Please Click Here to Bookmark the White Beer Travels Home page, i.e. add it to your Favorites

Please Click Here to Bookmark this White Beer Travels "Tim Webb" page

The Good Beer Guide Belgium is, without question, the best and most comprehensive guide to Belgian Beer and the outlets in which it can be enjoyed at its best. One simply should not enter Belgium without it. Tim Webb, an Englishman, has been producing it since, the first edition came out, in 1992. This was endorsed by the British Guild of Beer Writers (www.beerwriters.co.uk), when, in December, 2005, for the guide, Tim won an award for the best piece on foreign beer published in 2005; click here for more information.

In the Guide, over 120 working breweries and their 800+ beers are described in full, along with 600 outlets that have been hand-picked by a team of inspectors. Then there is related information given on topics such as Belgian Beer styles (which includes superb, second-to-none information on Lambic and its derivatives, such as Gueuze and beers produced by steeping fruit in Lambic, such as Kriek (Cherries) and Framboise (Raspberries)), how to get to Belgium, where to stay, and where to buy Belgian Beer to take home with you. There is also an expanded and improved coverage of Beer Shops/Warehouses in Belgium and pubs, restaurants and shops offering Belgian Beer in the UK. The Guide is not simply a list of bars and breweries, but is also a really good read.

The above picture was taken by John White's son-in-law, Paul Skinner, in November, 2002, at a special signing by Tim Webb, for White Beer Travels Beer Hunters, of the previous edition of the Guide, the Good Beer Guide to Belgium & Holland, on the day of its Belgian launch. The venue was the Oud Arsenaal, in Antwerp (Maria Pijpelincxstraat 4, tel 03 232 97 54), one of the city's very best Speciality Beer bars. From left to right are Ginge, Diane Hall (partly hidden), Geoff Cropper, Stuart Simpson, John White (with glass of the magnificent Gouden Carolus Christmas, which is brewed by Het Anker, www.hetanker.be), Keith Leggate, Tim Webb (with guide in his hand), an unknown (not in party), David Spencer and Tom Rierson from the USA. With their back to the camera are Stuart Lowe and Steve Horswell, next to an unknown. In the 2005 edition of Tim's Belgian Guide, I could not help but notice that two tour companies are listed on page 25: Podge's Belgian Beer Tours, which are covered on the White Beer Travels Contacts page, and see below; and White Beer Travels! The above photo is used in the Guide to illustrate this page.

Note that, now that Tim's Guide no longer covers The Netherlands, but should you need information on this country, don't worry, as it is superbly covered by Amsterdam resident, Ron Pattinson's on-line "Dutch Pub Guide", www.europeanbeerguide.net/hollpubs.htm. This is part of Ron's European Pub & Beer Guides website, www.europeanbeerguide.net.

The first edition of Tim's essential Guide to the Belgian Beer scene evolved from a gathering of beer writers that took place in one of the world's greatest Speciality/Craft/Specialty Beer bars, the already mentioned 't Brugs Beertje, in 1987. The top half of the cover above was taken from the top of the Belfry (Belfort), in the Markt, the main square in Bruges by Bob Krist (Corbis, pro.corbis.com). The bottom half was taken in 't Brugs Beertje. Note that the second building on the right is the Hotel "Café Central", at Markt 30. Bruges resident, Filip Geerts, has identified this as a place that was formerly called Trappistenbrau - Deutsches Bierhaus. Filip runs a renowned message board/website covering Belgian Beer, the Belgian Beer Board, www.belgianbeerboard.be, and has his own, excellent website, also covering Belgian Beer, surf.to/beer. Filip, yours truly, and fellow Beer Hunt organiser, Podge, see below, are typical of the "hand-picked by a team of inspectors", of the previous paragraph, who contribute to Tim's Good Beer Guide Belgium, both pub leads, etc, and many of the photos that illustrate the Guide, such as the one above in 't Brugs Beertje; my grandson, Jack Skinner, is especially pleased that my photo of him studying the huge beer menu for the Café Botteltje, within the Hotel Marion (www.hotelmarion.be), in Ostend, has been used to illustrate some prose on children in pubs, on page 164 (the photo can be seen at the top of the White Beer Travels Contents page). Photographic Credits appear on page 2 of the Guide, these showing that eighteen White Beer Travels photos were used in the Guide.

In the 29th of May, 2005 edition of the English quality Sunday newspaper, The Observer, there was a feature on the Guide, which leans heavily on the Brussels entries in the Guide; click here to see it.

In UK book shops, the guide costs £12.99. Signed copies of the Guide can be ordered from Tim's website, www.booksaboutbeer.com (Bookmark). Single copies cost €19.99 plus postage and packing, in Europe, and $29.99, including postage and packing in the USA. The website contains a sample entry - for Leuven. One can also purchase the Guide direct from CAMRA. From Tim's website, updates will be available until the 6th edition comes out in 2008. Click here for the September, 2006 one.

In the back (page 349) of Tim's Good Beer Guide Belgium, there is an advert for a companion CAMRA guide covering Germany, the 576-page Good Beer Guide Germany (www.german-breweries.com, White Beer Travels Web page) (£16.99 (£14.99 for CAMRA members), ISBN 1 85249 219 8), by Steve Thomas, which was published in May, 2006, i.e. in time for the 2006 Football World Cup, which took place in Germany, in June, 2006. It is the first ever comprehensive guide to Germany's brewers, their beers and their principal outlet. It covers more than 1,250 breweries, 1,000 brewery taps and 7,500 beers. There is information on how to get to Germany and travel within it, and introductory essays on German beer and brewing. Despite being Steve's first book, the Good Beer Guide Germany is a first rate effort. It is described as a companion to Tim's Good Beer Guide Belgium, but from a practical point of view, it cannot be an exact like for like, since there are far more bars in Germany than there are in Belgium. Therefore, unlike the Belgian guide, it does not have a town by town listing of pubs selling decent beer. What it does have, is an entry for all the breweries in each town in Germany, with the name and address of their principal outlet. However, it does have some general pub information for towns/cities with a special beer interest, and/or were world cup venues: Augsburg, Bamberg, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Karlsruhe, Köln (Cologne), Leipzig, München (Munich), Nürnberg (Nuremberg) and Stuttgart. Yes, this book, is an essential addition to the collection of anyone who is remotely interested in good beer in Germany; I am confident that it will not be lost on your book shelf, but will be out on view, so that it can very regularly referred to. Updates to the guide are available from its companion website, for which there is a hyperlink earlier in this paragraph.

Why mention the Good Beer Guide Germany here? Because this Guide to German Beer has a Tim Webb involvement. Tim met Steve Thomas in 2003, by chance, on a train that they had both got on, in Marktredwitz, in Bavaria. Steve is a CAMRA member, based in Wales, who has compiled a database of all the brewery taps and brewers in Germany. He received advice and help from Tim, who passed him on to CAMRA, with a view to it being publishing by CAMRA. The above two photos featuring Tim in Brew Pubs in Franconia, in Germany, were taken by John White, in July, 2005; Tim was one of a number of members of the British Guild of Beer Writers (www.beerwriters.co.uk), who were on a trip based in Bamberg and Nuremberg, that John White organised for them and for White Beer Travels Beer Hunters; the trip is covered in the Past Beer Hunts page. In the photo, above left, Tim is in discussion with Stephan Michel, the Brew Master at the renowned Mahr's Bräu Brew Pub, in Bamberg (www.mahrs-braeu.de). In the photo, above right, Tim is signing a copy of his Good Beer Guide Belgium, for White Beer Travels Beer Hunter, Mike Robinson. The venue is the superbly atmospheric Hebendanz Brew Pub in Forchheim (Sattlertorstrasse 14, GPS: 49.720132^o N, 11.056883^o E). The poster above Tim's head is advertising a "train" that takes one to Forchheim's renowned Annafest Beer Festival (www.anna-fest.de or www.annafest-forchheim.de), which was on at the time of the visit. This is covered in the White Beer Travels Guide to Forchheim, which is available from the Downloads page.

The publication of the English version of the fifth edition of this essential beer Guide is covered above. Kosmos-Z+K Uitgevers (www.kosmoszk.nl and www.boekenwereld.com, ISBN 90-215-3898-9) published a Dutch version of the fourth edition, called Biergids voor België, Nederland en Luxemburg, at the end of October. It retails at €19.99. Note that some out of date stuff has been removed and some additions (up to February, 2003) have been made over and above the ones to be found in the English version (4th edition).

On the afternoon of Saturday, the 25th of October, 2003, Tim signed copies of Biergids at PINT's Bokbierfestival, in Amsterdam. This takes place in 2006 on Friday, the 27th, Saturday, the 28th and Sunday, the 29th of October. PINT (www.pint.nl) is The Netherlands' premier beer consumers' organisation. Their website gives further information on the festival, The Netherlands' best. There was a White Beer Travels group of Beer Hunters in Amsterdam for the 2003 festival, click here for more details.

The above photo of Tim Webb, Podge and Joris Pattyn, the two authors and translator of LambicLand LambikLand, was taken by JezzaP.

The above photo of Tim Webb and Podge was taken by John White at the annual dinner of the British Guild of Beer Writers, in London, in December, 2004. They are reading a copy of the Guild's Directory of its members for 2005. Click here for an on-line list of these members. This is a rare photo in that it features Podge in a suit and tie, and, in particular, without one of his trademark patterned, coloured shirts; click here for an example.

Bruges (Brugge), the capital of the Belgian Province of West Flanders (West-Vlaanderen) is a world-class tourist venue, which also happens to be a real Mecca for the Specialty Beer fan. And who better to cover this aspect of it than Podge and his partner, Siobhan. This essential, truly wonderful book covers eighty pubs (well seventy-nine bars/restaurants/hotels/shops and a boat) in Bruges, and as you may guess from its title, there is a different beer recommendation in each of them, to give, er, eighty different beers to try, these all featuring on the book's front cover. Naturally, for a book by Podge and Siobhan, these are all beers of the highest order, with none, of course, from that load of Bankers, InBev. In addition to the book's main theme, there are sections on beer styles, Belgian bar (café) cuisine (with a very useful translation/explanation of the most usually menu items encountered), and a map of the city, which pinpoints all the entries in the book. It is lavishly illustrated, and has the top class layout that is the hallmark of Dale Tomlinson.