Drink
The price of food in Belgium is compensated for by the low cost of drinking , especially if you like beer , which is always good and comes in numerous varieties. Ask for a biere in a bar and you'll be served a half-litre glass of whatever the bar has on tap. The most common Belgian brands are Stella Artois, Jupiler and Maes. There are also any number of speciality beers , usually served by the bottle but occasionally on draught. The most famous is perhaps lambic , the generic title for beer brewed in the Brussels area which is fermented by contact with the yeast in the air. A blend of old and young lambic beers is known as gueuze , a cidery concoction sold in all Brussels bars. There's also kriek-lambic with cherries added - and faro , given a distinctive and refreshing flavour by adding candy sugar. Try also some of the strong ales brewed by the country's five Trappist monasteries; the most widely available being Chimay, brewed in Hainaut. Bar prices don't vary greatly: in Belgium you'll pay around ?1.50 for a glass of beer. In the swankiest places, you'll pay around ?3.50 for beers like Duvel and Chimay. French wines are the most commonly drunk, although Luxembourg is a wine producer, and its white and sparkling wines, produced along the north bank of the Moselle, are very drinkable: in the shops they go for around ?6-9 a bottle of sparkling stuff, ?6 for ordinary white wine. In restaurants they'll cost two or three times as much. There's no national Belgian spirit , but all the usual kinds are widely available, at about ?1.50 a glass in a bar. You will also find Dutch-style jenever in most bars in the north.
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