On the Beer Trail (July 10, 2025)
Peter's July 2025 BeGeCz (Belgium, German, Czech Republic) Beer Tour
Hello neighbors, singers, friends, and home-brewers,
On Wednesday, July 9th, Herb and I traveled to Ghent (Gent) to visit the bar De Dulle Griet. This bar is located on the Grand Place of the old city and is fabled on account of its Max van 't Huis beer, or “Max” for short. This is a beer made in house that is served in a Coachman’s glass, so-named because coachmen would drink from this glass and then place it in a special holder so that it wouldn’t spill as the coach was pulled along by its team of horses. This glass is also called a Kwak glass, after it's inventor, Pauwel Kwak. More on this from the “Beers with Mandy” website:
Legend has it that tavern owner Pauwel Kwak designed the unique shape in the 1790s when Napoleonic Code took hold in Belgium. One stipulation of the stringent new legal code was that coachmen were no longer allowed to drink with their riders. This tactic focused on drawing a clear line between the wealthy and working classes. And it meant left of potential customers had to wait *outside* Pauwel’s bar.
Like any enterprising entrepreneur, he figured out a loophole: coachmen couldn’t come in, but beer could come out to them! He designed a wooden cupholder of sorts to hold a glass. The coachmen could attach this cupholder to their coach. Then, Kwak created a glass that would stay in the cupholder, or in the hand of the coachman on even the bumpiest ride.
The tricky part was that the glass had to be narrow enough for a coachmen to wrap their hand around it even with thick gloves. This left a long slender neck of a glass with most of the beer contained in a bottom bulb to prevent sloshing in a bumpy coach. The already odd looking contraption has a massive lip at the top to make drinking (while driving, yikes!) easy and to contain spills.
Here is a photo of this glass in its holder (x3).
Herb and took a train to the train station at Ghent and then a long tram ride from the station to a stop that put us about 20 minutes away from the bar by foot. We arrived at the bar at about 12:30 pm, expecting to find it open.
Argggghhh. Not open. On the door we noted the times when they were open; they SHOULD have been open, but they were not. There was a construction worker next door who told us that the staff were pretty casual about keeping to their stated hours. Plan B was to go another bar, have a beer and cool our heels, and then circle back. This we did and walked to a place called Barrazza, which was situated a few blocks away and right adjacent to one of Ghent’s many charming canals (which were originally built as moats). Here I ordered a Affligem Blond and Herb a pale beer made by Verzet.
The Affligem Blond was very different than the Leffe Blond that I on my first evening in Brussels. On the palate it was less fruity and more musty/earthy. The Affligem Blond was straw- to light-honey in color with a off-white, long-lasting head. On the nose there was no banana/clove, which was a surprise. There was ester, and fruit, and my best guess was “apple”. On the palate, I got honey, butter, and ?? vegemite ?? as well as apricot. It finished with a mild bitterness. It was medium-bodied and medium-carbonated. This Blond provided an illustration of how broad the Belgian Blond Ale beer style could be. It’s a much “darker” (brooding?) version than the Leffe. Very interesting.
Having wetted our chops, we returned to De Dulle Griet to find it OPEN. Hot damn.
I went for the Max, while Herb chose a beer that we would both have the following day, the Gouden Carolus Whiskey-infused Tripel.
The Max that I ordered tipped the scales at 1.2 liters, and I was obliged to put down a deposit of one of my shoes in return for the glass (plus 90 Euros if I broke the glass!). (The Max is a Belgian Blond, and there was an option to choose a Dark Blond, which I chose.). Every time a patron in the bar ordered a Max, the barkeep would take one of their shoes and hoist it up in a basket in the middle of the bar. The basket had a bell on the bottom, and that bell kept ringing all afternoon. The barkeep had a steel-trap memory for who belonged to which shoe!
At some point, I noted that the Coachman’s Glass was empty, and so what could I do but order another beer: the Gouden Carolus Whiskey-infused Tripel (below)
It was excellent. Really excellent.
By this time, I had consumed about 1.7 liters of beer in the stretch of about four hours. It was time to return to Brussels for a long nap. But not before highlighting what is perhaps the greatest WC graphic that I have ever seen:
Below is a view of the Grand Place in Ghent from in front of De Dulle Griet:
Finally, a bit of history regarding the name Dulle Griet. The original “Dulle Griet” refers to a character from Flemish folklore that, loosely translated into English, means “Mad Meg”. The Flemish painter Peter Breugel depicted this character in a 1563 painting Dulle Griet (see below). Dulle Griet (to the left and below the center) is leading a band of women who are pillaging in a Hellscape. This treatment recounts the Flemish proverb “She could plunder in front of hell and return unscathed.” (There is a great description of the painting, its history, and the various interpretations of its meaning on Wikipedia.”
All for now. Soon I hope to post about our last full day in Belgium (july 10), during which we traveled to Mechelen to visit the Het Anker brewery.
So much beer, so little time!
Peter
#194