Today I drove to Belgium to pick up my 2 cases of Westvleteren 12 from the Sint Sixtus abbey.  I will actually be picking it up tomorrow, but it was a 6.5 hour drive so I came today.  I’m staying in downtown Poperinge which is only 4 miles away from the Abbey.

While sitting in the bar at my Hotel (Hotel De La Paix), I met a man who owns a hop farm (Eurohop) here in Poperinge.  Tomorrow I will go visit his farm (he’s compressing hop flowers into hop pellets … what fun!)

Because I was in Poperinge, I decided to have their local brew: Hommel Bier as my beer for the evening.   “Hommel” is the local word for Hops in Poperinge–and it has plenty of them in there!  It is a quite flavorful ale … and at 7.5% ABV, it doesn’t take many to feel the effect.