Bruges hotels are a good base to explore the many Belgian breweries. There are over 80 breweries in Belgium making over 600 different beers so this list concentrates on the best ones to visit. Bruges has its own brewery and brewery museum housed in an old malt house which houses artifacts from the 31 breweries that were in Bruges at the turn of the century.De Halve Maan brewery is the only one still operating. Brugse Zot is their signature beer. Pale bronze in colour with peachy undertones, it is a good quaffing beer. The brewery does tours which will give you an opportunity to sample this distinctive beer. Beer was originally brewed by monks and there are still a few monasteries keeping up the tradition. Unfortunately a lot of them do not do brewery tours. One that does however, is the Abbaye d’ Orval (Our Lady of Peace) in Florenville. They produce 3 superb ales and as well as tours, they have a shop selling the beers as well as their own home produced cheese. Such was the reputation monks had of being good brewers that some breweries have tried to cash in and given themselves religious sounding names such as Abbaye des Rocks in Montignies-sur-Roc! In spite of its name it is not a monastery but they brew beer as the monks used to and produce 6 quality ales. Brewery tours are available. The Palm brewery in Steenhuffel combines a brewery tour with a trip around Diepensteyn castle. Don’t have too many free beer samples, those castle steps can be slippy! Another Palm owned brewery is Rodenbach in Roeselare. They produce 4 different beers including the much sought after oak aged old style ale. They organise brewery tours throughout the year. For something a bit different visit the Mort Subite brewery in Kobbegem. They produce 6 different Mort Subite (Sudden Death) fruit beers. They do have brewery tours and one hopes that the beer tastes better than the name! One interesting brewery to visit is the Huyghe brewery in Melle. As well as doing tours, they also have a brewing museum and one can learn all about the brewing process. Huyghe currently produce 22 different beers and supply a lot of hotels in the area. Staying at one of Bruges hotels gives one the opportunity to visit some of the smaller breweries in nearby Amsterdam. There are 3 local breweries producing very different and distinctive beer. The oldest microbrewery is ‘t lj which opened in 1984. Housed in what was once the city’s public baths, they produce 6 strong beers as well as a seasonal beer. All the beers are top fermented. De Praal is the city’s youngest microbrewery. Opened in 2002, they make 3 standard beers and 4 seasonal ales although more are in the pipeline. Just by the infamous Red Light District is the De Bekeerde Suster brewpub, formerly known as Maximiliaans. Started in 1992, it’s been through a lot of changes but now produces a popular blond beer with more beers planned.
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