Schuchardt Family At Sea: Antwerp, Belgium

The mussels in Brussels may be fantastic, but we spent our first day on a pilgrimage to the high holy grail of Belgian Abbey Ales. Prof. Huppy-Puppy (ahem: not his real name), myself, Prof Matthew Silva and Prof Jessica Roberts (and later, Julie Sivertson) all rented a car and took off for the hinterlands of the Saint Sixtus Abbey.

Julie, Jessica, and Matthew get their game face on.

The Abbey is not open to outside visitors. The only thing you can see is the delivery dock where the magic happens.

We did not have reservations. We did not have an appointment. We did not have any way of obtaining this sacred brew.

Value is a function of scarcity. Westvleteren 12 (pictured here) is consistently ranked as "the world's best beer" by all the beer connoisseurs out there. The simple wooden cases alone are valued at $100 on Ebay.

In the delivery/payment room, you can walk in off the street and purchase the glasses. In Belgium you only drink beer from the proper glass -- otherwise, you don't drink it. We got some glasses.

As cheese is to France, so beer is to Belgium.

At the beer shop in Antwerp, they sold individual bottles of Westvleteren 12 for 17 Euros. Ours were 9 Euros each once you factored in gas, rental, and actual cost. If you had a reservation, you can get a case of 24 bottles for 40 Euros -- but you can only do this once every two months, and you can only get a maximum of two cases per reservation.

Industry secrets by strangers pointed us to a nearby brewery. If you can't get Westvleteren 12 (and you can't), get St. Bernardus 12 instead -- it's very very (very) close, but still not quite as good (yes, we did a side-by-side comparison and all agreed the Westvleteren is better: subtler, more layered, more nuanced, whereas the St. Bernardus hits a single note extremely well)

We had our first Belgian beer on draught in a restaurant lunch on the way back to Antwerp, and I chose the incomparably good Tripel Karmeliet on draught, which is available only in bottles in the USA.

No blog post about Belgium without the obligatory waffle shot.

We met Lisa and her father in Antwerp -- they drove all the way from Germany to see us, and we had a lot of fun together that day. Here we are in the famous and beautiful Antwerp train station.

Jasper with the 5kg jar of Nutella -- every boy's dream come true.

The Virgin Mary on every other (or so it seemed) building in Antwerp -- a leftover from the medieval culture where the church gave you a tax break if you installed and maintained a beautiful madonna and child on your home.

Numerous styles of madonna and child throughout the city.

This was one of my favorites.

Schuchardt kids on the wharf. They spent most of the time eating french fries with mayonnaise, sugar and chocolate waffles, and playing in the gardens and playgrounds.

The fantastic Plantin-Moretus museum, the best print culture museum on the planet, and the only museum to be on the list of Unesco World Heritage sites. Could have easily spent two days here.