113 Best Bars in Belgium

The rather nondescript interior masks what is one of the best beer pubs in the city. Located out by the Cirque Royale, it has a huge list of obscure, small-batch Belgian beers, including some excellent organic brews. Part of the bar has now also become a shop, with some 250 bottles to choose from. 

It might not look like much, but this is regularly voted one of the world's best beer cafés for good reason. Bierhuis Kulminator pours 550 different kinds of beer, some of which are more than 30 years old.

A hefty tome of a menu details the brewery, style, and country of a worldly range of craft ales and Belgian favorites. There are up to 11 beers on draft and around 150 bottled, but if you're at a loss, just ask---the staff are extremely knowledgeable. Grab a board game and settle down for the day, or head upstairs for some excellent Flemish home cooking. It's closed on Tuesday.

This small, two-floor bar manages to be both laid-back and achingly hip with good beer and cocktails, a vintage Photomatique machine, chandeliers, free live jazz and electronica, and DJs on most nights. And the nights go long here—until 8 am on some days!

This lively local brewery and tap house is set in a former stables. This used to be where they kept the mules that pulled Schaerbeek's trams until the first electric line was installed in 1894. Now tables have been strewn across the old stable yard, and its friendly, mulleted owner pours out glasses of his own-brewed German-style wheat beers, along with the odd saison and lager.

Brewer Annick de Splenter's prolific brewpub has lost none of its ability to surprise. Based in an old galley, relics of the building's former life remain, with various cow statues proliferating around the bar. Gruut's beers are made to a medieval recipe, using herbs, not hops; the result is a more subtle, lighter-tasting brew than the usual Belgian offering. Tastings (€15) can be arranged; you can even add a boat trip to your visit (€33). If you have the time, spare some for its "beeralchemy" sessions (€28) and the chance to brew your own herb beer to take home; it's easily done in an afternoon and the session includes tastings.

This superb cocktail bar re-creates a 1920s speakeasy vibe. The drinks are uniformly excellent, with homemade bitters and infusions decorating an ever-changing menu that has something of a gastronomy vibe, while the outdoor waterside terrace is cozily hidden. While so many of Ghent's cocktail bars err on the tacky side, Jiggers is an oasis of cool, though at around €15 a drink, it doesn't come cheap.

A fantastically hip, cozy brick-walled cocktail bar where the quality is never less than high and the drinks deceptively potent. A huge selection of rums and whiskeys adorn the menu, and the cocktails go by season, so there's always something interesting to try.

Tourists flock here en masse to see the beer wall, a glass case displaying one bottle for every brand of Belgian beer, but the real lure is the view from the terrace, overlooking the Djiver canal. A prolific selection of local brews also helps. There's a good beer shop, too.

A neighborhood wine bar on Place Colignon that does a roaring trade in crowd-pleasing sharing plates, from shiitake arancini to frites drizzled in Parmesan and truffle. It's mostly good-quality French wines, though you can just as easily bag a beer or kombucha.

An accomplished cocktail bar whose setting, within a 19th-century tailoring shop, lends it an added dash of ambience. The speakeasy chic might be de rigueur for most cocktail bars these days, but its vintage decor certainly carries it off with style, and the gin-heavy cocktail menu aims for the stars.

A slightly scruffy interior belies what is essentially a delightful old-school café-bar with a terrace on the street outside. It's popular with locals, who fill the tables in the evening. Just grab a beer and a croque monsieur and watch the world go by.

This elegant "brown café" dates from the early 20th century but has weathered well. The mirror-and-wood paneling, leather banquettes, and tiled floors speak to a bar that knows its place in the world, and you can spot the regulars a mile off. There's a good selection of local beers and decent food. 

This specialty-beer bar is also a café chantant, which means locals will often have the tendency to get up and sing in front of everyone else.

With 30 on tap and around 300 more in bottles and cans, this lively central bar has arguably the best selection of Belgian beers in town.

Sometimes the name says it all. Just a five-minute walk from Centraal Station, the selection here runs the gamut of craft ale and Belgian favorites, with a dozen draft brews on tap. Its minimalist interior is more cocktail joint that your typical "brown café," but friendly, knowledgeable staff make exploring a bottle list 300-strong a delight.

This modish cocktail bar—all stone floors and leather sofas—lies in a 200-year-old building in the shadow of the Cathedral of Our Lady. Drinks are made with fanciful infusions, homemade bitters, and great skill. When the seats and terrace are full, drinkers are turned away, so get here early.

This has long been cited as one of the world's great beer bars, and it draws reverential beer pilgrims from around the globe. When open (it closes on Sunday and seemingly shuts its doors on a whim), Kulminator stocks some 600 brews, with many hailing from little-known or long-since-defunct breweries. Its interior is best described as "old clutter," and so long as you don't expect a warm welcome, you'll leave happy. Get here soon however—after more than 50 years of service the owners are in failing health, and the bar's long-term future is uncertain.

The café-bar Monk was something of a local institution until it shut down in early 2024. Billie is its likeable second coming, having kept the infamous dark "brown bar" interior, legendary giant plates of spaghetti, and decent beer selection (now including its own Billie beer).

In a city of beer bars, Blend is a tiny oasis. This new wine bar--wine shop was recently opened by two gentlemen who have both previously shared the title "Best Sommelier in Belgium," so the selection is excellent, with 30 wines by the glass and some 300 bottles to peruse, with a big emphasis on Italian grapes.

Located at the foot of the Montagne de Bueren stairway, the city's only brewpub serves its own Curtius beers and a full food menu, best enjoyed on the summer garden terrace.

Arguably the most famous pub in town, Bruges's original specialist beer café is an iconic destination for hop lovers and stocks around 300 different brews. Expect to sample a few curiosities like the Wallonian Bush beer (one of the strongest in Belgium), the odd brew from the famed Sint-Sixtusabdij Westvleteren monastery, an excellent choice of lambic beers from Brussels's Cantillion, and a good selection from the local Halve Maan brewery.

You might have thought that U.S.-style craft beer would go down like a lead balloon in the notoriously old-fashioned world of Belgian beer, but that's rather the point of this iconoclastic project. BBP's original 24-tap taproom on Dansaert has quickly become an essential stop for any hop lovers in the city and was the first step to world domination---they're now even in Paris and Tokyo. A recent renovation has given it a fresh look, and now there are taprooms in Ixelles on Rue de Bailli and in Anderlecht at Port Sud.

Set in an ocean-liner-like Art Deco building, this is a favorite among Brussels’s beautiful people. It's the kind of place you'd spot a minor local TV star sipping a cocktail or mint tea at the zinc bar, or outside gazing at the swans on the Ixelles ponds. DJs play until late; it's also a popular brunch spot for hungover locals on Sunday.

Beveren is boisterous and old-fashioned, and even has its own 80-year-old Decap organ—a rarity in the city (or anywhere), since most of the bars traded up for jukeboxes or DJs a long time ago. It also has a good beer selection.

Below the hotel of the same name, the "Little Bottle" has enjoyed a legendary status among Belgian beer lovers for more than three decades---a quick glance at the more than 300 choices on offer on the menu will soon tell you why.

A charming bar set on the corner of Ladeuzeplein. Old wooden floors, high ceilings, and a stash of board games you can play while having a beer make it a laid-back escape. There's also always a pot of soup on the go if you're hungry.

Slap-bang in the heart of the red-light district, this is the city's flagship deep house venue, luring tourists and locals alike to its unpretentious, industrial-style dance floor.

As is common in Belgium clubs, you might want to bring change for the bathroom.