Delirium Village, Brussels

Brussels’ Delirium Village lives up to its name. Its size, character and record-setting menu of beers was enough to make my mind spin, and only a little of that had to do with the beer

© Bernt Rostad | Flickr

Like Budapest’s ruin bars, photos and descriptions of the Delirium Village can’t do it justice. The building contains the Delirium Café, Hoppy Loft and Taphouse. It’s like a Seussian house — it seems like a patchwork of other buildings, stapled together in topsy-turvy magic. With a stage, an upstairs, several different downstairs levels, multiple bars and a labyrinth of passages, staircases and corridors, there is always something more to explore.

© Tom Bennett | Flickr

But let’s talk about the beer. Delirium Tremens is, after all, one of the world’s best beers. It’s named after the shakes you get from alcohol withdraw or a bad hangover, by the way. But seriously, listing all the accolades the beer and brewery have won would take a few articles of its own. The Delirium Café has the Huyghe Brewery beers on tap, plus a monthly rotation of world-class brews. That’s not to mention the other 2,000 beers they offer (yea, that’s a record). Of course, that was way back in 2004. They are up to more than 3,000 now.

© Adrien Paris | Flickr

Even on a weekend night, the café wasn’t too crowded. The downstairs dance floor was shoulder-to-shoulder, but not impossible to navigate. Meanwhile different areas of the café had different atmospheres. If you want a relaxed chat, there was a place for that. A dark corner, well there was a place for that too. And right outside the front door is the Jeanneke Pis, the relatively new sister of the Manneken Pis. The one negative is that at some point during the night someone stole my jacket at the bar.

Of course you really can’t go wrong with any bar in Brussels. But then again, not just any bar has the atmosphere, history and selection of the Delirium Café.

Delerium Café

Impasse de la Fidelite 4A

1000 Ville de Bruxelles, Belgium

32 2 514 44 34