Sunday, March 02, 2008

Mir wölle bleiwe wat mir sin

Luxembourg's national motto, means "We Want to Stay What We Are." Quite proud, isn't it? Well they deserve to be. Lots of people don't believe in the official statistics that Luxembourg has the world's hight alcohol consumption per capita, and it's won the title for several years in a row. But ladies and gentlemen, it can well be the truth if you consider the fact that 60% of the Luxembourg's residents are not Luxembourgish nationals and the ratio has gone up so high the government has allowed those non-national residents to vote. Impressive.

Longing to verify that fascinating rank as well as tick one more item off my countries-to-visit/drink-in list, I took a short day trip last weekend to sample Luxembourg's old city center (a UNESCO World Heritage site) and its local brew. Props to Marie, my superb host who didn't mind me dragging her around taking photos like a typical Asian tourist and making her take photos of me drinking. That's a tough job, I'm sure all of you are aware.

So, turns out Luxembourg is a beautiful city, details of which you can browse here. What I hope to officially introduce here is the three (actually, two) Luxembourg local beers that I sampled during my 4 hour tour of the country/city.

Battin, light lager, not too shabby, good for washing down a heavy lunch meal, which I did.
Battin
Sampling Battin

Apparently Mousel and Diekirch are more famous and traditional Luxembourgish brands but I didn't have enough time to sample both. On my way to catch my train back to Brussels I saw a sign outside a cafe saying they served both. I thought it was brilliant, and again, dragged Marie with me who initially only wanted some waffles with coffee. Nice try of her. We ended up both having beers, of course. The only problem is that when I ordered a mousel, it was served in a Diekirch glass instead. So here, two birds with one stone. Isn't that great? Mousel wasn't bad at all. Heard that Diekirch isn't too hard to get in Brussels. Ahhhh how curious. I shall inquire!
Mousel in Diekirch's glass

From Luxembourg with love, kids!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sorry to correct you but actually 44.5 % of Luxembourg's resident are non-Luxembourgish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Luxembourg
The right to vote for non-Luxembourgish is being discussed but not permitted for all at all levels.
Hope you enjoyed Luxembourg!