Saint Patrick’s Guinness Irish Festival in Brussels

The festival has already started with the parade last Sunday, but some key events in the days leading up to St. Pats Day.

March 16th: Irish-American Social & Network Evening....(To celebrate the special Irish- American 40 million Irish Diaspora relationship...all nationalities are welcome) Guinness & Cocktails jive together with music by NATO Jazz Messengers, with special guest appearance by Carmel Dempsey.
Free entrance if you pre-register at: irish.american.evening@gmail.com
At the Aloft Brussels Schuman hotel, smart casual dress

March 17th: St. Patrick’s Day Celebration, The World meets the Irish in Brussels. 5 euro.......free entrance if you pre-register at irish.and.world.party@gmail.com wear the green!
At the Aloft Brussels Schuman hotel

You can find information about living and working in Brussels, holidays in Belgium and Ireland, as well as information about all the Festival events at the Belga-Ireland Tourism & Information stand at the Fáilte Isteach exhibition room in the Aloft Brussels Schuman Hotel. WEBSITE

Some after effects of the Zythos Beer Festival

Ed, John, and Kjeld at the Zythos Beer Festival

Thanks to Kevin here for sending me some pictures. Surprisingly Kjeld said all the pictures he took on his cameraphone were too blurry to publish. I wonder if that had anything to do with the 16 tokens he shelled out for beer. Ya think?

Joe Stange, our beer guru, has now left for greener pastures in Costa Rica, but Mireille toasts a drink with his co-author Yvan de Baets, a local brewer, who was at the show. Their book, Around Brussels in 80 beers is available here, I'm sure he'll send you a signed copy. Joe also has a blog called the Thirsty Pilgrim if you want to know more about Belgian Beer.

Kjeld looking like he's probably at token number 14 of 16

This dude had the coolest beer holder of the day.... actually saw more than a few of these. He said he came all the way from Jersey for this.

I found amusing.....one of my biggest pet peeves here in Belgium. Having to pay to use the damn bathroom. You'd think at a beer festival they would eliminate that, but hell no. There are probably Belgians fighting over that concession. At .30 cents a pop for two straight days, they probably made more money than the guy with the 'fried beer' concession at the Texas State Fair.