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Curing mental distress after a hard day on LUMI

The LUMI User Support Team realises that at night, you want to forget all the misery from the day. The hunting for bugs, the temperamental file system of LUMI that freezes when you want to save your file so that it takes ages to get out of the editor...

Belgium has a very famous non-prescription medicine for curing that mental distress. It is called "beer" and is available in large quantities all over the city, with something for every taste and budget. Some are even made for people who need a very strong medicine to forget. You cannot get it at pharmacies though (though the latter then have a remedy for the day after if you take an overdose of the medicine "beer"), but in specialised businesses called "bar" or "café".

The medicine is tolerated well in modest quantities by most people. However, should you be taking any other medication, please consult your doctor or pharmacist to ensure that there are no conflicts with the medication you're already using. Some side effects may occur, especially when the medicine is taken in large doses. These side effects include some drowsiness, and the day after, headache and intolerance for loud sounds. The medicine is also known to impair your ability to drive a vehicle. It is recommended to not drive a vehicle after using more than one glass of the medicine.

We realise that many participants to the hackathon are scientist or have a background in science. Hence it is only natural that you may want to set up experiments to study and compare the efficiency of the various recipes for the medicine that are available. In case you want to set up a full pharmaceutical study with three groups (one taking the medicine, one getting a placebo, and one not using anything), most places that sell the medicine will also be happy to sell you a placebo. The latter can usually be recognised by the writing "0.0%" or "0.4%" on the bottle. It is not always available in bulk though.

Where to get?

See also this map on Google Maps.

The centre of the city is very touristic though and unfortunately this is not the place to find the best beer as too many tourists go for the cheaper volume stuff.

Note that most bars in Brussels will have some of the local microbrewery beers on their menu and not only the large-volume industrial beers.

Some especially noteworthy places near the city centre:

  • If you really, really want to be in the places where all tourists are (not my thing though), people usually mention:

    I personally think that it is better to have 50 beers available that the staff knows than 2000 beers of which half are only available on the menu and not in the fridges, and that the staff does not know.

    • BrewDog Brussels (Putterie 20) is a subsidiary of the Brewdog group that you can find in many big cities in Europe.

      Not bad if you are in an urgent need for some medicine when walking back from the hackathon venue to your hotel in the historic city centre, and it could be an option on Friday noon also if it is too early to leave to the airport but you want to be close to the station as you don't want to carry around your luggage.

So some of the places I like more:

There are lots of breweries with taprooms in Brussels. These are usually a bit further away from the historic city centre and outside the area known as the "pentagon" (look on a map and notice a more or less pentagonal area surrounded by bigger roads and you'll know what I mean). I mention those places that are closest to the city centre only:

  • The Wolf food court (Wolvengracht/Rue du Fossé aus Loups 50). has its own microbrewery. You can order their beer in the middle of the hall. From all breweries and brewery taprooms mentioned here, this one is closest to the Grande Place and central station.

  • Brussels Beer Project started as a very small brewery but thanks to good marketing, they are now rather big.

  • Brasserie Surréaliste at the Nieuwe Graanmarkt/Place du Nouveau Marché aux Grains 23 and housed in an Art Deco building from 1932, is a small brewery with taproom and restaurant. Open on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 5pm and Saturday from noon.

  • Saint-Gilles, south of the pentagon, is a very multicultural community. Yet there are some very nice beer bars.

    Two other places in Saint-Gilles that are not brewery taprooms but regular craft beer bars well worth a visit are:

  • There are some interesting developments going on just north of the north-west corner of the pentagon area, at the canal and close to the North station (which itself is a less pleasant area, on one side surrounded by large office buildings that are empty at night and on the other side the red light district and one of the more infamous areas of Brussels when it comes to safety).

    Tour & taxis is a completely renovated old customs hall that now houses a food court and places for cultural events. There are also some new office buildings on the former site, including the main office building of the administration of the Flemish government.

    Just north of that site there are two microbreweries with their own taproom:

    • Brasserie de la Senne (Anna Bochdreef/Drève Anna Boch 19/21) is named after the river that flows through Brussels (under Brussels would be a better expression as it is covered almost everywhere). The taproom , called Zennebar, is open every day except Mondays. They do serve some food also, but I am not sure they do that on all opening days.

    • La Source (Dieudonné Lefèvrestraat/Rue Dieudonné Levèvre 4) is my personal favourite small brewery in Brussels. The brewpub/taproom is a bit tricky to find: It is in the far left corner of a big hall named BE-HERE that you enter through a port. They typically have 5 beers from the tank and 13-14 beers on tap.

      They brew a variety of styles and their beers rarely disappoint me. You'll find fruited sours, several IPA variants, porters or stouts, but often also their own lager beer. They're one of the few though where it may be hard to find the (near) alcohol-free variant.

      During the evening, they do serve pizza also (until 21:30 except on Sundays, then until 20:30).

      Closed on Monday and Tuesday though.

  • In case you would not fly back home on Friday afternoon and would like to learn how Lambic, the most famous beer type from the Brussels area, is brewed (and what the difference is between Geuze and Lambic), you can visit the Cantillon Brewery and Brussels Museum of the Geuze which is also not far outside the pentagon area.

    They brew an excellent Lambic and Geuze, but the taste of it may be a bit on the extreme end of the Geuze/Lambic spectrum and not everyone's thing. Personally, I think the beers from. e.g., Oud Beersel and 3 Fonteinen are a bit more accessible to most and as a starter in this kind of beer. So depending on how adventurous you are when it comes to the taste of beer, you may be very happy or a bit disappointed. But it is certainly interesting to see how this beer is brewed and to learn that its production in the Brussels area is threatened by global warming...

    The place is not open at night though.