Bernardus Tripel and a Poperings Hommelbier

propelled Belgium brewery tour through Belgium lets you bike to pints

replica handbags online Fields of flax dot the countryside of high replica bags the Flanders region of Belgium. (Selina Kok for the Washington Post) replica handbags online

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“Look! Hops!” my replica designer backpacks wife, Selina, yelled out, then pointed to a road sign. “And now we’re on the official hops bike route!”

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Designer Replica Bags I reached out to a Dutch acquaintance, Henk Wesselink, for advice. He’s the Benelux partner behind the Portland, Ore., based bike tour company Beercycling, whose motto of “Getting you from pint A to pint B” pretty much says it all. Wesselink told me that Beercyling owner Evan Cohan, who spends summers in Belgium leading tours, had just written a self guided information packet about West Flanders in response to the many independent travelers who contacted him for tips. Bingo! Designer Replica Bags

Cohan high quality designer replica steers buy replica bags travelers to the Flemish area of Westhoek because of the province’s high concentration of hops and breweries (27), many with regular visiting hours. For $99, customers get a downloadable guide, along with email support. The guide fully details routes, lodging, bike rentals, food attractions and designer replica luggage out of the way breweries and gives insider tips. Although that might sound pricey, it was a relative bargain in that it saved me days of planning.

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We headed out on a Friday afternoon just south of Bruges, where we’d left our car. This was our longest cycling day, 52 miles, mostly through small villages and farms, passing fields of flax and Brussels sprouts (the name is no coincidence). We kept on course to arrive in Ypres for an event that marked a sobering start to the trip: the Last Post. This public commemoration for soldiers killed in World War I has been held every evening since 1928. Until researching this trip, I had scant knowledge of Flanders Fields, an area of Belgium that was under siege for four years until the war ended in 1918. Indeed, our beer bike theme expanded to include a fair number of battlefields and burial places more than half a million soldiers from more than 50 countries died in Belgium. Even today, farmers find bullets and sometimes live ammunition in their fields.

Each Last Post ceremony, held under the famed Menin Gate, high end replica bags includes buglers and a short reading about one soldier, but otherwise high quality replica bags varies. Afterward, several people placed poppy wreaths along the monument steps to remember loved ones.

aaa replica designer handbags Ready for a best replica designer bags bit of levity, we visited the Times, a bar popular with best replica bags locals just off the gorgeous historic market square and rebuilt after the war. We started with the locally brewed Wipers Times, a blond ale (“Wipers” was the British soldiers’ pronunciation of Ypres), followed by hoppy, bold beers brewed in the next day’s destination of Watou a St. Bernardus Tripel and a Poperings Hommelbier. Hommel is the local abbreviation for humulus, buy replica bags online the botanical name for hops. aaa replica designer handbags

Fake Designer Bags Any luxury replica bags questions I had about hops the herbs of beer were answered the next day at the fascinating and recently updated Hop Museum Poperinge, housed in a beautiful and aromatic 19th century building that once held the municipal hops weighing and storage facility. The region, I came to learn, produces the vast majority of the 271 tons of hops harvested in Belgium annually, most of which go to regional breweries. I appreciated learning about the science of this plant, so perfect for the region’s fertile soil, and I especially loved reading about the culture of farming and harvesting that connected the community before industrial agriculture took hold. Not to be missed is the museum’s “wall of beer,” which contains hundreds of bottles from every Belgian province, many for sale in the gift shop. Fake Designer Bags

Suzanne Picard of Kensington, Md., samples Westvleteren beer made at the Trappist abbey Saint Sixtus. (Selina Kok / For The Washington Post)

From there, we dropped in on nearby De Plukker, a brewery run by organic hop farmer Joris good quality replica bags Cambie. Tastings are held in a nondescript industrial building only on Saturday afternoons. We sampled a Keikoppenbier, a aaa replica bags fresh blond, top fermented ale and chatted with Cambie, who turned the family farm organic when he took over in 1993. At his invitation, we cycled through his 35 acre farm, passing tall, tidy rows of hops before heading out.

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“Like the idea of replica bags online doing more mileage and hills?” it asked. “Consider cycling over the border into France to visit the Mont des Cats Trappist replica bags Monastery.”

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purse replica handbags We worked up a thirst climbing the steep hill to the monastery, which welcomes the public to its gift shop and cafe. The abbey, replica designer bags wholesale known mostly for making cheese, in 2011 revived its original amber beer recipe after a 163 year hiatus, although it’s brewed by another abbey. (Only 12 abbey breweries worldwide carry the Trappist label, which guarantees that the beer is brewed by or under the supervision of monks. That exclusivity gives the ales their avid fan base.) purse replica handbags

We spent the night in Watou, a small, sweet Belgium town with a historic square ringed with restaurants and a large church. Dinner at our hotel on the square, Het Wethuys, included a crepelike “pancake” made of beer batter and stuffed with meat and vegetables, and two pints of their house beer, a sweet, earthy concoction brewed with local hops.

high quality replica handbags Sunday started with a pilgrimage to the Holy Grail of Trappist beer: Westvleteren, made at Trappist abbey of Saint Sixtus in Vleteren. Selina, who grew up a few hours north and used to occasionally purchase crates of beer to go, couldn’t believe how the beer outlet had transformed from a tiny shop in the woods to a tourist mecca, with bus parking. The modest looking abbey, founded in 1831 by a monk from Mont des Cats, is private, but visitors can tour its lovely shrine to the Virgin best replica bags online Mary just outside the walls. Across the street is the modern cafe called In de Vrede, said to be the only place in the world one is guaranteed to cheap designer bags replica find Trappist Westvleteren 12, Westvleteren’s highest alcohol brew (10.2 percent alcohol). Some have called it the best in the world for its complex flavors. high quality replica handbags

replica Purse We hoisted our famous froths in a toast with none other than our virtual guide Cohan, his co leader Wesselink and their 10 Beercycling customers. A couple days earlier, after sending Cohan a note of appreciation for all the great intel, I had realized we’d be crossing paths at the monastery, so Selina and I planned to have lunch replica bags china with his “10 Day Flanders Adventure Tour” group. replica Purse

replica handbags china I ended up sitting next to Matthew and Suzanne Picard from Kensington, Md., who had chosen the trip to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. replica handbags china

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After lunch, while folks waited for their hops cake and ice cream made with beer, Selina and I, just a teeny bit tipsy, sped off to one of the family run breweries the tour group had already visited De Dolle Brouwers (“the crazy brewers”) in the little town of Esen.

At De Dolle, brewmaster Kris Herteleer, who uses hops from Poperinge and brews with old school equipment, told us his beer was more famous in the United States than locally. (It’s available in limited amounts in the Washington area.) During the tour, I struck up a conversation with a fellow American who turned out to be Michael Webb, a Capitol Hill resident on a research trip to the “beer mecca of the world.” Over fresh, hoppy ales in the brewery cafe, Webb raved about Belgian beers and told me he’d be paying them homage when he opens National Capital Brewing Co. in the District in 2016.

The next day was more about battlefields than beer as best replica bags we visited two fascinating spots in Diksmuide the Museum on the Yser and the hauntingly titled Trench of Death. The museum, until recently called the Yser Tower, is a 275 foot high tower that looks both drab and regal and reigns as Flanders’s most nationalistic symbol in its struggle against the country’s French speaking Walloon region. Visitors start at the top for an amazing 360 degree view, all the way to the North Sea, then work their way down the 22 floors of the museum, where exhibits detail the fallout from the war and also the Flemish Movement. A mile north of the tower are the famous trenches, along the Yser River, paths and tunnels (now re created) used by the Allied forces for more than four years of fighting German forces, some of whom were planted only 100 yards away.