Brussels' historic beer cafés

Spontaneously fermented beer is a Brussels speciality, sour and still and largely unexportable, and these rooms are where it is drunk on its home ground. Several pour a house gueuze or kriek under their own name, poured from the cask or the bottle with no draught line involved. The interiors run to tiled walls, zinc counters and painted ceilings, in some cases untouched since the nineteenth century.

Places in this collection

  • Nuetnigenough — The name is Brussels dialect for never having enough, which the kitchen takes literally: portions are generous and the food is built to sit…
  • Moeder Lambic — The original, in Saint-Gilles, open since 2006 and built on natural and artisanal beer before that was a category anyone advertised. The la…
  • L'Archiduc — An art deco bar off rue Antoine Dansaert, better known for live music than for beer, though the Trappist and abbey list holds up. The room…
  • Le Cercueil — The Coffin, and the theme is carried through the room with total commitment. Behind the funeral fittings is a serious list of Trappist and…
  • In 't Spinnekopke — The house is eighteenth century and is said to have worked as a staging post for stagecoaches before it became an estaminet on the quiet Pl…
  • Cantillon Brewery — A working lambic brewery in Anderlecht that doubles as the Brussels Museum of the Gueuze, preserving brewing methods the rest of the indust…
  • Delirium Cafe — Down an alley near the Grand Place, holder of the Guinness World Records title for the largest beer menu on earth, with more than 2,000 bee…
  • Moeder Lambic Fontainas — The city centre branch of the Saint-Gilles original, built around natural and artisanal beer with a list that changes constantly. Staff are…
  • A L'Imaige Nostre-Dame — Reached down a passage off rue du Marché aux Herbes, this estaminet occupies a building that once served as a small prison holding condemne…
  • La Fleur en Papier Doré — The name means the golden paper flower, and the estaminet was a working hangout for artists and poets whose leavings still cover the walls…
  • À La Becasse — A brown bar from the end of the nineteenth century, down an alley off the Grand Place, where the house pour is sweetened lambic brought to…
  • Poechenellekelder — Directly opposite the Manneken-Pis, which means the crowd outside never thins and the tavern inside somehow still works. Multiple rooms acr…
  • À La Mort Subite — The room dates to 1910 and the bar has traded under this name since 1928, when it was rechristened from La Cour Royale after the dice game…

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