In Antwerp I had an abomination of a beer

It was raining very heavily in Antwerp and we were getting wet so we ducked in to a restaurant for some food. I ordered a Leffe Brune which I had before, though it is not what I wanted. I was trying to indicate the Christmas leffe I saw on the bar. My wife ordered a Hoegaarden Citron and it is a Travesty of a beer, an absolute abomination. It is not even fair to categorise this as being like an alcopop as that would be unfair to alcopops around the world. Image an ordinary hoegaarden with some sort of lemon artificially sweetened flavouring added in and you have the right idea. This does not work on any level. Even my wife was not impressed. She said if it was just lime soda it would be fine but the fact it was beer was just "not ok".

I was able to order the right leffe as I noticed a sign for it on the wall. The Leffe Kerstbier was a Christmasy version of Leffe Dark. It was hard to tell a real difference but it was a little lighter in feel/body than the brown and also had some Christmas spice, pretty much what you would expect. I preferred the brown but this was a decent enough beer. The rain finally stopped so it was time to go to a real destination.

T' Pakhuis is the only brewpub in Antwerp and is a little bit of a walk away from the city centre. We headed straight out of the centre towards the river, to see what it was like and found it was not a nice river stroll like you would get in Paris, London or Prague but it was nice enough. Eventually we came near our destination which involved us moving away from the river and back behind the line of buildings facing it into a sort of residential square of flats/apartments with a green space in the middle with children's playground etc. I could almost have been on Mountjoy square from the look of the place. On the other side of the square we found our destination. You have to go through the arch and in to a door on the right, sort of like the Franciscan Well in Cork.


I have to say I love the inside of this place, the layout and decor is fantastic. Above you see doors leading in to the smoking room, where smokers are closed off from the rest of the populace.

A set of concrete stairs, perhaps the only ugly part of the building leads upstairs to another dining area and downstairs to the bathroom. Brewing equipment is both downstairs and halfway up the stairs.

Behind the bar there is yet more brewing equipment. I wonder what the place is like on Brewday and if they brew on a normal day with people in drinking & eating?


This is what you can see at the bottom of the stairs when heading to the bathroom. Coincidently the bathrooms are very large and pleasant unlike most bar bathrooms.


We did not eat here as we were forced to eat earlier when hiding from the rain but the menu looks interesting. I don't know what most of it says as Antwerp is a Dutch city so my limited French was pretty much useless when reading menu's here. This place is massive though, there is seating for at least 300 people. The only disappointing thing was the beer. Not the quality mind, just the lack of choice. There are only three, a Blond, A brown and a Golden Ale.

First up was the Blonde which was a nice German style wheat beer with Belgian With characteristics. It was a little spicy if a little bland and thin on body. My wife enjoyed it so the target audience was happy.
The brown is a little better and interestingly is only 5.5% making it very drinkable for Belgian beer. Sweet/Burnt caramel is the backbone here with some brown sugar on the finish. I found it reminded me of a glass of sherry.

Lastly the Golden ale is called Nen Bangelijke and I think it was possibly the best of the lot, though I did enjoy the brown for its drink-ability. At 9.2% this is not that drinkable although you could make a bit of a dent in a pitcher. Oh did I mention they serve pitchers of their beer? Well they do. Imagine the damage a pitcher of this 9.2% beer would do to you.
Anyway the beer was a clear yellow with a fluffy white head and was pretty sweet with caramel, honey and rock candy coming through. The alcohol was obvious too and warmed my insides. There was also a balanced bitterness to it.
The Beer Nut found Almonds in it but he has better tastebuds than me and I did not notice them.

Overall I am glad I went there but it is just a little out of the way to bother with if you are only there on a day trip like we were. By the time we got back to the city centre it was late and to be honest we were not too impressed with Antwerp and much preferred Brussels which is odd because I have heard the opposite from many people. Perhaps these people say that because Antwerp has a better nightlife as in clubs etc? I am not sure. All I know is that I was looking forward to Bruges the next day.