subject: The Best Beer Cafe In Melbourne - Belgian Beer Cafe Eureka - Review [print this page] The Best Beer Cafe In Melbourne - Belgian Beer Cafe Eureka - Review
Upon approaching Southbank's Belgian Beer Cafe Eureka, more fondly known as 'The Belgian Beer Gardens', I could confidently gather two traits of the mighty Belgians. The first being that they like to start to drink early - it was a mere 3pm, and the second being that they also keep this alcoholic agility well hidden - it took my boyfriend and I over an hour of trucking up and down Melbourne's rattling roads to finally locate the haven hidden between hearty hedges.
After at long last locating our Belgian friends, there was one last bulge to belge. The dreaded female parallel park, courtesy of myself. Needless to say there were no fatalities, although after a near side swipe from a four wheel driving soccer mum, to say I was deserving of the frothy flowing Belgian beer that awaited a few metres away is an understatement. The parking at the venue being scarce is a definite negative, and if I were to go a second time I would definitely choose tram trucking over a near death experience.
Prepare for every preconception to be broken as the architecture of the venue is, excuse the pun, completely foreign. Two large steel gates which lie open welcome hundreds of summer time skips to the wonders of the gardens. Laced with pine wood outdoor seating complimented by white umbrellas, a sea of cider awaits. It occurred to me that 3pm must be a late drinking start for the Belgians, as every table was taken by twenty something to forty something drinkers. Obviously, the age group demographic of Cafe Eureka is yet another die hard difference.
Finding the actual bar, or Eureka Cafe as it is formally known, is a trial. After squeezing through a sea of seventy red faced men and women (whether it was due to sunburn or over drinking, I couldn't decipher), I could make out steps leading towards a largely windowed venue. Inside, framed pictures of Belgian, Dutch and German words hung up high between golden clad beer taps. My high school German knowledge and need for alcohol made me love this little slice of Australia induced Europe a whole degree more.
For a twenty something vodka and lime drinking damsel, finding a beer which suited my 'Corona only' beer vocabulary became increasingly difficult once met with the chalkboard of choices that the bar presented. As I noticed a group of ladies sipping on beer bottles with brightly coloured pink and purple labels I knew I had found the drink for me. Cafe Eureka offers flavoured beers varying from apple to passion fruit. There's a drink to suite every timid taste bud.
After trying every tantalising beer flavour on the menu, becoming an elite member of the red faced skippy society, and making my way through a haze of hedges in a drunken haze of my very own, I decided to let my designated driving boyfriend pull out from the infamous parallel park. As I saw a soccer mum of the same variety cut us off, I could confidently assume that her rich rump had definitely visited the Belgian countryside courtesy of sugar daddy number two. The real question was had she been to Melbourne's own Belgian Beer Gardens and experienced the wonders of Europe in one single intoxicated afternoon? Something told me she hadn't. And with a sense of drunken smugness, until next time Belgian Beer Gardens.
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