Photos and Words: Charlie Hood
The Volley team once again take a trip to check out some continental beers and football. This time it's In Bruges. Cheers fellas.
“Ken, I’m from Dublin. If I grew up on a farm, Bruges might impress me. But I didn’t.” — Martin McDonagh, In Bruges 🎬
The rain’s absolutely hammering down on a mild October evening in West Flanders’ capital city. We’re holed up, outside, under a canopy on the terrace of a bar called 2Be. Awful name. But, in the shadow of Bruges’ famous belfry, it’s a cathedral – a true homage to beer. There’s a large wall of bottles of Belgian beers, along with their respective glasses. There are about fifteen lines of excellent, strong Flemish ales.
We’ve got tickets to Club Brugge at their home ground, the Jan Breydel Stadion. They share it with city rivals Cercle Brugge. Tonight, they play lowly Eendrecht Aalst-Lede from the Belgian fourth tier in the Belgian Cup. It’s a fair old shlep from the town centre. As we bask in a three-or-four-pint glow at 2Be, it feels like it might be a bridge too far.
We’ve just cracked a fairly punchy (both in ABV and Euros) bottle of iconic, historic Brusselian brewery 3 Fonteinen, which might be the best beer in the world if you catch the mood right; a deliciously pungent Gueuze that manages to balance sweet, dry, and fruity all at once.
We’re getting excited now: Mark’s just gone and ordered three bottles of aged Orval – the Wallonian Trappist beer – as old as seven years old, and one just a year or so back. It’s punchy, ABV-wise, so it keeps: the newer ones are hoppy, zesty, and dry. As the flavours – and yeasts in the beer – evolve after a couple of years, it becomes fruitier, almost cherry-like. After that, we’re on a 2017 beer now – a nice, dusty, well-stored bottle. It has an exquisite, wine-y, almost cigar-like taste.
But that’s that! We’ve got a game to watch. We stumble out, careful not to fall into the canals that surround the bar - picturesque, old, medieval passages. We hop in a cab to the Jan Breydel. It’s a very 70s affair: imposing, concrete, very much a European stadium of its time.
It’s our nearest non-English Champions League ground. We got the ferry from Dover to Calais. Once you’re off, it’s just an hour’s drive. So, a great option for a cheap, impulsive trip: top-tier football, very reachable.
Still pissing down, and we’re outside at the Jupiler (Belgium’s go-to, perfectly fine lager) bar drinking halves in plastic cups with pictures of Club Brugge players on. You can take your beer to your seat, which is always a nice bonus to us English fans.
As expected from a cup game, the ground’s fairly empty. The Brugge ultras still manage to make a fair old racket – and the Aalst fans bring a few down, too. Brugge cruises it against a spirited Aalst: half-time, it’s 3-0. We have a really, really peppery burger, and a couple more halves of Jupiler. Aalst nick one just after half-time – you can tell the lad who bagged it is buzzing to score and even at 3-0 he celebrates like it’s the biggest goal of his life. Maybe it is. One to tell the grandkids.
The trouncing continues. Full-time: 6-1. Still raining, we head back into town. Maybe it’s the beers, but at Oswald’s – a sleek bar pouring Stella, Belgium’s iconic export – we rave about its superiority to English pours. It’s punchier than at home. We idle away a few hours and a few more Stellas. A perfect evening. A charming city. Whether Martin McDonagh intended it or not, we were impressed.
