(By The time you read this, our team may be at our objective and in highly covert operations to balance the World’s beer supply through consumption. Our lives (and our livers) are on the line. Raise a toast to the mission… Obviously, I won’t be able to post a Blog while I am gone due to risk of data transmission intercept, and there’s also the possibility that I may not have full use of my fine-motor functions…)

I have spent countless hours studying our objective: The lay of the land, the train network, languages, dialects, cuisine, customs. And yes — beer. After all, I am the leader of a small, yet highly trained — and thirsty — team of nine beer geeks preparing to embark on “Beer-Mission Belgium”. With the clock ticking down to B-day, the excitement can hardly be contained. We are anxious, yet we know we are prepared for the task. We have taken apart our objective province by province and beer by beer. Utilizing intelligence gathered on three previous fact finding missions, we have never been more confident or ready. Ik ben een Belg…

I know you’re probably thinking that a puny country like Belgium should be a piece of cake for such a highly trained team like ours. Yes, it’s a small country, about the size of Maryland. But you are talking about a country that produces more than 500 different beers! The country is split between Dutch-speaking Flanders to the North and French-speaking Wallonia to the south, with a little German thrown in to the East. What if one us blows our cover by anxiously muttering “Un biere, s’il vous plait” while ordering a beer in Poperinge?

One thing going for us is Belgium’s impressive public transit network. This will allow the team to travel safely from cafe to cafe while blending in with the indigenous people. We are working only with the most up-to-date intelligence so we know when and where the best beers will be served. Though we are operating during the Belgian winter, we foresee nothing to impede our movement between beer destinations. In fact, winter is the best time to undertake such a mission. Airfares are cheap, lodging is reasonable and big, bold beers are the norm. We have chosen a particular operational time-window of the 1st weekend in March. This is the weekend when puny-little Belgium becomes the best spot on Earth for a team of beer-geeks to find themselves.

Even though we are highly prepared and motivated, we have our work cut-out for us on this trip. Our plan involves several days of traversing this little country in search of as many of the 500 beers that we can find. We will find ourselves in tiny Flemish villages drinking fine Belgian ales, ones that have been properly served at the correct temperature in non-frosted, beer-clean glasses. Yes indeed, each and every member of our team will be tested; we will be taken to the breaking point. We can’t let too much enthusiasm show, for we are undercover and on a mission. This is going to be tough but our training will carry us through. Ik ben een Belg…

The final phase revolves around three major events that take place all within the space of 48 hours. The first event takes place in a town nearly off the radar screen; a small village outside of Brussels called Eizeringen. It just so happens that this little place is right in the heart of lambic beer country. The town’s little pub hosts the largest lambic beer festival in the world. Careful planning on our part is a must, because this place is not easy to get to when traveling by public transit as we do (black helicopters would simply attract too much attention). We will arrive by train at a nearby town and then later we will quietly slip away from the crowds of “sour-beer” sipping devotees, to rendezvous with the last bus back to our Brussels base camp.

Our next mission requires the self-discipline to awake early amidst what will most likely be a “lambic beer haze,” which fills the heads of every team member. Still, the team must make its way on foot to a highly specialized production facility, right by a major train station in Brussels. This place has been operating nearly un-noticed for generations, and its strategic importance cannot be overstated. This is one of the oldest operating lambic breweries in the area that is code-named “Payottenland“. On this Saturday morning Cantillon brewery opens its doors for “open brew day”. There are no secrets here, just great beer, the smell of boiling wort, lots of steam, and several smiling faces sipping lambic beer for breakfast (many of the same smiling faces from the previous evening).

Our last mission requires some “operation day” preparation. You can’t just go in and tackle this next one without some real on-the-spot tactical planning. A train takes your team of heroes to the Flemish town of Sint Niklaas. The mission is the Zythos Belgian Beer Festival. Most of the beers served at this festival make Oktoberfest beers seem like Budweiser. Before we even think about passing through those festival doors, we must eat in preparation for the beery challenge that awaits . This calls for something more than granola bars, we need something greasy (yet delicious)… Pomme frites always seem to work to build up ones “Belgian Resistance.” We all will partake, but topped with mayo and not ketchup so as not to risk blowing our cover; all the while repeating to ourselves: “Ik ben een Belg.”

The Zythos Beer festival will feature about 200 beers from more than 60 Belgian breweries, with most beers being above 6.5% ABV. Members of our team have learned from previous attempts that there is no possible way to taste them all during the 24 hour, two-day festival. Care must be taken, and a real understanding of the difference between the words “Dubbel” and “Tripel” is essential. Uttering the word “tripel” a little too often while ordering from a beer stand will surely mean an early “lights-out” for that team member. They will have failed themselves and the team. “Ik ben een Belg… in other words, I can’t let them see me sweat”…

We will be out of country for a total of nine days, with the first five days going toward travel, preparation and practice. By the time we undertake our “final phase,” the team will have traveled to Germany for a 2-day beer recon exercise, visited several world class beer cafés in both Belgium and Germany, toured a few Belgian breweries and probably have eaten too many waffles, mussels and frites. Somebody’s got to do it, so we do it for God, Beer and Country!

(You can bet a tub of Slim Fast that “The battle of the bulge” will begin the day after we return…)

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