Don't Hasselt Me, Bro. And, the Updated Belgian Beer Fest Calendar.

Many thanks, as usual, to Paul Briggs for the latest version of his Belgian Beer Festival Calendar. This one includes a few for 2011 and a few new ones for 2010. Have a look and make your plans.

Cheers to Paul, Stephen, and the rest of the CAMRA gang in Brussels. Paul was kind enough to hand me an '05 Stille Nacht Reserva as a parting gift just before I left town. And what did I ever do for that guy, except show up late and ask him to please repeat what he just said in English, rather than Yorkshire? Good people in that crew. I've managed to lay off that Reserva so far, but I don't expect it to last through Christmas. For now it's one of the 11 best bottles of beer located in Costa Rica. Nine more are in a box in my closet. The 11th is in Cartago, waiting for a brewery opening.

Anyway: All the best to any of you who will make it to Hasselt for the Bierweekend, which kicks off at 6 p.m. Friday. You can peruse the list here. As usual it's loaded with lots of new and unusual beers you won't find at other festivals. Hasselt can be a ticker's dream... especially since the waiters bring the beers around to you. Very relaxing. Let me know about that Finesse from Dochter van de Korenaar. Or anything, really. All reports welcome, anytime, especially if they come with photos.

Finally: Fellow Belgophile and beer writer Chuck Cook is expanding his presence with a new blog here, with some interesting geuze news. Yves Panneels from the Insurance Against Great Thirst lambic café in Eizeringen is helping to organize a combination geuze-blending workshop and five-course beer dinner with Chris Lively of Ebenezer's in Maine. Only 30 folks will be able to attend the event on Friday, December 10, at Eizeringen's restored castle. Not sure yet what it will cost. Sounds classy though.

Struise Brouwers to Get Own Brewhouse.

Among the most popular brewers in geekdom, Struise is nevertheless not a brewery at all. For the past few years Urbain, Carlo and Co. have been brewing on the equipment at Deca in Vleteren, just a few minutes drive from the Sint-Sixtus abbey in Westvleteren. The beers didn't seem to worry about the arrangement and usually got rave reviews anyway. Just the same, brewing on someone else's kit was never an ideal path to long-term survival.

The word this weekend is that Struise is finally planning to get a house of their own. Head brewer Urbain Coutteau told me Friday that they were in the "building out" process for new digs in nearby Oostvleteren. Some of the kit will come from their "field brewery" at the Struise farm in Lo. I assume the ostriches are staying put, though.

That seems to me the bigger news coming out of an awkward situation in Maine. That's where Struise had been working in cooperation with Jen and Chris Lively (of Ebenezer's fame) to open a new brewpub to be called Pannepot Café. Now it will be called something else and Struise will have no involvement. The split does not appear to have been amicable, but I'm not sure that fact is either relevant or interesting to most of us.

More interesting are the facts that some popular brewers will be getting their own home, and that the owners of a popular pub will be opening a second location—also bound to be much loved by Belgian beer geeks—later this summer in Brunswick, Maine. The new name hasn't been announced. Best of luck to all of them.