I'm not such a connoiseur. I like Maes, which is basically Labatt's Blue. The best thing about Maes is that it comes in tiny little cans so you can have a small glass worth, which is exactly the portion size I want when I crave a beer.
Anyway, according to all sorts of different beer experts, Belgian beer is some of the best in the world, and many of those experts agree that one beer in particular, West Vleteren, is the be all and end all, hands down best brewski that money can buy.
West Vlet is a trappist beer which means that it's brewed by genuine monks in a honest to God (hee) monastery. Unlike some of the other trappist beers that are out there, like Orval and ... oh, I don't know any of the others, and I only remember Orval because it's name has something to do with a lady throwing a ring into a pond and a big fish -- a very Lord of the Rings-ish story but without that chubby guy from Rudy bleating "Mr Frodo" in a thinly disguised homoerotic way...
Where was I?
Unlike the other trappist beers, the monks who make West Vlet are hardcore, and don't want to profit from their beer making -- they make enough money to cover their expenses and pay out to a few charities and that's it. So, while those Orval monks are rolling around in gold plated cadillacs, dripping bling and texting Diddy about his latest fashion line, the brothers at West Vleteren are leading quiet, contemplative lives ... I imagine that it's quite similar to Maria's experiences, except these brothers are making beer instead of singing songs, creating clothing out of curtains and falling in love with standoffish but secretely loving thin-lipped navy captains who should just express how they feel and dump that horrible Baroness already, although she is very glamorous with her cigarette holder and her weirdly white hair...
Where was I?
Right. So, the long and the short of it is that the monks don't brew a lot of beer, but everyone agrees that it's the very best there is, so that creates this huge cachet around the stuff, which I'm sure then makes even more people say it's the best. Those monks are certainly wiley marketing geniuses (something that couldn't be said about Maria). What all this boils down to is that it's very hard to actually buy West Vleteren beer. A few stores sell a small amount for a lot of money in Brussels, and you can order it at some very special restaurants, again for a lot of cash. The only way to actually get a case of the beer is to go to the monastery itself and buy it from the monks.
But, the monks are busy being contemplative (and maybe secretely twirling around mountainsides as they sing about the hills being alive) and they don't want to be pestered by people all of the time. So, they've set up a time where you can call and make an appointment to come and fetch the beer. Now, the time where you're allowed to call is very limited-- I don't know the exact logistics of it all, so I'm sort of inventing but it's something like, you're allowed to call in a two week period once a year, or something crazy. Anyway, as you can imagine the phone lines to this monastery burn up when it's the time to call and the line is always busy. If you do manage to get through during this window, you are given a specific time when you are meant to show up and get your beer. You have to give your license number so that you don't then sell your slot to someone else.
This is all just background to tell you about our own experinece with the West Vlet beer, because our beer loving friends (remember them from the beginning of this epic post?), well they managed to get a slot (after calling for literally three years) and they were given an appointment to pick up their beer, but it so happened that they would be in Canada at that time. You can't pick your date with these monks or argue about anything. You have to take the time they give you because the brothers don't screw around.
So, this is where I came in. They asked me if I could drive their car out into the countryside to find this monastery and pick up their two cases (all you're allowed to order at one shot). Since I'm a non-working student I said sure... Also, as coincidence would have it, Andrew wasn't feeling well that day, so despite his flu-like symptoms, he accompanied me.
Road Trip!
We had a great day, tooling around in someone else's car (which I magically didn't dent, scratch, or otherwise hurt). They have a couple of little kids, so we sang along to the chidlren's cds they'd left in the car, although the tunes kind of got old fast.
We multitasked as well, because Andrew was doing a presentation in London later that month (this all happened in July) about a Second World War battle that the Canadians were involved in that happened right on the Belgian-Dutch border. We toodled up there to get some pics of the place for Andy's presentation.
This is not the picture he used in his presentation.
This is:
Hurray Canada! They remember us!The monastery was in West Flanders, which was the heart of the First World War battleground, so we also stopped at a couple of cemeteries. We've seen a number of these since we've moved here, and they are always very touching and also peaceful.
This farmhouse was a dressing station during the First World War. It looked so pretty and untouched now, it was hard to imagine what must have gone on there ninety years ago...
Anyway, after merrily burning through much of our friends' gas, we finally arrived at the monastery. It was very tucked away and hidden. We drove down narrow little lanes that were one step removed from tracks and it was quite fun and exciting. When we finally got there there wasn't much signage, but we figured out what to do by the cars in front of us.
The monks have everything all figured out, so that the noisy annoying public doesn't have to actually enter their home. Instead, you line up and it's a drive through situation. The guy who's loading the beer up isn't even a monk (total gyp).
Anyway, at the end of it all, we got the beer and then hit the little café they've got set up across the street where (if they haven't run out or pissed the monks off) you can buy and drink a glass of West Vleteran:
It's actually super strong beer, like 10 percent or something. Since I was driving, I only had a few sips of mine, so Andyroo had to drink two of those glasses. Needless to say he was a leetle tipsy when we got back in the car. As Andrew pointed out, no one else seemed to share my North American concern about drinking and driving, because people were throwing the beer back and there certainly was not public transit to the monastery.
Maria never went on record about her attitude to drinking and driving, but I'm pretty confident in saying that she would not have approved. She might even have had a little song to sing on the subject, maybe gently chastising Friedrich for swilling back too much Jagermeister and getting frisky with Frau Schmidt before leaping into the Captain's car with Uncle Max for a Boys Gone Wild night on the town, which culminated in the two of them singing Do Re Me in all of the locations they visited before, but this time naked and leading a donkey.
Where was I?
Right, well not much more to say on the trip, except that the cafe was surprisingly popular, and just as we left a whole gaggle of nuns had arrived. I had to laugh, because the space was pretty narrow, and the ladies had to leave their wheelchairs behind:
I guess, no drinking and driving for them!
