#84: So that was January

The Brussels Notes Monthly Round-Up

We made it. As January’s go, that was a pretty gruelling one - cold and wet and dark and usually all at the same time. But this morning as I was shuffling the kids out the door for school, I noticed that, for the first morning this year, it was actually bright out. Not bright bright - the sky was still its usual dull grey - but not dark either. It was the same last night when I went to collect Z from football in Molenbeek. Cycling back up to Simonis we both remarked that it was nice to come home without needing a fluorescent jacket to protect us against traffic. The grand stretch in the evening has finally arrived, and not a day too late.

Tomorrow it’s Spring already, and I will be giving myself a pat on the bat for getting through another Brussels winter intact - psychologically if not physically. The new year has also brought some relief for me personally from the plague of migraines I was suffering under for most of 2024. Fingers crossed that it continues into February, and that I haven’t just now jinxed myself. What it means for you, dear reader, is that January 2025 has been a pretty fecund month for me, creatively.

I’ll get to that later, but this monthly round-up is both a consequence of that relative fecundity and inspired by a similar exercise by my good friend and excellent writer Katie Mather (you can/should subscribe to her newsletter The Gulp over here). From today until the end of the year it will arrive in your inbox on the last Friday of the month, rounding-up my writing from the previous month, and other interesting stuff I’ve been reading/watching/eating/drinking.

I’ll also use it to flag what’s coming down the line from me at Brussels Notes (and elsewhere). Earlier this week I sat down to map out the editorial schedule for the next six months, trying to harness some of that creative energy to make sure the newsletter is out every week - something I signally failed to do last year. I won’t divulge too much, but what I can say is that, for 2025 at least, I’m trying to group newsletter articles under the umbrella of a loosely defined theme. Think “food month”, “architecture month”, “Metro month” and “sports month” - still with enough flexibility in the programming to react to in-the-moment news and events.

This month was the first attempt at this kind of thematic approach to the newsletter - with the “State of You” series of articles on the things about Brussels currently enervating me (and by the looks of it, many of you too) - and I feel like it is going to be an important part of my writing “practice” for the rest of the year. Predictability - for you and for me - is important! And finally, I want to thank all the new subscribers who joined in the last month, pushing the newsletter over the 1,000-subsctriber threshold for the first time. Welcome, and I hope you stick around. And to longer-term Brussels Notes loyalists - I’m talking to you, Christa - I still value you too.

Anyway, here’s my January in writing and other things (this intro will be shorter next time around).

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Writing

• Brussels Notes https://www.beercity.brussels/home/2025/a-new-years-beer

  • First Blood - kicking of the new year with a bit of well-earned indulgence in the shape of a greasy mitraillette

  • People just don't give a fuck - before an abrupt turn to complain about the disregard Brussels’ residents have for the state of the place

  • Brussels is trying to kill you - and the disregard the city has in turn for our own wellbeing

  • Brussels Year Zero - before rounding out the month with a consideration of why Brussels looks like a construction site, through the concepts of punctuated equilibrium and Ourboros

• Brussels Beer City

  • A New Year's Beer - for the first Brussels Beer City article of 2025, I wrote about the differences - and different jobs - of a Christmas beer and a New Year’s beer

  • I'm Glad - The Session 2025 - for The Session, I wrote about the best thing to happen to Brussels’ beer scene since 2018

• Elsewhere

  • The Irish for Stout — O’Hara’s Leann Folláin and the Making of a Cult Classic - a profile by me, for Pellicle, about trailblazing Irish brewery O’Hara’s and their iconic Irish stout Leann Folláin

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Eating and Drinking

• SCOB Bloom - over Christmas I tried to be restrained in my alcohol consumption, meaning we drank a lot of non-alcoholic alternatives. The best of the bunch came in the shape of new Brussels outfit SCOB’s “brewed tea”, and in particular the stone-fruity Bloom, made with Bai Mu Tan white tea. SO good, we bought everything Fermenthings had in stock.

• Schieve x-mas - are you still allowed to drink Christmas beers after Christmas? Does it matter? Either way, I made an exception for Brasserie de le Senne’s Schieve X-mas in early January. It’s a beer that hasn’t been around for a few Christmases, and was a welcome return - full of burnt toast notes, caramel stuck to the bottom of the pan, but bitter and herbal, like a fudgy fisherman's friend.

• Beijingya - solo lunches were thin on the ground this month, but I did manage to sneak into Beijingya (because I was too late for Au Bon Bol) for a plate of scaldingly hot squares of deep-fried Tofu.

Reading/Watching/Listening

• Putain! We zijn toch allemaal Brusselaars - Apache’s editor-in-chief gets it right, and once I get around to signing up to Streamz, Putain is on the agenda

• Nap at the Opera - I’ve been using Ana Fota’s indispensable newsletter to plan my cultural Q1

• “Stripping Architects hekelen vijandige inrichting publieke ruimte” - fell into a deep Youtube hole after reading this interview with two interesting architects with strident views on Brussels’ built environment. Didn’t always agree with everything, but they are always engaging.

• Made a cinema double bill of Emilia Perez and The Substance last weekend. I came out of the late-night screening of the latter at Palace shook. Fair play to Demi Moore is all I’ll say.

• This is Jacques Brel - Walked past the Jacques Brel statue with N last Saturday, and when we got home she asked me to put him on the Sonos. An hour of maudlin Belgian chanson followed. She seemed to like it.

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