Belgian Beer Cafe - Oostende

A pretty standard Australian style Belgian Beer Cafe offering the usual range of beers on tap and food. They do however have a very good range of bottled Belgian beer which makes it worth a visit. The outdoor patio is nice to sit on, the service fine and the limited food we had was good.

Went there late evening last night an hour or so before closing. A young lady was training an American bartender. The trainer had some facts wrong, but she smiled. I was able to try 2 Belgians I’ve never had before, tho they were of little consequence. I think the effort is to mimick the Delirium Café in Brussels by a mega corp. It’s ok, esp in an area where there’s nothing remotely similar.

One of the few places in Adelaide to drink something ontap other than west end and James squire. Good array of simple bar food which is perfect when you’re there to try all the beers!

Good beer in the CBD. Great selection of Belgian beer with a few ciders. No sours or especially rare bottles but enough to keep my interested. The food was great and each item on the menu had a beer pairing, will e back next time i’m in Adelaide!

Great belgian beer selection as expected particularly in bottles. Must have Pot of mussels!

Not my favourite bar, but worth a visit if you are stuck down the east end. Once you get past the tap beers they have a good selection of bottles, but now that Dan Murphy’s stock most of them you can save yourself a few dollars and enjoy them at home, eliminating the big draw of this place for me. I have found the bar staff vary widely in their knowledge of beer. The ambiance of the place doesn’t do it for me. Most of the clientele seems to be cashed up bogans drinking Stella Artois, which you could get anywhere else cheeper and is brewed in Melbourne, so its claim to Belgiumhood is a little spurious. The rest of the regulars are international uni students drinking Hoegaarden. I would skip the Hoegaarden on tap, all but one time I have had it it tasted like the water they washed the glass in. Friday and Saturday nights they seem to want the place to be a club, even though there is no dance floor, playing the music too loud to sit inside. They appear to be having a glass theft problem (I still love the glasses here, I have to have Kwak one day) as you have to leave your driver’s license at the bar for certain drinks, however the glassies collect up any they find sitting on tables and you can have trouble getting your license back if your glass was returned for you so keep an eye on it.

Was a great bar 5 years ago, still very good I love the Chips And mussels

Visited as part of a work rotation in Adelaide. A very good bar for Adelaide. Classy, nice open seating. Bartender was nice and knowledgeable. The prices were a bit insane, each round of 3 drinks costing about 40AUD. Still a nice change for Adelaide.

While this is yet another of the Inbev Belgian Beer Cafe’s, and therefore possibly anathama to some of the purists, in Australia we are forced to take what we can get. We visited on a Wednesday night and the place was quite busy. There is a fairly large bar area, which unfortunately allows smoking. Range of beers on tap is small and the are all Inbev. We started with a Hoegaarden from tap at the bar, then moved through to the restaurant (which is thankfully non smoking) with a Chimay Red in hand. Waiter recommended a Tripel Karmeliet with the entre (Mussels), and while it seemed a strange choice, it turned out to go very well. Ordered a round of Kwaks to accompany the main course (Lamb) followed by a round of Rochefort 10’s to finish it off. By then we were somewhat worse for wear and foolishly felt we could go another round so we ordered Chimay Blues. I think we may have had another, but I can’t remember much after the Rochefort. My main criticism of this place is that some of the beers were served too cold. By Australian standards, there was an excellent range of bottled beers on the menu (not all Inbev), but a fairly limited range on tap. The food was excellent, but I had no idea how much anything cost as I was not paying :-). Definitely worth a visit if you are stuck in Adelaide and you have already sampled the entire Coopers range.