On Sunday – after I managed to overcame my thoughts about staying at home and not doing anything after the exhausting ride of Saturday – I took the bus to Geel (only 2.70 EUR) to meet Steven – whose family lives there – and Paul, and spend a nice afternoon together. Steven invited us because there was a beer tasting event (22ste Kempisch Bierfestival) this weekend, which gave us a very good opportunity to deepen our knowledge (and understanding) of Belgian beer (and) culture. ;)

We tasted 9 different beers out of the (mind-blowing) 121 kinds available. In the order of consumption (from the left to the right on the picture above), we had Schuppenboer Tripel, Schuppenboer Tripel 2009 (two almost identical bottles, but their taste is completely different), Malheur 8 (which is not produced anymore, so we were lucky enough to taste one of the last bottles of it), Girardin Gueuze (unfiltered beer with a very strange aroma – considered as a very high quality beer among the lovers of these Lambic ales, but Paul was not even able to drink it :D), La Trappe Isid’or (a Trappist beer, the only one from the Netherlands), Larumse Corneel 2004 (this was one of the old beers), Früli Aardbei (very good beer with a really dominant strawberry taste, usually preferred by girls, but who cares? – sadly it is produced for export only, not for Belgian market…), Bios Vlaamse Bourgogne and Tempelier.

I saw that the others (this was really a big event, with hundreds drinking there – like a small Oktoberfest, but without the drunk people and the loud folk music -, there was even an official booklet about all the different beers, listing their type, alcohol content, color, taste and aroma) were tasting small pieces of cheese too, so I suggested to do the same. We had a big plate of several different kinds of cheese, which made the tasting even better – as they were all delicious and separated the different beers well.

After the beer tasting we were kindly invited for a barbecue dinner at Steven’s place with his family (parents, brother and sister). I (and of course Paul too) really enjoyed their hospitality, we had a very pleasant conversation and the meal was also truly delicious. We took the train back to Leuven (9.90 EUR – just to compare it with the bus ticket…) at a quarter past eight (and we had not enough time to thank Steven’s family in a proper way), then I went home and read some 50 pages from the new Dan Brown novel… I am very happy that I was not crazy and tired enough to miss this fantastic Sunday – that’s how every week should end here in Belgium. And of course thanks for the invitation, Steven!

If you would like to leave a comment, then after the question “Milyen nap van most (pl. kedd)?” you have to type which day of the week is today, but in Hungarian ;) From Monday to Sunday, these are the days (without accents, but that’s OK, it will work): hetfo, kedd, szerda, csutortok, pentek, szombat, vasarnap. I will make small modifications in the (near) future to simplify this for non-Hungarian speakers (some 99.8% of the World). Update (05/10/2009): now it works on both languages.