After Dark: Hops Heaven

Style Watch: Rattan Revolution

Diversions: All Talk

Food: Season to Taste

Outdoors: Comfy Camping

Brussels is sometimes resented for issuing directives to the rest of the European Union, but one decree from the Belgian capital earlier this year proved more palatable than most: 2005 would be the Year of Beer in Brussels and Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium, to celebrate the country’s 175th anniversary. So if you want to salute the tipple before year’s end, Delirium Caf, on Impasse de la Fidlit, just off the main restaurant drag of Rue Grtry, is a great place to start. Serving over 900 of the nation’s finest brews, revered for their strength and diversity, and with a menu as thick as a phone book boasting these as well as more than 1,100 beers from 60 other countries, this cellar bar is a shrine to the brewer’s art. In dimly lit surroundings, old enameled advertisements and colorful backlit beer posters adorn the walls, while wooden beer kegs double as tables. It’s here that customers can risk curiosities like Tahitian Hinano beer, Baadog from Mongolia, Black Sheep from the Faroe Islands, and fruit and chocolate beers. For $150 you can try a bottle of Framboise Boon 1986, an award-winning, vintage, limited-edition, microbrewed raspberry beerno wonder it’s so pricey. There’s a legion of glasses in a plethora of sizes and shapesthe bartenders know which container best complements which drink. If you get your fill of beer, Delirium offers genever, a type of ginbut the bar only has 500 varieties of that. tel: (32-2) 514-4434; www.deliriumcafe.be