to the Beer O’Clock Show before then why not!! Train commutes are so much better with a Beer O’Clock Show Podcast, and this week you are in for a real treat as you can listen to my debut show. For the last “studio” recorded show before the big live recorded show at Hop Burns & Blacks we looked at the last Belgian Beer of the season, on of my favourite beers, Saison Dupont. We also spoke about the highlights of the season, my blogging and all the bits I

For the sixth year Duvel Moortgat have released a special limited edition version of their world famous Duvel beer. For each new edition the usual Duvel recipe is tweaked and is brewed with an additional third hop, alongside their usual Saaz and Styrian Golding hop combo. For 2016 the hop is used in the brewing process and in the dry hopping process. This year the hop picked to brew with is so new that it doesn’t even have a name yet and at the moment is going by the name “Ex

My passion for good beer really went to obsessive levels when I first went to Belgium. I always enjoyed great British ales from a younger age and even though I did drink and like Belgian beers that were available in the UK it didn’t compare to that first La Chouffe I had in Brussels. Sitting in a classic Belgian Cafe slowly sipping a strong Trappist beer is my idea of pure relaxation. So when I was contacted by BelgiBeer to review their online subscription I jumped at the cha

Organising work Christmas dinners can be a nightmare! Making sure everyone is catered for, rounding up money and deciding where to go is all enough to give anyone a headache. Last year I organised the unofficial Christmas party at Bodeans restaurant (which in the end at last minute I couldn’t make!) so this year I thought I would look for somewhere different. I then get an email from the Belgian beer and cuisine restaurant company Belgo, one of the usual group mailing that I

366 different beers!!! How am I going to try 366 different types of beer from 97 different breweries! This is the first problem you are faced with when planning a trip to the Bruges Beer Festival. The brutal reality is you have no chance but once you get over that then you’re are in for a great time because the Bruges Beer Festival is brilliant. It all starts with an early Eurostar train journey to Brussels, for those who have never used the Eurostar to travel to Belgium then

The very first time I went to Brussels I was overwhelmed with all the beers, sweet triples, rich dark dubbel’s and the holy Trappist beers! Then out of nowhere this beer smacks me in the face with a whole pack of hops! This low % (for Belgian beers anyways) bitter finish taste was the brilliant “Taras Boulba” by Brasserie De La Senne. The next time I went to Brussels I’m in Poechenellekelder cafe with two friends and I order “Jambe de Bois” and again I’m very impressed with t

A few years back after a work cruise around the waterways of the Netherlands and Belgium I found myself with a few hours to kill in Bruges. I am so thankful that I visited the newly opened T’Brugsch Bieratelier, not only because of the bars charm and great selection of draught Belgian beer but because I met Elien who was one of the most friendliest and coolest people I have had a chat with at a bar! The whole place had this nice vibe about it and it really helped me unwind be

Day late posting this up! A quick one today as this was a live in the pub #12beersofxmas… A Christmas tradition of my friend Paul and myself is as soon as we finish work at 1pm Christmas eve we are out of that building quicker than santa setting off in his sleigh to venture to Broadway Market so we can have a Christmas beer or two in The Dove. A lovely old looking pub that feels christmasy with its decorations and Christmas beers. This year we were lucky enough to have a gorg

Day 2 of #12beersofxmas and today I am bringing this unique beer to the table… I picked this up in the Wine Factory in Chingford high street a month or so back and when I first bought it I didn’t even notice the little present inside the beer bottle! Thanks to my online beer buddy Kev aka Belgian Beer Geek he warned me that the hop inside the bottle makes this beer a bit of a “gusher” when opened… A hop inside the bottle??? I went and checked the bottle and there it was a sin

The night before the Brussels beer festival the misses and I were enjoying some beers in Le Grain d’Orge cafe and also were deep in conversation with the locals and during our chat we were recommended a beer shop called Malting Pot. With an address drunkenly scribbled onto the back of a beer mat we set out to visit the shop, as it was only a ten minute walk from our hotel in the Ixelles area. On the corner of Y shaped street is the small and smart looking bottle shop called M

Ok so maybe slightly different to my usual look at beer books but this book was born from Belgian beer, plus its hugely entertaining and interesting so any Belgium / Belgian Beer fanatic will enjoy! Bottoms up in Belgium by Alec Le Sueur is a quest to search for things of interest in Belgium so that it can squash it’s unfairly knicknamed boring Belgium. Alec had never been to Belgium before till he met his wife while working in Tibet who happened to be Belgian! He had never b

It only takes a few minutes looking at this blog or twitter to see that I am huge fan of Belgium! I visited a few years ago and I was instantly hooked, on my return I needed to satisfy my Belgium fix and looked into where I can enjoy Belgian beer around London. I soon found the Dovetail in Farringdon, a small very authentic Belgian cafe with a great selection of some of Belgium’s finest beers on draught and bottle. I signed up to their news letter and had many a great evening

Urthel Brewery is based in Ruiselede, West Flanders Belgium, andcreated by female brewer Hildegard van Ostaden. Being the sucker for a great bit of marketing I was drawn into these beers by the glass shape and the funky cartoon old man that can be seen on their labels. Urthel claim to be a forward thinking brewery which sticks to traditional Belgium brewing techniques. I have been keeping a pair of bottles to try for some time now, so today I crack these bad boys open! First

I love Belgium, those that know me will know and roll their eyes most probably but it’s true I do! I own several Anderlecht shirts and controversialy I also own a couple Club Brugge not to mention seriously considering ditching my home countries continuously boring football matches for my adopted motherland in time for the world cup! I guess the beer has a huge factor in why me (and any beer fanatic) enjoy being in Belgium but there is just something about being there that ma

While in Ostend we visited the T’Koelschip Beer shop which you can read about here. While in there I picked up a bottle of Brouwerij De Leite’s Cuvee Jeun’homme, an oak aged 6.5% goud blond (gold blond). Brouwerij De Leite was founded by Luc Vermeersc, Etienne Van poucke and Paul Vanneste around 1997 on-wards while on a brewers course. Brewed in a really small set up the De Leite  trio started to knock beers out from  bigger brewery in 2008. De Leite refers to the Dutch word

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside…  Ok Ostend is the first part of my 5 day Belgian trip. It’s been a busy month or two with both our works and both having a great wedding each to go to on the Saturday we thought a day and a bit laying on a beach somewhere would be good. So why not have a good beer in hand while doing so… Ostend is kind of like the Southend of the Belgium Rivera. The city on the sea boasts a pretty huge beach and had pretty good sand quality no stoney Bri

I went to college and a year of a university level course at Southend to learn about music production and technology, something I now have nothing to do with but now I wish I had set sail and and done my education (drinking) in Leuven! Leuven is a 25 minute train ride from Brussels and is home to KU Leuven University and is very much a uni town. If Ostend is like the Southend of my trip then Leuven is the Chelmsford! A mixture of the old and the New with busy long shopping st

Every time I visit Bruges I think I fall in love with it even more! It was so quick to get from our hotel in Ostend that it took 40 minutes to get from one hotel to the other and cost only 4 euro’s per single. We checked into our hotel (hotel Academie which I have to fully recommend to anyone thinking about going to Bruges for its great location and very high standards!) around 10 am and Bruges was incredibly still and tourist free peaceful , a first and probably last moment

When I am not drinking beer I am working to get money to drink beer and I work in travel for a small ship cruise company. Sometimes I am lucky enough to experience some of our cruises, last year I spent a week sailing the Baltic visiting Stockholm, Tallin, St Petersburg and Helsinki but this year I wanted to see what it is like on a river cruise so off I flew to Rotterdam to join one of our vessels mid cruise. Over a couple of days I visited Rotterdam, Den Haag, Delft, Veere,