Vive La Franco-Belge Résistance.

Here I am with all this great stuff saved up from our American swing, and off I go on a Brussels kick. No complaints I hope?

Yesterday I mentioned the Belgian Beer Weekend on the Grand Place and its merits (namely, Belgian beer and the Grand Place). But just a few blocks away, the guys from Moeder Lambic Fontainas are--in true Moeder Lambic fashion--offering an alternative:

"This small group of rebels is fighting back against bad taste in beer, by preferring hops to sugar, quality to quantity. ... We needed an excuse, an occasion on which to do it, and the Belgian Beer Weekend festivities on the Brussels Grand Place seemed liked the perfect opportunity.

This is the annual high mass of the Belgian brewing scene, with its procession of insipid pasteurized beers wrapped in lovely marketing labels with devils, elephants and fake monks; all poured into delightful glasses.

However, the truth is in the tasting. We are hoping the contrast will be overwhelming, and so are inviting you all to come along on the first weekend in September to taste these new waves alongside the Belgian resistance beers that we already support and defend."

The emphasis will be on the "other" French beers, i.e. biéres artisanales. They are seeking recruits for the Hexagonal Libeeration Front, reminding us that the resistance continues despite the French having lost the beer war back in 1664. As is well known, of course.

Featured French breweries are to include Agrivoise, Garrigues, Paradis, La Franche, Fleurac, Pleine Lune, Matten. And let's be honest: Unless you're a freak (and some of you are), most of those names are new to you. Exciting things happening in French craft beer these days. Plus there will be the usual Fontainas lineup and no doubt a couple of surprises.

For example: the release of a collaboration brew between the boys at Senne and Allagash. How cool is that? Said to be 5.2% alcohol, amber in color, 55 IBUs.

Let's go ahead and call it what it is: Brussels Beer Week.

Not to Be Taken Too Seriously: USA's Top Microbrew Cities.

I've said that I won't blog about blogging. However I'm not above the time-honored blogger-hack tradition of picking apart dubious lists. That's what the lists are there for, after all.

So we can thank Travel and Leisure magazine for providing this one on the best American cities for microbrewed beer, and Houston-based Examiner writer Bryan Carey for noticing it. Anyway, it's beer and it's travel and that's what we do here at Thirsty Pilgrim Enterprises.

First, take a breath: There are only 35 cities up for contention, and they're the same 35 cities for every list. So Kansas City is there, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, but St. Louis is not. And a city in the Top 20 only had to beat out 15 others. The odds are that your city was not even up for consideration. OK, ready?

The top city is no surprise: Portland, Oregon. I don't see a category for best breakfast, but surely the deadly combo of Pine State Biscuits (pictured) and Voodoo Donuts would've put Portland over the top there as well. And Denver takes second place, so already this list appears more logical than most.

There's another Portland up high: The one in Maine is ranked 5th, no doubt thanks to Allagash, Shipyard and a smattering of brewpubs. That's the good news. The bad news is that it's also ranked 7th among cities with the "least attractive people." (The "winner" for least attractive, if you care, is Memphis.)

New York City and Washington, D.C., are totally absent, which means they got beat by places like Nashville, Phoenix and Houston. Which is fairly silly, because I think both are among the world's great places to drink craft beer. But there are two groups who vote on these lists: residents and visitors. Not experts. The upshot is that most people who live in or visit those cities don't really know about their craft beer scenes. Or, another possibility: the phrase "microbrewed beer" implies the existence of actual breweries--not a strength of either D.C. or NYC.

Who's missing? And if we compiled a world list, who besides Portland and Denver make the cut from the U.S.?

Fancy Doodads and Fancy Bottles.

Emptying the notebook: Check out the serve-yourself tap at Meridian Pint, a new beer-centric pub in DC. No need to flag down a waiter; the electronic tap handle tallies up your bill by counting ounces poured and fractions thereof. Really nifty if you're in a hurry to drink. There are two of them at booths in the downstairs bar. They were occupied when we arrived. I'm not sure we'd have done it anyway. The only options on the tap were Ommegang and Samuel Adams... Fine, but the full draft beer list was much more fun.

Our undisputed winner that night was the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter from Great Lakes. Killer combination of deep roasted character and easy drinkability. Considering its richness the 5.8% strength is more than reasonable. It's another nominee for Perfect American Beer According to Me, barely edging out the same brewery's also-excellent Burning River Pale Ale. (The popular Cleveland-based brewery must have been making a distribution push lately, because I'm seeing its beers in states where I didn't see them last year.)

Finally: Like Alan, I'm tired of expensive corked bottles. We're paying a lot extra for that nonsense. That's all fine and good for really special beers, when you want a bit of a show, but we're losing out on more drinkable beers. Alan's example is Allagash Special; I could point toward the sadly retired Boulevard Saison, which has made way for the more alcoholic but less impressive Tank 7.

If the Saison didn't sell so well in the 75cl bottles, maybe Boulevard should revive it in packaging we can afford. Then watch what happens.

Semantics of Lambics and Other Pastimes.

Some useful details for those of you planning on the Night of Great Thirst in Eizeringen this Friday. Then we talk lambic philosophy.

Transport info here, including free shuttles, flat taxi rates, local bus lines, and driving directions. (Incidentally, it's only about 20-30 minutes drive west of Brussels, depending on where you start.) And a list of beers here — note the spontaneously fermented beers from Allagash in Maine, including one made with raspberries, another with cherries, and a vaguely gueuze-esque blend. The festivities kick off at 7 p.m.

The Allagash beers represent a small, budding trend in America: craft brewers attempting spontaneously fermented beers that honor the Pajottenland tradition yet refusing to call them — for marketing purposes, anyway — lambics. So here's a fun question to be discussed among enthusiasts: If you make a beer exactly the same way a lambic brewer in Brussels or Pajottenland makes it, but you do it in Maine or California or wherever, then what have you made? Is it lambic?

Turns out it's not a legal question. It's philosophical. Specifically, it's ethical and semantic.

In the DID YOU KNOW!?* category: A common myth is that "lambic" is a protected, geographic appellation. Not true. Its method and contents are somewhat protected by the EU — and arguably, not very well. But its status does not include geographical indication. So, theoretically, you could make a traditional lambic in Kentucky and market it as such in Europe.

Would that be a good idea? Maybe not. At best it would be rude. So far brewers like Allagash are avoiding words like lambic and gueuze out of sheer respect for their Pajottenland colleagues. I also suspect that aficionados might be turned off by that sort of audacity. So we end up with an "appellation" that is really more ethical than legal — and it might turn out to be good marketing to boot. Or at least the avoidance of bad marketing.

Finally, a trick question, but an easy one for a few of you: At which brewery is the barrel in the photo above located?

*Always to be exclaimed in a loud, deep, echoing voice.

Updated Fest Calendar for 2010, and Lambic Sadly Missed.

In the afterglow of another terrific Kerstbierfestival, the time feels right to look ahead to next year's fests. Friend of the Blog Paul Briggs has updated his calendar for 2010. You can find it here, and I've updated the permanent link on the left.

First one on the schedule: the Richement Beer Fair on January 23 and 24 in Richemont, France, near the borders of Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg. Originally a biennial event for breweriana collectors, the fair now usually includes an entertaining mix of French, Wallonian and Luxembourgish craft brewers.

One event I failed to mention last weekend was the Day of the Lambic in Eizeringen, home of the Grote Dorst — arguably the world's best lambic café. What made this event more interesting than usual was the premiere of Allagash Spontaneous, a two-year-old beer made from traditional lambic methods in Portland, Maine. Maybe the only thing stopping you from calling it a lambic is the fact that it was not made in Pajottenland or Belgium, and there are plenty of people who would love to slap a geographical indicator on the word. However no such thing exists at the moment. You can call it lambic if you want. I don't mind.

So, how was the Allagash sour-beer-made-in-America-according-to-traditional-lambic-methods? I have no idea. Unfortunately the excellent people at the Grote Dorst chose to have the Day of the Lambic on the same weekend as the Kerstbierfestival. Reports are most welcome.