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Published: January 20th 2010
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De Panne
Wandering through farmland looking for beer! Our last day in Belgium is almost done. We just finished packing so that when we get up at 5am we can do as little as possible. Today was full of downs and ups. We got up this morning, had a tasty breakfast and eventually made our way to the train station and caught the train to De Panne so that we could visit the De Struise Brewery. Everything went smoothly. We got to De Panne and started our 35 minute walk via Google Maps to the brewery address. We walked down city streets and Adam commented that the place was like a little beach town - lots of things were closed, there was a bowling alley and an amusement park (Plopsaland). About half way on our walk we turned and the road became a dirt path, and we started passing cows and horses and farmland/countryside. Then the path went through some woods and eventually met up with a main road. We went to the address we had, but couldn't find the place - the buildings all looked residential. After making sure it really wasn't there we went into a store (it was a really clean/sparse store selling jam and protein drinks). The guy told us where a phone booth was, and when we got in to use the phone, it only took phone cards! No change. We went back to that guy and asked where to buy a phone card. I think he wanted to get rid of us, but he let Adam use his phone to call Urbain (one of the brewers). It turns out that De Struise is not even in De Panne! It's in Oostvleteren. In fact, it's been 4 years since they were in De Panne.
So we walked back to the train station, talked to some guy in a tram office who told us what station and what bus to catch. We went to the Veurne Station and had to wait about an hour and a half to catch the bus we needed. We got a calling card and let Urbain know we'd be there at about 5pm. The bus came and it was about a 30 minute ride to Oostvleteren. We walked across the street and there we were! De Struise is in an old schol building and they are still setting up all their stuff. Out in a courtyard were some barrels and BBT's (big beer tanks). Inside there was a classroom set up to teach beer classes, and in another room tanks they use for brewing and their bottling set up. They handcap all their beers. Craziness! In the hallway were crates and crates of beers, as well as lots of their own bottles and collaborations out to see. In a display case were empty bottles from beers others had brought to them. Mostly American beers - it was fun to see what they had tried from home. He seemed happy with the beers we brought him, and for every beer we gave him, he gave us one back! It was incredibly nice of him. We sat in the classroom and he brought in some beers for the three of us to drink: Den Crooten Tocht, Struise Rosse, and tsjeeses first. The first two are blended and have stone fruits added to them to make the tsjeeses (their holiday beer). Then we had the pipedream (IPA) and the cuvee delphine. Urbain was very nice and also really interesting to talk to. I liked hearing the process of making beer as well as his thoughts on beer and the beer scene. He drove us to a nearer train station and we came back to Bruges - starving (we hadn't eaten since breakfast). We went to Cambrinus again and I got some chicken there that was sooooo good. It was moist and delicious. Plus food just tasted so good at that point. Tomorrow -- a long day and train ride ahead. But Belgium was a lot of fun (again).
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