A Knight's Nose

by Rachel Frankford

That's what happened to Eulogy Belgian Tavern owner Mike Naessens. He was inducted into the Knighthood of the Brewers' Mashstaff (La Chevalerie du Fourquet des Brasseurs, en Français) in Brussels on Sept. 1, and thanks to the guild's help, his nose (vital for the tasting of anything, and thus an indispensable body part for a beer brewer or connoisseur) is now insured for $6 million. "I was thinking of the Six Million Dollar Man," he says.

Over Hoegaarden, Delirium Tremens and Naessen's own Belgian-brewed Busty Blonde (hey, 5 o'clock was well on its way, at least), Naessens and I sat at a table by the window and discussed his new status as a knight not-quite-adrift in Philadelphia. "It's kind of like a dream come true for my family," he beams. Naessens was born in Abbington, but his grandparents came to America from Beernem in the Flemish-speaking half of Belgium, and he moved to the motherland for three years in the early 1990s. An accountant by training and an adjunct professor at Drexel's business school, in 2002 he created Eulogy, now an Old City fixture and one of the highest-rated beer bars in America (www.beeradvocate.com and www.ratebeer.com, hell yeah). Half of their 300 kinds of beer are Belgian brews with French or Flemish names unknown and/or unpronounceable to Coors Light-bred Americans: kriek, framboise, gueuze, Chimay, Leffe, Vuuve (that means "boobs").

The Knighthood's invitation stemmed from Naessens' decision to create his own beer in a Belgian brewery, his contacts with brewers and work with the Belgian-American Chamber of Commerce to help Belgian companies in the U.S. market. Americans are rarely inducted — you could count the other Yankee beer knights on one hand. The ceremony, at Brussels' imposing City Hall, was part of the city's annual Weekend de la Bière (Beer Weekend, Anglophones!). It included three touches on each shoulder with a mashstaff — a sort of shovel used for brewing — and a lot of beer. The 10 inductees (one other was also American) sampled the wares of 115 brewers assembled in the city's famous public square before the gates opened to the thirsty populace.

Naessens will return to Brussels each fall to meet with his fellow brewers, and he's working on bringing some of them to the U.S. to promote their products along the East Coast. "Every major war was settled in Belgium," he said, adding that hardly any Americans know anything about the country, much less how to make a real Belgian fry. You need thick slices so they won't get crispy all the way through, because "a Belgian fry is supposed to go 'crunch, goo, crunch.'"