I'd like the name of a popular brand of Belgian beer that was around
in 1887.  It doesn't have to still exist as long as it was well known
then.

And I'd like to know if it would normally have been served cold.

Thank you,
Archae0pteryx

Hi,
Thanks for your query.

I can suggest the following:

"De Koninck" a full bodied top fermenting ale made by De Koninck Brewery.
Established in 1833 De Koninck is the only brewery in the famous city
of Antwerp, it is the name of the brewery and also the name of its
main product.
http://www.dekoninck.be/en/index.htm



"Stavelot" a high fermentation beer made by Duvel Moortgat farm
brewery - better known today for their famous "Duvel" beer. This beer
was around shortly after 1871.
http://www.duvel.be/pages/Main.aspx?culture=en&pageid=brouwerij/historiek



"Chimay" a Trappist beer. Since 1862 the Cistercian Trappist monks of
Chimay have been developing the production of Trappist beers.
http://www.chimay.com/

Belgium's Trappist and Lambic beers were served unchilled prior to the
20th century. For one, refridgerators or ice were not available at the
local taverns or homes, secondly because beers stored and then served
at natural cellar temperatures were naturally....cool!


Much more information on belgian beers can be found here:
http://www.visitbelgium.com/beer.htm

Nice tasting articles & Belgian beer experiences from The BeerHunter,
Michael Jackson:
http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-000827.html
http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-001374.html

Your choice of beer may very well depend on the region of Belgium. If
you want to get more specific let me know.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by archae0pteryx-ga on 02 Aug 2005 22:29 PDT

Hi, landog,

Thank you for this helpful information.  The region is Brugge.  Does
that specific location inspire any further suggestions?

Archae0pteryx

---

Clarification of Answer by landog-ga on 03 Aug 2005 01:15 PDT

Hi,
Myoarin's additional info is helpful.
I would also suggest you email the breweries in the Brugge region.

Here is a list of many breweries in Belgium:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~patto1ro/belgbrew.htm

Success!

Thank you for good searching and good finding.

Hi Tryx,
Nothing wrong with Landog's answer.
He is right, you want a beer local to the area.  On the following site
you can click on CITIES and then on the first letter, and then scroll
to find your venue and click again for all the breweries ever known
there.
The problem is that you will find very many that are out of business
(a cross, maybe next to a date, at the right. And often the founding
date is not given, so one of us would have to try to find that.  I
would, of course, be happy to try.

http://home.tiscali.be/proud2b/

If you are happy with Antwerp, De Koninck is a fine choice.

This site can help find other still well known breweries:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~patto1ro/belgbrew.htm

Bosteels and Artois are names that most people would recognize as Belgian beers,
but they might not be local enough.  Have to check again on the
founding date for some, but the websites usually mention that, 
Alken-Maes, for example, was founded in 1880 and produces the very
well known Kronenbourg 1664 pils (but probably did not back then).
You will find that these breweries produce a great range of different
labels now, doing things to beer that no purist would condone. 
("crappy pils" is a personal opinion of the owner of this site, but
for your period, he has a point, pilsener style beer wasn't produced
in Belgium back then.)

IF I can be of any help, please let me know.
Myoarin

"Godverdomme!"
I can't access tiscali to find the names of the 32 breweries that were
in Bruuge before the Great War.  But now I know why 95% of the then
3000+ breweries all closed in 1914-15.  The Germans took their copper
equipment.

This is what the website of the only Brugge brewery on the other list
says about its history:

http://www.proximedia.com/web/degoudenboom.html

?On the exact spot where the Gouden Boom is established today, a
certain Jan Hugheins brewed beer as early as in 1455. For generations
the place switched between being a brewery and a distillery. Until
Jules Vanneste, in 1872, buys the building that housed the distillery
't Hamerken: in 1889 he definitely converts it into a brewery.?

From all the disorganized following, I believe the name  " 't
Hamerken" could be what you are looking for: the name was current at
the time, AND it is prominent in the local brewing literature. While
the above passage leaves it uncertain as to whether Vanneste brewed in
that period, everything below does not question this.

Cheers :-)  Myoarin


http://www.brugsbrouwerijmuseum.be/fPublicaties.html

This is a publication about the brewery:  ?From ?t Hamerken to De Gouden Boom?

Ah, but another site gives this excerpt from the above:
http://users.skynet.be/sb176943/AndriesVandenAbeele/AVDA378.htm
"Brouwerijgeschiedenis in Brugge
De Langestraat was minstens vanaf de late middeleeuwen een straat van
brouwerijen, jeneverstokerijen en kroegen. In 1887 werden er niet
minder dan 54 drankgelegenheden genoteerd. Over de laatste onder de
daar gevestigde brouwerijen is thans een boeiend verhaal gepubliceerd
in de reeks Leven in oude huizen, bezorgd door de vzw Levend Archief,
die aanleunt bij het Brugse stadsarchief. De vzw voor
brouwerijgeschiedenis ?t Hamerken werkte er eveneens aan mee.
Het verhaal dat over zes eeuwen loopt, is geconcentreerd op de
activiteiten en de bewoners van twee in de Langestraat gesitueerde
brouwerijen en slijterijen : ?t Hamerken en het Wit Kruis. Vanaf 1872
huisde aldaar de brouwerij Vanneste, later brouwerij ?t Hamerken."
Very roughly with omissions:
History of Brewing in Brugge
The ?Langestraat? was at least since the late middle ages a street of
breweries, ???, and pubs.  In 1887 there were noted no less than 54
opportunities for a drink.  ?????
??? (Something) is concentrated on the activities ?the residents of
two breweries and  (?distilleries, often combined): ? ?t Hamerken? and
the ?Wit Kruis? (White Cross). After 1872, this was the site of the
brewery ?Vanneste?, later the brewery ? ?t Hamerken?.

Hmmm?  But after that effort, I found these two sites in English, that
make the above unnecessary except of that nice line about 1887.  Maybe
the photos will help in some way:

http://www.kilkelly.com/bruges.html

The following one is not so specific, but here it is anyway:
http://fgeerts.freelinuxhost.com/ddb04/index.htm

SO, Prosit again, Myo

My thanks once again, Myoarin.  Between you and landog, I've got what
I need for this one.  "Langestraat" is a very nice extra, and I am
definitely going to use it.

I am starting to wish that I could engage you as my own private
researcher.  If I could, I would entertain you with one search
exercise after another, and you could keep me supplied with sound,
well-researched answers to my incessant questions.

Tryx

Hi Tryx, thanks for the nice words.  That was a nice bit of luck with the street.
I am collecting peculiar details to be able one day to frame a
question asking if anyone can identify the book.  :-)

About that dress:  my Mom (whose parents married about that time) told
me a boy should only give a girl something to wear where he could
touch her: gloves, scarf ....
But if she wears it ...

Need to know the size of FR 5 silver coin?  About the size of silver dollar.

Next one?
Best regards, Myoarin

Ha ha, Myoarin!  Why don't you just ask me to tell you the title when
it's published?  Stick around and I'll even offer you a pair of
complimentary tickets to the movie.

Actually there is one rather large detail that would serve as
absolute, unequivocal identification (besides my name, of course), but
it has never appeared in GA.  There'd be no reason for it to.  Still,
just for fun, someday perhaps I'll work it into a question or comment
and leave it there quietly for you to find.

Arend's girlfriend isn't going to be so fussy about the niceties your
mother remembers, not when she sees the 200 francs.  By the way,
they'd be paper, wouldn't they?  Otherwise there's going to be a hefty
pouch.  Ever wonder about the fact that (in the movies) when people
deliver a sum of money in a leather pouch, they always give the pouch
along with it?  They never open it, dump out the coins, and put the
pouch back in their own pocket.  When I pay for something in cash, I
just turn over the money, not the wallet, but you never see that in
those historical-period movies.  I figure that there must have been a
flourishing trade in pouch making, and also that the containers of
sums of money must have circulated from hand to hand nearly as freely
as the money.

Thank you for your interest and your help--
Tryx

Hi tryx,

I am waiting with baited breath ...

Coin pouches, lots of thoughts:  
In films, they can forego showing silver and gold coins;
Nobility aschewed handling money (QE2 still does);
It still isn't considered polite to make a money gift by just handing
over the bills, it being preferred to put them in an envelope (as we
do here with the Xmas tips for the mailman and newspaper boy, or for
kids' birthdays), and in a travel guide for Russia or Central Asia, it
is also recommened not to hand waiters money but to put it on the
table;
So coin pouches were used in the days when coins had enough value to be a gift;
And yes, there were indeed many little coin pouches for this purpose: 
quite little ones for only a couple of coins (but maybe gold ones) for
baptisms or confirmations, etc, etc., fancy ones in silver ("silver"
lamé, crocheted or knitted, I believe), and of course in silk or
lesser material.

Since you asked, and I have found the following information on coinage
and bank notes current at the time, I expect that "Arend" would have
been given a few gold coins in a pouch:  clinking coin, especially
gold ones, which he probably never had, being a more impressive award.
 Do you have to describe the pouch?
I'd let it be a new little leather one.

The silver coins under the Latin Monetary Union were 
Fr 0.50, 1, 2, 5;     the gold coins were Fr 10, 20, 50, 100

http://digilander.libero.it/maggioref/latin%20monetary%20union.html

And at that time there were bank notes in denominations: Fr 20, 50, 100, 1000.

http://www.atsnotes.com/catalog/belgium/belgium.html

Did Judas get his 30 pieces of silver in a purse?  I think in
paintings both versions are presented, also with him counting them  -
which would be a reflection on his character.

Regards, Myoarin

Hi, Myoarin,

Two gold Fr 100 coins would be perfect.  How large would they be?  No,
I don't have to describe the pouch.  I would prefer him to look down
at the cash in his hand, either crisp or gleaming.

With respect to purses, I wasn't thinking so much of gifts.  (Yes,
many of us even in the gauche U.S. still practice the courtesy of
enclosing monetary gifts in an envelope or other holder, and do not
give gifts too intimate for the nature of the relationship.)  I was
thinking of the scene in the movie where, let's say, the two
cutthroats have finished off their victim and now appear before the
evil nobleman, who tosses them each a purse and a look of revulsion. 
Or the hero has just galloped through the marketplace, leaving ruined
stalls and strewn goods in his wake, and he glances back over his
shoulder in chagrin and throws a purse to the nearest merchant.  Now
he doesn't have bus fare home, let alone enough to compensate the next
entrepreneur whose livelihood he destroys, and he doesn't even have
anything in which to put the few silver coins he may win in a contest
at the next town.  But then, I suppose they will come with a purse.

I imagine that Judas was given his thirty pieces of silver along with
a measure of contempt, in a little handful that fell into the dirt at
his feet and that he then had to scramble and pick up.

By the way, that would be "bated," I believe, as in "abated," or held,
and not having anything to do with worms and fishhooks.  At any rate,
thank you for your confident anticipation.  I am probably two years
away from having anything marketable, and even if it sold on the spot,
it would probably be another year until press time.  So please let
your breath out.  But you are certainly helping me progress!

Tryx

Hi tryx,
I was afraid of that.  I never learned to spell, and I was even
thinking: "baited, yeah, like abated."  But I'd probably have spelled
it wrong, too.  :)

The beauty of gold and silver coins is/was that they are all about the same size:
the dollar about equal 5 Fr in silver, $10 gold eagle about equal Fr 50, etc.
This site shows that most one ounce gold coins were/are 32 mm = 1.26
in. in diameter.  That would be your Fr 100 piece.  A Fr 50 gold coin
would have been about 27 mm = ca 1 in. in diameter.
If you don't mind my second guessing, I already before had been
thinking that four Fr 50 coins would be more appropriate, imagining
the donor - a person of "higher standing" admonishing in a friendly
tone:  "Now don't spend it all at once," using the smaller coins so
that Ahrend didn't have to expose his wealth.  And now  - without a
purse -  letting the coins clink one after another in his hand, four
increasing the duration of the scene.
But it's your story.  

http://www.austincoins.com/gold_specs.htm

Yeah, those cutthroats:  Kind of "take it or leave it," with the
implication by the Sheriff of Nottingham that he either knew he was
paying in full  - in his own interest (risky business, shortchanging
cutthroats) -  or trusted that his loyal henchmen could protect him.
Two years: and I was thinking this was the last chapter, relieved that
they hadn't uncovered the remains of Katja (spelling!)
Don't tell me how off track I am.
But then there could be additional questions, which is interesting.
Why can't your folk speak English like everybody else in Europe?
(Rhetorically meant, of course.)
Myoarin

Myoarin,

Nope, nope, nope, you are way off target.  Good guessing, though. 
Maybe you could make a whole other story out of what you think I'm up
to, but your apparent notion of my plot line is totally off base.  And
note, also, that I am not writing scenes in consecutive order as they
will appear in the story, so any notion you may have of sequence is
probably incorrect.  I am not giving my work away online!

And there will be tons more questions, so you're not out of work yet.

Not ignoring your question about language, but not answering it
either.  Please don't think me rude, but there's a reason.

Four gold Fr 50 pieces will do just as nicely, or even more so, for
the reason you say, and thank you for the excellent suggestion.  But
there's no donor of higher standing--different situation altogether.

Tryx

Hi Tryx,
I'm curiouser and curiouser ...  
My story would have reincarnation  - once as a song bird -  but that
will entale [sic] bridging a few hundred years and travel to India,
perhaps by a Jew to Cochin's then thriving Jewish community, fleeing
Spain in the Reconquesta, maybe with his daughter (I'm partial to
having girls in the plot), and so on.  (He'd obviously speak Ladina,
Arabic and Hebrew.)
Field for lots of questions.  
Of course, I don't expect you to reveal anything, just can't help musing.
Glad you liked my suggestion.
Hope you had a nice Sunday,
Myoarin