delirium

after a journey that, thanks to a late connecting train and some additional stupidity on our part, took two hours more than it was supposed to, we arrived in brussels in the late afternoon two wednesdays ago. after grabbing an early-ish dinner at a nice veggie-friendly cafe, we headed to delirium, one of the premier bars in the city. (the name derives from the well-known belgian beer delirium tremens, but i don't know if there's an official relationship between the two -- though there was an awful lot of delirium tremens paraphernalia on hand at the bar.)

delirium holds the guiness world record for the most beers available for sale: a whopping 2,004 were counted on january 4, 2004! i doubt there were quite that many when we visited, but the selection was still staggering, if not overwhelming. check out the beer menu!

delirium is split into (at least) two levels: a cafe on the street level and a bar in the basement. we headed downstairs, grabbed a table (which i gather can be quite hard on the weekends, but was pretty easy on an early wednesday evening), and soon were sipping some delicious beers.

we really liked the vibe -- for such a beer-geeky place, it felt really unpretentious, even a bit like a college bar. most of the tables were occupied when we arrived, and then things thinned out some, but then by 10 it had filled up nicely again with many people standing. the decor was really cool -- just about every square inch of available wall and ceiling space was covered with great beer paraphernalia. check out the beer trays on the ceiling.

it was a great way to kick off our trip!