August 6, 2006 is the date I first set foot in Brussels. I have written about the inauspicious start that trip had, but even after quite an arrival calamity, that one trip changed the way I view a lot of things in my life and set me on a course to explore and travel as much as possible. When I set foot again in Brussels last year, more than seventeen years had passed. A lot had changed, as is the case when seventeen years pass. But near as I can remember, the feeling of awe wasn’t one of them while standing in the middle of what I now have more authority to claim as the most beautiful public square in Europe. The Grand Place stopped me in my tracks in 2023 much as it did on my first night there so many years ago.

As I stood in that spot, my mind went back to the last time I looked out over the Grand Place. On our last day on that first European adventure, we stood above a suddenly transformed Grand Place with the Flower Carpet taking up its temporary residence.

Back to present day… the onset of some sort of plague I had acquired along the way on this adventure couldn’t dampen my spirits as I took in the full beauty of the Grand Place on a stunning early fall evening.

One of the things I love most about the Grand Place is the ability to both enjoy it by soaking in the big picture or wide angle of it all – the cobblestones and magnificent buildings on such a grand scale; or by focusing in on the details of each building – the towers, clocks, and golden trim and statues. I did both of those things while sipping on a Belgium triple at a cafe tucked into the ground floor of one of those buildings and that was a perfect way to spend one evening in Brussels.

On that first visit oh so many years ago, my wife and I had a lot of laughs. As I was approaching the Mannekin Pis statue this past fall, I was deep in thinking about that past trip when the sight of this stopped me. Apparently, there’s a guy whose job it is to ensure the statue maintains an appropriate, errrr, height? I could not contain my laughter at this incredible sight.

Luckily my plague didn’t dampen my ability to taste too much until my flight home as one of the main purposes of returning to Brussels was to explore as many Trappist beers as possible. Just off the Grand Place, this bar, Poechenellekelder, became a home away from home. I was drawn to it for its amazing patio and first rate people watching as much as the depth of its beer list. On one of the days, the warmth of the day made me select a St. Bernadus Wit… the clove and banana flavours paired well with sitting in the sun.

On another visit back here, I had a Rochefort 6, a Belgian dubbel style beer. This was a gorgeous sipping beer marrying dark fruit and chocolate flavours with a lighter approach to the malt backbone in a style reminiscent of a brown ale, but more nuanced.

My beer explorations have come a long way since that first trip to Belgium seventeen years ago. On the first night in Brussels, jet-lagged and relieved after being detained on arrival by the Belgian police because someone forgot her passport on the plane (love you J!), these were my first tastes of Belgian beers. I enjoyed these with my wife while we looked out over the Grand Place. The setting sun and the warmth of the alcohol entering my system helped me fall head over heels in love with travel… a love affair still going strong today.

Back to my favourite beer bar – I ordered a Kwak which is served in this amazing glass and holder….

… as a nod to how surprised I was when that same beer hit the table in front of me on my first trip.

Speaking of intentional nods to my history in Brussels… one morning wandering the city, I came upon A la Mort Subite. I sat down outside and ordered a Duvel which is a great way to spend an hour in the morning if you ask me. This was my second visit to this bar….

On my first visit, I had ordered a peach beer (which was delicious!). My wife ordered a raspberry beer and shortly after became quite ill. When we look back on that trip, we both laugh at how she was ill most of the trip as her undiagnosed celiac disease was being tested with a constant diet of beer and Belgian waffles.

After enjoying an aged Cantillon lambic earlier in the trip in Antwerp, the beer nerd inside me was excited to do a tour of the brewery in Brussels located near the Midi train station. From walking through the brewery to seeing how the air circulation in the not perfectly closed rafters supports the wild yeast in the air joining the brewing process over the winter months, the tour was fascinating. And like all good brewery tours, it ended in the tasting room for me to sample a number of Cantillon’s beers including a geuze, a kriek, and a few organic lambic lovlies from their collection.

Lest you think I only focused on traditional Belgian beers from the older breweries… my last order of business on my final night in Brussels was visiting La Source Beer Co, a modern craft brewery just north of the historic centre of the city. All three beers I tried here were IPA-based styles and were outstanding. From old styles to new, and the blending of memories from the past with the new ones I created over four days, it was wonderful to be back in Brussels and reconnect with the first ever place my feet touched down in Europe.