Beers among the berbers

(Photo by Bryce Edwards, from Flickr Creative Commons)

The Grand Hotel Tazi is a bit of a misnomer. It's actually quite an inauspicious-looking premises in the heart of old Marrakesh, aiming perhaps for a kind of faded grandeur, only without the grandeur. Its claim to fame is that the bar was once the only place in the medina where one could get a drink, and although several of the touristy restaurants will surreptitiously offer a carte du vins to any customers who look like they wouldn't be offended by such a thing, the Tazi remains about the only "proper" bar within the walls.

Inside it feels more like a down-at-heel canteen or café than an hotel bar, however lacking in swank said hotel may be. The furniture is shabby and mismatched, the lighting severe and the walls in serious need of a coat or two of paint. Threadbare curtains are kept drawn lest the decent citizens outside be scandalised by what goes on within. There's a distinct feel of speakeasy about the clientèle: a few young chancers here to catch the TV football results, and an ever-changing group of elderly gents, coming and going, exchanging gossip and tutting at the general ways of the world. All have Flag Spéciale in front of them, paying no attention to the little green bottles until a hand darts in and a swig is taken, then quickly back to the table as though nothing has happened. Drinking? Me? Heaven forbid!

As tourists, we were served our Spéciales in posh wine glasses, along with a fiery bowl of harissa-laced olives and shredded pickled carrot. How was the beer? It was beer, and that was enough.

As far as I can determine there is just one brewing company in the country, Heineken-owned Société des Brasseries du Maroc, operating three breweries around the country. One occasionally glimpses expensive imported Leffe and Hoegaarden, but otherwise it's Heineken products all the way.

Apart from the eponymous Dutch pilsner, a couple of foreign brands are produced under licence, including Castel, originally from Bordeaux. It's a not as commonplace as the other beers and is a little more expensive than most but I was glad to find it on the rare occasions that I did, just to add some semblance of variety to my all-lager diet.

Heineken's bog-standard French lager 33 Export is also brewed locally and represents the only draught beer I found over the fortnight I was in Morocco. This was at The Chesterfield, a rather fun low-ceilinged, wood and leather-lined bar, secluded on a hidden mezzanine within the walls of the Hotel Nassim in Marrakesh's new town. Again, perfectly acceptable, but the novelty of taking pulls from a half-litre mug was almost thrilling.

Back to the domestic beer names, and there is a lower-rent option available under the Flag, er flag: Flag Pils. This was my regular tipple, coming in at around €1.50 for a 500ml can, and only a little more for the 330ml bottles in hotel bars.

Flag Pils is the epitome of beer that's OK to drink and quite refreshing on a warm January afternoon when served sufficiently cold. I reckon the branding could do with an update, though. It's a few decades since anyone thought "I'll choose this one; it's beige".

Another one whose packaging doesn't seem to have received any attention since the French left Morocco is Stork. Like Flag Pils, it's cheap and not particularly cheerful, and it's hard to imagine that the words "Bière De Luxe" are meant as anything other than irony. From what I could gather hanging around in the dens of iniquity that are supermarket off licences (hidden in a corner, with a dedicated check-out for sinners -- it reminded me of beer shopping in Northern Ireland), this is Morocco's old man beer. I opted for a can when I tried it, but the preferred format is a 330ml bottle made from inch-thick green glass and weighing significantly more than the beer inside.

I've had it before, in a Moroccan restaurant in Brussels, but I can't leave without mentioning the national icon which is Casablanca beer. Well, I assume it's iconic: they certainly charge enough for it as it's 50% dearer than most of the other beers and I can't say I detected anything in the flavour to justify that. As well as the 330ml cans and bottles, this also comes in a weird energy-drink-sized 250ml can. Maybe God doesn't object to those quite as much.

And that's where we leave Morocco. If you'd like tasting notes on any of these beers you'll have to look elsewhere, I'm afraid. The Session this month is under the aegis of Oliver at Literature & Libation, and descriptions are verboten. Trust me: you're not missing much.

When they met, it was Moeder

Last Sunday in Brussels was quiet. The city was buzzing -- with market stalls in Place d'Espagne and Grand Place, and the cafés all busy -- but Mrs Beer Nut and I were drifting about in a slightly fuzzy-headed world of our own. We had an early lunch in one of the upper corners of Grand Place, and I righted my head with carbonnade flamande and a Kwak -- the latter from a proper glass, I hasten to add. That fortified me for a trip to Bier Tempel to do some shopping, and then we drifted over to Le Cirio -- a gorgeous grand café beside the Bourse which, like A La Mort Subite, was one of those Brussels drinking landmarks we'd not visited since our first trip in 2002.

We settled in near the door for a bout of people-watching (and, it being a Belgian café, dog-watching too). Looking for something plain but wholesome on the menu I realised I was hankering after Guinness Special Export. It really is the perfect Sunday afternoon sipping beer. Séan had gone home on the morning flight, but Dave and Laura caught up with us briefly, then headed off on their merry way. Our own merry way involved some exploration, to an unfamiliar district of the city and one of the few legendary Brussels watering holes I'd never visited. After my second bottle of Guinness, we were off.

The pre-métro underground tram thingy brought us southwards, and a short walk from Horta through a rather well-heeled neighbourhood took us to Chez Moeder Lambic: Brussels' beer geek central. It was just gone 4 so the bar had opened recently and was inhabited by just a couple of regulars, plus a dog belonging to one of them who walked round, inspecting that the drinks being served were up to scratch.

It's a small bright corner bar, laid out in slightly rustic style with brick and wood, and a minimal scattering of breweriana -- notably only from quality Belgian breweries. Boxes of comics line the windowsills, and the menu itself is styled very much in the Belgian comic tradition. It's not one of those 400+ whoppers like Bier Circus or Delerium. Instead, everything seems to have been chosen by hand with only the smallest nod to the token beers required for economic purposes. I don't think they even had a pilsner available. Each item was assigned a comic-book icon indicating its status as from either "microbrasseries", "indépendants/familiales", "trappistes" or "grands industriels", and the beers were divided into style categories. My particular favourite was a category which contained just one item, one which I'm guessing the management aren't terribly happy about having to have, or else they stock it just to wind up the manufacturer:That's "Based on 1% lambic, filled up with totally chemical syrup". Mi-aow.

Also of note was the beer engine on the bar, serving Cantillon Gueuze. The draught menu listed Cantillon Faro, so I figured I would attempt to redeem my experience of the style following Friday's nasty experience. As far as I know, Cantillon don't actually make a faro, and this is mixed in-house. Blending in the sugar removes a lot of the sharp tart edge you get from the Gueuze but doesn't make the beer taste sugary as such. It's a different experience to drinking the beer neat, and works quite well I thought, for those of us who like sweet beer at least.

The two guys running the place really seemed to know what they were talking about. A group of Americans who came in after us engaged them in a conversation about brewing which resulted in a case of raw malts being produced for them to taste, followed by a tour of the cellar. Our perusal of the blackboard listing the current draught beers produced two recommendations. De Ranke's XX Bitter is a deliciously sharp golden ale absolutely crammed with grapefruity C-hops and raw vegetal flavours. Deliciously intense. From Jandrin there was V Cense, which Joe was enjoying simultaneously at the Zythos festival. This amber ale reminded me a lot of quality English bitter -- slightly tannic with a beautiful mandarin nose. Very tasty and extremely drinkable.

Time was beginning to press us at this stage, so our ones for the road were Witkap Pater Double -- a foamy brown abbey ale with a very interesting herby botanical character and a touch of cardamom, I think; and Guldenberg, another blonde ale "with the taste of every hop" according to the merchandising. It starts with a perfumey aroma and tastes quite spicy at first, giving way to a dry bitterness. Like so many of the Belgian hoppy beers around at the moment, it has used the hops to create a strong bitterness while avoiding any of the more fun fruity characteristics they can impart. The end result is quite an understated beer, but I didn't have time to sit around being disappointed. Having enjoyed adding Moeder Lambic to our personal map of Brussels, we headed back to the city centre.

We caught up with Dave and Laura at a Moroccan restaurant just off Boulevard Anspach. They were staying another day, so it was just us who shovelled our molten tagines into us like we hadn't eaten in days. The menu included a Moroccan lager called Casablanca. Classy stuff this -- every bit as good as you'd expect a lager from Morocco to be.

And then we were off again, to the airport where there was just time for a quick Leffe before the flight home.

And that was Brussels. We went to see Cantillon making beer, but got so much more out of the couple of days we spent there. Brussels really is one of those cities where the beer hunter will always find something new and interesting, if he or she can resist the draw of so many old favourites.