世界上最长的酒吧街

Belgians are crazy about beer. Young Belgians areweaned on beer with soda, and old Belgians drink itwith breakfast. Even the monks in Belgium makebeer. The country has been in the brewing traditionsince the 1100s—before it even was a country—andtime has only served to open the doors for more andbetter ways to make the inebriating honey of thegods. We visited a few places in Belgium where beeris nigh religion and tasted for ourselves the holyfervor that has stood to make this country abastion of alcoholic enlightenment. In the process,we've come to an inescapable conclusion: These guys are crazy about beer, and we love it.

比利时人民疯狂地爱着啤酒。在比利时，孩子们从小就习惯上喝掺了苏打的啤酒，而大人们更是连早饭也要就着啤酒来吃。连比利时的僧侣们也会酿造啤酒。比利时的啤酒酿造传统可以追溯到公元12世纪—— 当然这是早于比利时王国成立的 —— 而历史的作用也仅仅只是让比利时向全世界敞开了酿酒的大门以及让人们能更多地喝到这醉人的神露。我们造访了一些在比利时具有特殊意义的地方，因为在这些地方啤酒已经近乎一种宗教圣物了;同时我们也感受到了比利时人对酒的狂热，正是这样的狂热才让比利时得享"酒乡"的美誉。造访过程中，我们无可避免地要得出这样的结论：这群人疯狂地爱着啤酒，但我们也爱着他们的疯狂。

10.Beers Per Capita

10.种类繁多的啤酒

Belgium has more individual styles of beer per capita than any other country in the world. Witha population barely scraping past 11 million, they produced a whopping 1,132 distinct typesof beer in 2011. Fast-forward to 2013 and that number is a mind-blowing 3,043 beers thatwere brewed among all 10 provinces of Belgium. The Flemish Brabant, a province in the north ofBelgium, makes 457 beers on its own.

比利时所拥有的啤酒品类多于世界上任何一个国家。虽然整个国家总人口还不到区区1千1百万，但他们却在2011年酿造出总数多达1132种不同种类的啤酒。到了2013年这个数字爆炸性地增加到3043种，这是整个比利时10个省区的酿造总数。而其中位于比利时北部的佛兰德布拉班特省酿造出了其中的457种。

The region's interest in beer began when the Catholic Church sanctioned the use of abbeys tobrew and distribute beer to raise money for upkeep near the end of the 10th century. Over theyears, the nuns in the abbeys began pioneering new ways to brew, strengthening the diversitythat was available to the locals in brewing villages. At the turn of the 20th century, there wereover 3,000 breweries in Belgium, but the two World Wars had a devastating effect on theBelgian economy that reached deep into the brewing industry. Now, there are only about 180breweries in Belgium.

比利时地区对啤酒的热爱起源于10纪末左右，天主教会占领该地区的修道院开始酿造并销售啤酒使寺院能够自负盈亏。时光飞逝，寺院的修女们开始研发新的酿造手段，此举的目的是为了让当地的酒坊也能够酿造出更多种类的啤酒。到了20世纪初，比利时已经有超过3000家啤酒厂，但随后的两次世界大战对比利时的经济造成了毁灭性影响，酿酒行业也没能幸免于难。如今，比利时仅仅只有180家啤酒厂。

9.Spontaneous Fermentation

9.自然发酵的美味

Known in Belgium as lambic, spontaneously fermented beers have been brewed since the 14thcentury. The process isn't at all unique to Belgium, but they're certainly pioneering the modernform of spontaneous fermentation. Normal beer is made with three ingredients—malt, hops,and yeast. The malt makes it sweet, the hops add the bitter taste, and the yeast ferments thewhole thing into alcohol.

朗贝克啤酒在比利时享誉盛名，这是一种早在14世纪就发明出来的自然发酵的啤酒。虽然酿造过程在比利时属于非常常见的，但他们确实发明了现在所称的自然发酵的形式。

Typically, the yeast is added from a package or a live culture. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is acommon brewing yeast, although there are others. But in spontaneous fermentation, themalt and hops are left to cool in the open air. This introduces wild yeast into the mixture, givingthe brew a quality that is unique to the region where it was brewed, since it depends on thenatural yeasts in the air to start the fermentation. Lambic is made exclusively in Belgium'sZenne valley, where the wild yeasts Brettanomyces bruxellensis and Brettanomyces lambicusthrive. Lambic by itself is acidic and flat, but if there's one thing you can say about Belgianbrewers, it's that they never give up on a beer. To fix it, they brew a batch of lambic and thenage it for six months. Then, they brew a fresh batch and mix the two together. Finally, while it'sstill fermenting, they bottle it, trapping the carbon dioxide and keeping it nice and bubbly. Whenyou throw all those steps together, the result is an even more unique beer type known asGeuze (pronounced like a heavily accented "goose"). Now that's dedication.

啤酒通常由三种原料制成：麦芽、啤酒花和酵母。麦芽能使啤酒香甜可口，啤酒花能带来啤酒特有的苦涩味，而酵母能让这些原料发酵变成酒精。通常情况，酵母会以酵素包或者活酵母培养基的形式加入。啤酒酵母菌就是一种常见的酿酒酵母，尽管还有其他的酵母菌。但在自然发酵工艺中，麦芽和啤酒花都会混合起来晾晒在空气中使之自然冷却。这时会在这种混合物加入天然酵母菌，这个步骤会使每样成品都有一种特殊的性质，因为这取决于混合物内部的天然酵母自然发酵的时间。郎贝克啤酒只在比利时的珊妮谷才有生产，这里是布鲁塞尔属和朗贝克属这些天然酒香酵母的盛产地。朗贝克啤酒本身味道平平并且很酸涩，不过还是要赞美一下比利时的酿酒艺人们，就是他们绝对不会放弃任何一种似乎要失败的酿造。为解决这个问题，他们会首先酿造第一批朗贝克啤酒，然后将它们陈放六个月。六个月后他们会酿造第二批朗贝克，然后将新旧两批混合在一起。最后，虽然两批都还在发酵过程，但匠人们依旧直接装瓶，将二氧化碳密封起来，将还在冒着泡沫的啤酒存放好。当他们将所有的步骤完成后，酿造的结果是另一种更加独特的啤酒——古斯(Geuze:发音类似于单词"goose"发重音)啤酒。这就是全部工艺了!

8.Beer Cocktails

8.啤酒式鸡尾酒

Jurgen Bollion and his brother Steven are the joint owners of the Taste M, a little bar bolted tothe front of a small art museum in Leuven. Jurgen, a jovial man with a linebacker build andperpetually flushed cheeks, visits each table in person with a tray full of "fixings" for hissignature drinks: beer cocktails.

尤尔根·博利昂和他的弟弟史蒂芬·博利昂是Taste M店的合伙经营人。Taste M是位于比利时勒芬市一个美术馆门口的一家小酒吧。掌柜尤尔根是个有着和橄榄球后卫球员一样壮硕身材，但整天都乐呵呵的男人，他会照顾到酒吧里每一桌上的每一位客人，当然还会给他们倒上他的招牌酒品：啤酒鸡尾酒。

The only way to describe a beer cocktail is "whatever Jurgen wants to put in it." But you're ingood hands. As he works, he explains what each ingredient does for the drink: Sweetwood(part of the licorice family) for a tart flavor, tonic for a bitter middle taste, several shots of ginfor strength, a bottle of Caulier 28 tripel for the beer, and ice to give the flavor more variety.He explains that, as the ice melts and the sweetwood seeps into the drink, the flavor changes,making each sip a little different. Then he makes a round of the table to tip more gin into eachglass with a gruff "drink more." And that's just one cocktail. Jurgen has created hundreds ofrecipes for unique beer cocktails, each one meant to emphasize a different taste profile. Oneof his goals is to get past the perception that beer is a "man's" drink. In his words, everybodylikes beer, you just have to find the right one—"They say to me, ‘I don't like beer.' And I say, ‘No, you don't like the beers that you have tried up to this point.' " He wants to findeverybody's perfect beer. That's a man with an admirable mission.

我想只能用一句话来形容什么叫啤酒鸡尾酒：随便尤尔根往里面放什么都成。但他肯定会把你照顾周到。因为在尤尔根调配鸡尾酒的时候，他会告诉你酒里的每种成分。月桂(甘草纲目中的一种)能带来酸酸的味道，奎宁水的苦味能够中和酸味，随后加入的杜松子酒能够强化味觉上的刺激，再在啤酒里斟上一瓶Caulier 28triple苹果酒混合，最后冰块的加入能够使这杯鸡尾酒的味道更加多元化。他如此解释道，因为味道会随着冰块的逐渐融化以及月桂的不断渗入而不断变化，这就使得你每酌一口都会有不同体验。最后他还会在酒吧里转一圈给每位客人再添上一些杜松子酒，每次都会粗声粗气地说着："要多喝点哦!" 这还只是尤尔根调配的其中一种。尤尔根了发明了好几百种独特的啤酒鸡尾酒配方，而每一种配方都有一种最强烈的味道。其实尤尔根这样做有一个目的——让人们都认同啤酒就是"男人们的饮料"。用他自己的话来说，就是每个人都是喜欢啤酒的，而你只需要找到最适合你的口味，"他们对我说，‘我不喜欢啤酒'，但是我对他们说，‘不是这样的，你只是不喜欢你现在喝的这种口味。'"他甚至想给全世界每个人都找出一种最适合他们的啤酒。他的这种持之以恒的态度确实令我们感到敬佩。

7."The Longest Bar In The World"

7.世界上最长的酒吧街

This is a local colloquialism for a square officially known as the Oude Market, located in Leuven.The market is basically a long, open courtyard with a line of businesses running along one side.So why is it called the longest bar in Europe? Well, over 40 of those businesses just happen tobe bars. Since each bar has an outdoor patio, the experience is one of an unbroken outdoorterrace that runs for nearly half a kilometer (0.3 mi).

这其实是一个位于比利时勒芬市被当地人称作老市场的广场而已。广场其实是一条长长的半边商业步行街式的庭院。那为什么要称其为欧洲最长的酒吧街呢?其实是因为这条步行街上有超过40家酒吧。基于这里的每家酒吧都设置了室外的露天区，因此置身其中你就能感受到一个完整的露天平台区都长达(0.3英里)半公里。

Of course, despite its name, it's not actually the longest bar in the world, or even Europe. Thereare several contenders to the title, most of them named by generations of locals who grew upwith the phrase and simply want to keep it alive in their home town. Nevertheless, the OudeMarket is a unique place to visit, and one of the bars, Domus, is even supplied by a directpipeline to its nearby brewery.And the other side of the square? That's a university. In manyparts of Belgium, especially Leuven, college students get beers for