Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 73: All 42 pages of the 1999 Rich O’s beer list.
Situated just outside of the city of Oudenaarde in East Flanders, Belgium is the locale of Mater, where a brewery called Roman was established in 1545. The brewery has been operated by the same family since the 1600s, and as I write these words in 2025, the tradition continues with a 14th generation at the helm.
On March 25, 1998, Roman awaited the scrutiny of an eager squad of beer travelers under my immediate tutelage.
During this period Roman exported to America 750 ml bottles of a big, complex East Flanders brown ale called Dobbelen Bruinen, which sold well at the Public House, based in part on the frequency and earnestness of my personal recommendations.
I really loved that beer.
Upon arrival at Roman in early afternoon we were welcomed by the ranking brewery salesperson who gave us a fine walk-through, then guided us to the tasting hall for sampling — except these samples, normally comprising a few ounces, proved to be full pours of various house ales of our choice, many of them higher octane.
It occurred to me that apart from a few snacks, we’d skipped lunch. In light of the subsequent merriment, this clearly was an omen.
I was told that members of the group would get one beer each on the house, after which they’d be asked to pay, and of course this was fine. In the end, all efforts at payment were rebuffed, so the gratuity we left behind was suitably extravagant.
Roman’s comfortable and spacious seating area was paneled with wood and conservatively adorned in an early 20th-century revivalist manner. My charges joined numerous senior citizens who already were seated, some chatting, others playing cards, with the majority quietly enjoying their beers. We soon learned it was a regularly scheduled outing from their nearby retirement home, a fringe benefit that struck me as supremely civilized.
As we dug into our own “samples,” the atmosphere was convivial but restrained. As a headmaster of Americans, I knew that given sufficient time and beers, we’d become loud; it’s who we are, and what we do, and yet at first we managed to blend in and contribute to an almost stately prevailing atmosphere apart from unfortunate breakage that occurred when a round of “look ma, no hands” beer tray hijinks went awry.
Then without warning a harsh burst of audio feedback broke the stillness, and the sound system began loudly generating a form of syncopated rhythm that might be described as Belgian polka if such a genre actually existed. What happened next was completely unanticipated. Pensioners rose from their benches and chairs seemingly as one, united, and formed a skirmish line of raucous dancers, quickly circling the room.
It was an awe-inspiring moment, frozen in time.
There being far more women than men among the retirees, and more guys than gals in our group, as the seniors traversed the room we were pulled one by one into a gyrating scrum and paired on the basis of readiest available human of the opposite sex. Soon a large pair of female panties appeared from nowhere — a ritualistic occurrence, I surmised — and eventually it landed on the head of my friend and tour mate Ed.
The celebration escalated for 10-15 minutes amid toasts, smiles and frenzied transfers of the panties, and then just as abruptly as it started, the music ceased. So did the dancing. Catching their breaths, the older folks returned to their tables to gather up belongings, and it was obvious that our tour time at the Roman brewery had concluded as well.
It was time to return to our buses.
I’ll never forget what happened next. To this very day it ranks as a supremely defining moment for me among the many journeys I’ve taken to Europe, serving as an indelible reminder of a particular period of generational change in contemporary history, and how fortunate (and gratified, and humbled) I was to be on hand to witness it.
Quite a few of our erstwhile dancing partners lingered near the doorway, and as we approached, they thanked us in varying shadings of English for visiting Belgium and enjoying “their” beer. What’s more, almost all of them appended heartfelt thanks for America’s help in getting their country back from the Nazis in World War II.
In short, they thanked us for the service to humanity rendered by our fathers, mothers and grandparents, and it was tremendously moving in a way that caught everyone utterly by surprise.
You can take it to the bank: I didn’t cry very often at the age of 38, but there were tears in my eyes as we climbed aboard our transport, and I certainly wasn’t alone in succumbing to emotion. Those tears invariably return each time I tell the story.
Given the shamefully shambolic state of Donald Trump’s MAGA-grifted America as I write, the memory of those pensioners, and the wet eyes their gesture still inspires, takes on an unwelcomed and bittersweet edge today, one that wasn’t there before. I remain appreciative for the words offered by the elderly Belgians we met that day at Roman in Mater, surely none of whom still walk among us.
I’m also compelled to apologize profusely to their children and grandchildren for the depths of narcissism and cruelty to which so many of my fellow Americans have sunk.
How did we become so willfully ignorant about the world?
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“FOSSILS Ultimate Road Trip – Belgian Beer Paradise 1998” was an exercise I’d designed as dress rehearsal to gauge interest in future “beer tourism” group trips. My confidence as a tour organizer grew steadily, and European beer industry connections were developing nicely thanks to the Public House’s success. It was time to push things up a notch.
I was determined to weave together threads that pertained not only to beer and brewing, but included easily digested dollops of European history and culture. These were the themes that inspired me, and it was forever my hope that education would help unite lovers of better beer.
Belgian Beer Paradise duly became the first in an ongoing series of European pub and brewery crawls. I contacted Patrick at Vanlerberghe, a Belgian mom ‘n’ pop motorcoach company, and started making arrangements for a spring group tour through Netherlands and Belgium. 16 friends and regulars signed up, which was enough to make the fiscal side of it work, and other friends would be traveling independently and could hop on the bus when expedient.
The key takeaway: be sure the bus has a toilet.
Given that my coffee-loving customers clamored for access to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, it being a place where the coffee shops served really fine Joe, I elected to begin there, allowing a quick meeting with my friend Boris in Haarlem.
The itinerary (reprinted below in full) also included overnight stops in Brugge, Roeselare, Namur and Brussels, with official Trappist cheese and ale program at the legendary ‘t Brugs Beertje under the guidance of the inimitable Daisy Claeys.
I’m biased, and yet it must be conceded that the lineup of brewery tours was simply stunning.
- De Dolle Brouwers: Kris Herteleer’s eccentric ales, artistic inclinations, and the chance to meet his amazing mom and chief brewery tour guide (who died in 2021 at the age of 103).
- Brouwerij Van Eecke (now Leroy Breweries): The one that mattered to me was, and remains, Poperings Hommmelbier.
- Brouwerij Rodenbach: The mind-blowing complexity borne of those 294 foeders (Slavonian oak barrels) in the basement.
- Brouwerij Roman: Dancing with the stars – and East Flanders Brown Ale.
- Brasserie à Vapeur: An alchemist named Jean-Louis Dits and his decades-long experiment in archaic museum brewing.
- Brasserie Dupont: How one brewery’s scintillating interpretation of “Saison” became a beer judge’s yardstick for virtually all the others (they make a wonderful Pilsner, too).
- Brasserie Fantôme: Dany Prignon’s eclectic artisanal vision played out in a converted barn in the Ardennes, funky and inconsistent, never boring.
- Brasserie Achouffe: Gnomes and ale, building critical mass via a machine of excellence in both brewing and marketing.
- Brouwerij Drie Fonteinen: The late Armand Debelder’s tireless authenticity in the perpetuation of Lambic.
Note that “Brouwerij” is the Flemish word for brewery, and “brasserie” the French, proving that lessons about geography can arise spontaneously from beer just like a Lambic’s airborne fermentation.
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Somehow, most likely via Tim Webb’s CAMRA Good Beer Guide to Belgium and Holland, the hitherto unknown Poperinge came to my attention, as tucked obscurely into a corner of Belgium near the French border. I’d been close to it in 1995 during a stop in Ieper (Ypres), the Great War battleground.
The three-year-long Great War battle completely destroyed Ieper but never reached as far as Poperinge, which lay only a few miles behind the front lines. However, the primary reason for diverting the motorcoach to Poperinge was the town’s central role in the history of Belgian hop growing.
The large-scale cultivation of hops usually is undertaken in areas with specific climatic conditions: “consistent, moderate temperature in spring, adequate moisture from irrigation or rain throughout season, and dry weather during harvest.” In Belgium, these conditions characterize the Westhoek (“west corner” in Dutch) region around Poperinge and nearby Watou.
By the 1990s, civil authorities in Westhoek had developed a comprehensive program of tourism outreach, touting historical sites, bicycling routes, coastal idylls and culinary experiences – with hops and beer presciently included. As we now know, interest in the latter was primed for an explosion. Poperinge’s immediate vicinity was a hidden gem of an area possessing no single “great” attraction, just a modular collection of fun possibilities.
Intrigued, I contacted the Poperinge tourist office and learned they were entirely hip to beer tourism. In fact, they’d already devised a plan of operation for tour buses filled with people just like us, including a local English-speaking guide, a brewery tour of the Van Eecke brewery in Watou, beers at a traditional old-school café and the chance to play old-school tavern games there, and admission to the Hopmuseum Poperinge.
The Poperinge half-day visit proved to be a great hit with the group, especially the Au Nouveau St.-Eloi rural tavern (“estaminet” in French; in Flemish, “kroeg,” or pub), perched on the Belgian side of a country lane, with France facing it across the road, and functioning as a de facto community center in addition to serving drinks and food.
There had been an unfortunate fire at the main building just before our arrival, and the whole operation was moved temporarily to an adjacent outbuilding. The damaged tavern has long since been rebuilt, and the outbuilding now serves as the feestzaal (banquet room).
In spite of Au Nouveau St.-Eloi’s travails, it remained a standout choice, filled with fun and friendly people. The prime attraction for foreigners was seeing traditional pub games being played, as described by another visitor who took notes at a different establishment, aptly approximating our experience.
We try a round of ‘baanbolling’, bowls played with balls in which the weight is unequally distributed. The skill is to throw the balls so they follow as straight a course as possible. A minor detail: the bowling lane itself is hollow. Hoefijzerwerpen horseshoe throwing, shooting the ‘liggende wip’ which is a form of archery, ‘vliegende vogelpik’, a throwing game with a moving board. “Uitebolling” is another ball throwing game similar to “Shove ha’penny” in the UK or the Dutch ‘sjoelen’, in tonspel you try to get the puck in the hole, there are table skittles, throwing rings …
The Poperinge tour concluded at the Hopmuseum, and as I casually absorbed the narrative, a complete stranger sidled up to me and asked if my name happened to be Roger.
I immediately recalled the scene from the film Top Secret, and the double agent ostensibly selling “souvenirs, novelties (and) party tricks.” If this had been Moscow in 1987, I’d have assumed the mysterious man was about to solicit my thoughts about a black market currency exchange – at the best possible rate, naturally.
However, the estimable Luc Dequidt was no Soviet-era entrepreneur. Rather, he was chief of Poperinge’s tourist bureau. Having monitored my communications with his staff, Luc wanted to convey personal greetings and make sure our tour was going smoothly; and by the way, was I aware of the next installment of the town’s triennial beer and hop festival, coming in 1999?
Hmm. No, my festival awareness was nil, although by sheer coincidence I’d already started plotting to double the group size the following year for a more ambitious, wider-ranging itinerary. In short order, the hop festival became part of the plan, as well as a recurring feature in my life for the next two decades.
Luc and I have been friends ever since our chat at the hop museum in 1998. I could not have foreseen the lasting impact of this fortuitous meeting. From 1998 through 2008, I turned up in Poperinge under one or another pretext nine times, missing only 2003 and 2006. Five times there was beercycling involved; motorcoach beer tours accounted for three; and in 2007 the late Kevin Richards and I dropped by in late winter for a few days of beer drinking, just for the hell of it.
Unfortunately the 2020 pandemic interrupted the cadence of my Poperinge love affair; hop fests dates were juggled, priorities shifted, and erstwhile friends in the States turned their backs on me. I’d dearly love to renew my acquaintance with the Westhoek, especially astride a bicycle.
Soon, please.
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Our day in Poperinge actually began around lunchtime in Watou, the nearby village with an outsized reputation for brewing prowess; in addition to Van Eecke/Leroy, both St. Bernardus (secular) and Westvleteren (Trappist) breweries are close at hand.
My objective in Watou was the Restaurant ‘t Hommelhof, founded by chef Stefaan Couttenye, a founding titan of modern Belgian beer cuisine. Specifically, I was after Couttenye’s springtime hop shoots, which comprise a story all their own.
These Farmers Want You to Drink Your Hops and Eat Them Too, by Catie Joyce-Bulay (Gastro Obscura)
In Belgium’s hops-growing region of Poperinge, the tiny, tender shoots show up on menus from late February to early April. Thrown raw into salads, cooked in cream sauces, or baked, the shoots are harvested from underneath the soil and look like tiny white asparagus or bean sprouts…they are crisp and, when eaten raw, have an almost cucumber flavor.
The classic way to serve them is cooked with a poached egg and cream sauce, says Stefaan Couttenye, chef and owner of Restaurant ‘t Hommelhof in Watou, who has even turned them into ice cream. Couttenye says hop shoots have been found in ancient Roman cookbooks, but don’t appear to be widely used outside of Belgium.
Hop shoots come from the part of the hop plant that doesn’t go on to produce flowers, and are culled by hand in earliest spring. One might simply discard them, but why? If prepared as a vegetable, the strictly seasonal hop shoots are elevated into the world’s most expensive vegetable; according to our guide in 1998, hop shoots cost around $100 a pound, with the price quintupling since.
On the day of our visit to ‘t Hommelhof, two menus were offered. I had hop shoots with a poached egg and smoked salmon. It was expensive. I did not care.
The restaurant was founded in 1985 by Couttenye and his wife, the late Sabine Dejonckheere. He’s just a few days younger than me, making him all of 25 at the restaurant’s inception, when the notion of beer cuisine in general, and local food sourcing in particular, remained a minority taste even in a place like Belgium. It is an understatement to suggest that he was impressively far ahead of his time.*
In 2014 Couttenye published a book, Cooking with Belgian Beers: Great recipes flavoured with the famous ‘Westhoek’ beers, co-written with his son Simon, who managed the restaurant’s beer program. The book is an overview of the characteristic range of foods to be experienced in the Westhoek, with a disclaimer: it’s always advisable to keep an open mind, a prime example being squab.
What Is Squab? (D’Artagnan)
Squab are young pigeons that have never flown. For thousands of years, they have been a favorite meal for every stratum of society throughout the world. They were unequivocally the first domesticated poultry, even preempting chicken.
This may surprise twenty-first-century Americans. More often we think of pigeons as annoying denizens of city monuments and buildings. In fact, these are rock doves, a relative of pigeons, and far less edible. Yet squab is considered a most exquisite ingredient in cuisines as distinct as Cantonese, Moroccan, and French. The simple reason for squab’s universal appeal is the delicate, succulent flesh, truly unlike that of any other bird. Squab is a dark-meat bird, like duck and goose, yet the meat is not nearly as fibrous, rendering it far more tender. Its flavor, when properly cooked, is a lush, rich essence, reminiscent of sautéed foie gras, albeit with more texture.
Eventually I sampled squab, though not at ‘t Hommelhof. It was during an hours-long feast at a Chinese restaurant in Soho in 2001, and yes, the squab tasted like poultry to me.
This may have been the MSG talking and not the bird.
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As a postscript to Belgian Beer Paradise, the Namur segment was plotted such as to provide a chance to patronize L’Ebloussaint, Alain Mossiat’s amazing paean to all things Wallonian (with Murphy’s Stout on tap).
It wasn’t to be. The restless spirit animating Moss the Boss already was in the process of shifting to something completely different; he left the pub business later that year, relocating to County Mayo in Ireland to operate an organic farm. Moss eventually returned to Belgium, at one point threatening to open a bar in Spain. These days he rides motorcycles and enjoys his grandchildren, and cheers to him for that.
Earlier I described the 1998 tour as a dress rehearsal for future group travel, and this undoubtedly is true. The first motorcoach ride was overwhelmingly successful, paving the way for rewarding future endeavors.
At the same time, a great many of those threads I sought to weave together for the group’s benefit were purely my own, incessantly percolating inside me with escalating intensity and exuberance. I can’t repeat it often enough; I’m a slow learner and a late bloomer, and the lessons we all were taught during Belgian Beer Paradise landed like hammer blows.
There’s nothing quite like knowing you have a purpose in life. Mine was (and remains) beer.
It’s been very, very good to me.
Next: 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 75: My shoes are filled with Volga mud (1999).
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* After 38 years, Chef Couttenye retired from ‘t Hommelhof in 2023. If I’m to judge by reviews on Trip Advisor, there was an unsuccessful and accordingly brief succession; as of March 2025, it appears that a new ownership group is taking over, and is being actively cheered on by Couttenye himself at his personal Facebook page.
