Living with cancer - and Belgian beer

 Another day, another scan, another beer

Outside the Royal Sussex Hospital

My last blog entry was many months ago, and it was written not long after I had been diagnosed with cancer. At that time I had no idea how treatment would affect my ability, or inclination, to drink beer but it seemed highly likely that there would be an impact. Little did I know how quickly that would happen, and also why. Alcohol is liable to interfere with the effects of many medications, but it wasn’t that that stopped me drinking. Once I began treatment, I just didn’t fancy beer, or anything at all, food included.

That loss of appetite was the worst side effect of the drug that was prescribed for me – Osimertinib, if you want to look it up. Paradoxically, the other major side effects eventually worked in my favour. After two months of the drug, I suddenly noticed a significant increase in breathlessness, and I reported it to my GP. Twenty four hours later, a chest X-ray and MRI scan revealed an inflammation in my lung and a blood test confirmed that I also had blood clots!

I was immediately taken off Osimertinib and put on blood thinners and a heavy dose of steroids. The result was that my appetite returned and suddenly I fancied beer again! That wasn’t the only good news – a subsequent scan revealed that, in the two months that I had been on the drug, the cancer had reduced.

At that point, life for me went more or less back to normal, but there were changes. I had been gradually easing myself back to full-time work but the diagnosis – and the fact that I was now 70 years old – made me realise the stupidity of continuing to work. Accordingly, I set in motion the process of retirement. Another positive was that I now was able to resume my support of Brighton and Hove Albion, the only difference being that, instead of getting the bus back after my post-match pint, I would usually take an Uber.

Best of all, Charita and I were finally able to go on holiday and, for me, there was only really one place in contention. I had only been to Belgium once before, for three boozy nights in Brussels, but Charita had never been. I suggested Bruges and we even watched the Colin Farrell/Brendan Gleeson film In Bruges, to mentally prepare ourselves. The rest of this blog is my observations on Bruges and Belgian beer, largely drawn from our numerous bar and café visits while we were there.

We're only here for the beer!

Outside the Bieratelier Brugsche

If you spend any time on TripAdvisor, or pretty much any travel website, looking for information on Belgium, you’ll read that the three things for which the country is known, and is correspondingly proud of, are chocolate, fries and beer. This is never more clearly shown than in the tourist shops of Bruges. Their tacky equivalents in Brighton sell dolls, mugs, T-shirts, fridge magnets, posters, books and every kind of nicknack. In Bruges, even the most humble tourist shop will also have a wall devoted to beer! I did buy some brews to bring back from a specialist bottle shop but I could just as well have bought them from I ❤Bruges, or its equivalent.

We arrived in Bruges late on a Thursday night. We had travelled by Eurostar, a comfortable journey overall, though slightly spoilt by an hour’s delay at St Pancras. Happily, I had done my research well and, although we were travel-weary, once we had checked into our hotel it was just a five minute walk to a Good BeerGuide to Belgium recommended bar, where we had a couple of beers, a basket of wings and a large bowl of fries.

The bar in question was Bieratelier Brugsche, a two room boozer, whose back room walls were covered in post-it notes with greetings from previous visitors. From the ceiling was suspended a selection of dusty bras. I completely failed to notice this at first, much to Charita’s astonishment as, not only did we spend the evening a few days later, in that back room, she also had a conversation with an amiable English couple on the next table about the bras - which I apparently paid no attention to!

As I had expected, Bruges resembles most cities that I’ve visited in the United States inasmuch as every restaurant menu seems to have a selection of quality beers, even if they number half a dozen or fewer. It does not follow, however, that the information on the menu is reliable or thorough. On our first full day, at a pricey diner on the main market square, I ordered a beer that was described as a bruin. My knowledge of bruins told me that they were usually 5-7%, a safe bet for lunchtime. The menu didn’t list the ABV. The beer in question was Kasteel Donker, which weighs in at 11%! It is a lovely beer but not really ideal lunchtime fare. I did drink it slowly, which did allow me to savour it. 

A massive advantage of Bruges as a place to visit is that the centre of town is small enough to walk around comfortably. The medieval, cobbled area fits comfortably inside the ring road, of which much is made in In Bruges. I had been keen to make sure that our hotel was within walking distance of the de Halve Maan brewery. It was, but I was dismayed to discover that tours of the brewery involved over 200 steps, something their publicity made a point of emphasising. Difficulty with stairs has been one of the persistent symptoms of my condition, even during the good times, so I had to reluctantly agree with Charita that I should give the tour a miss. We did hit the taproom though, and had an enjoyable snack lunch, washed down with a Brugse Bruin (him) and a Belgian Wit (her - see pic). 

Everything I drink gohn be funky

I have, over the years, drunk a lot of Belgian beer and while I've 

Second beer at t'Brugs Beertje

got a handle on most of the styles, and what makes them different from beers brewed anywhere else, I still struggle with lambics and their variants. It's not that I don't like them, more that I haven't learned how to spot the ones that I am likely to enjoy. I'm still at the stage of having to note down the ones I like and try to establish what it is about them that makes me want to drink them.

Just in case there are those of you who don't know what a lambic is, I shall paraphrase the words of Tim Webb and Joe Stange, in the Good Beer Guide to Belgium to describe it as, at root, the product of spontaneous fermentation, where airborne yeast falls into a vat of still brewing beer. There is more, much more to the process, including in some cases the processes of ageing, blending different brews, some old, some new, but if lambics can be corralled into one overall description, it is that they are sour.

Some are very sour; others are sour in the way that a perfectable acceptable red wine can be, and many taste cidery. My dilemma over the style is well illustrated by the visit that Charita and I paid to the legendary t'Brugs Beertje bar, the very place that Tim Webb and several of his CAMRA colleagues first decided that Belgium deserved its own version of the Good Beer Guide. It is a classic of its kind, a scruffy two room boozer with a mix of tourists and locals, old but apt furniture, a grumpy pub dog and a massive beer menu that more resembles the shooting script of a movie than just a list of beers.

When we arrived I looked first at the beers on tap. Spotting one that involved fruit, I ordered that for Charita and I ordered myself a Boon Unblended Oude Lambiek. Charita did not enjoy hers at all but she womanfully drank her way through about half of it. I wasn't all that keen on mine either, truth be told. It was funky and harsh. Interesting, but in an academic rather than a gastronomic way. I had finished it by the time that Charita put her glass and said "You're going to have to finish that for me". 

I did, and it turned out to be one of the best beers of the trip! It was Gueuzerie Tilquin's Oude Quetsche, and the difference between it and the Boon was a greater smoothness of flavour. It did indeed involve fruit but as plums can be sour themselves it's no wonder Charita didn't enjoy it. I drank a couple more beers there, Arabier, a blond from de Dolle, and I finished with a quad from local brewers Fort Lapin. I was even able to walk back to the hotel!

Goodbye Bruges

Outside the Caffe Vero

Charita and I do tend to look back on every holiday that we have and vow to go back to wherever it is that we've visited. We often do - Berlin, Prague and Budapest are all cities to which we've returned. So, small as it is, I don't doubt that we will return to the medieval splendour of Bruges. It's even got a couple of cracking record shops - with a special thumbs-up to Cherry Picker, which also sells coffee, cakes - and beer, natch.

We'll do another horse-ride round the town, take a canal trip, as long as it's not as crowded as some of the boats we saw, eat some more fries and chocolate. 

And we'll drink some beer. Until the next time ...