Bar Code: This beer could leave you wrong-footed

07 October 2015 - 02:03 By Andrew Donaldson

One of the joys of this upmarket watering hole is watching the tourists board the pleasure cruisers berthed alongside Den Anker. Many are unfamiliar with local conditions and have turned out in the more flimsy, if jauntier, summer fashion ranges. They return after a few hours on Table Bay complaining of the flung spray and Antarctic blasts in language that would shame a stevedore.No such discomfort, however, inside Den Anker, where the closest we get to an ocean-going vessel is the lifeboat suspended upside-down over the bar. The boat's named African Queen, probably after the tramp steamer captained by a gin-swilling Humphrey Bogart in the 1951 John Huston movie The African Queen - which is a little inappropriate because the speciality tipple here is not gin but imported Belgian beer.Den Anker even has its own house tipple, Anker Bier. It's one of the six Belgian draughts on offer and it's best to try them all from a sample tray before settling on one for the duration.For the rest, the sheer variety of artisanal and Trappist brews can overwhelm, and there is some prattle in the beer menu's tasting tips of caramel, rhubarb, apples and mixed berries.Lastly, there's a curious Belgian custom for those wanting to try Kwak, a dark, strong beer traditionally drunk from a weird-looking glass with a bowl-shaped bottom. These are so expensive to replace that you hand over your left shoe as a deposit when ordering the stuff. It's then kept in a basket above the bar until the glass is returned. "No shoe," they warn, "no Kwak."Den Anker, Pierhead, V&A Waterfront, 021-419-0249, 11am to midnight..

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