BRUSSELS, BELGIUM -- In tiny Belgium, a country the size of Maryland with about ten million inhabitants, a beer enthusiast might sample a different Belgian brew every day of the year and still leave several dozen untasted.

Love of beer and respect for native brewing traditions are among the few things besides king and currency remaining common to Belgium's rival communities, the francophone Walloons and Dutch-speaking Flemish.

On the equivalent of a "pub crawl" through officially bilingual and bicultural Brussels, visitors can easily manage to visit any number of attractive cafés; taste trappist ales, cherry-flavored krieks and other unusual beers; yet never repeat an order.

At Chez Marcel, for example, a sidewalk café serving light lunches on the Place du Jeu de Balle, an appropriate beer would be a Cantillon gueuze. Frothy and tart, with a hint of apples, gueuze is a thirst-quenching specialty native to Brussels and was once the drink of choice of working people living in the surrounding area known as Les Marolles.

In Le Perroquet, ten-minute's walk away on the edge of the Sablon district, Blanche de Hoegaarden would seem best for sipping in the bright and airy atmosphere of this Art Nouveau-period café. A wheat beer already redolent of citrus, Hoegaarden on draft typically appears with a lemon slice floating on its head and is a refreshing complement to Le Perroquet's menu of spicy pita sandwiches.

Across the city, in fact, history, architecture and other characteristically Bruxellois elements often strongly suggest which beer to enjoy where.

Marionette Cellar
First-time Brussels visitors will almost certainly head straight for the city's Baroque centerpiece, the gilded and crenellated Grand Place. Nearly a half dozen cafés look onto the always busy cobblestone square. In summer months, tables are packed tightly together on raised outdoor platforms to accommodate the sun and the high season crowds. Beer lists are as formidable here as anywhere in Brussels, but close by are more intriguing choices.

At 5 Rue du Chêne, the two-year-old Poechenellekelder (pronounced, "poosh-en-elle-kel-der," and Flemish for the Punchinello or marionette cellar) lies opposite the Manneken-Pis fountain, which may be the second most-visited location in Brussels after the Grand Place.

The attractive estaminet--a common Brussels name for any small, simple café serving beer and traditional snack food--hardly looks its young age with a pleasing arrangement of antique decorations and elaborately carved and polychromed wood bar.

A featured draft beer at Poechenellekelder is Faro Vanderlinden , a sweet-and-spicy lambic with a hint of ginger and brewed at Halle in the Brussels countryside.

Lambic brews like faro and gueuze are today rarely served au fût (on draft) in Brussels; for dedication to this sadly, dying tradition, Poechenellekelder was awarded "Order of Faro" by a local group of lambic boosters.

As a typically Belgian accompaniment to faro or gueuze, the café's list of nos tartines offers plain fromage blanc or onion-flavored pottekees --tiny pots of soft, sour cheese for spreading on thin slices of wheat bread. Pâte de campagne and salami are also available.

On a recent midweek afternoon visit to Poechenellekelder, be-bop jazz music played in the dimly-lighted estaminet with a few patrons talking over their glasses. Outside, tourists from many nations milled around the te -Pis fountain and posed for souvenir snapshots. They may not have noticed Poechenellekelder because the café is new enough not to be listed in popular guide books.

Beer and  Faust
When Poechenellekelder first opened, the estaminet featured in its cellar a marionette theatre, which has since closed. That quaint form of entertainment thrives, however, at Toone, 21 Petite Rue des Bouchers, another typical Brussels estaminet well-hidden down a narrow alley (Impasse Schuddeveld) off the city's main thoroughfare for tourist restaurants.

Like Poechenellekelder and the purloined letter in Poe's tale, Toone (pronounced "tone") escapes notice by virtue of lying in a thoroughly obvious place. For the most part, the windowless, wood-paneled and generally quiet café seems to have let the 20th-century pass by with indifference.

Toone is in the guidebooks, however, which likely accounts for the menu's English translation and the somewhat elevated prices. Toone's claim to fame lies above the café in a simple marionette theatre where director José Géal, recognizable in his checked casquette, leads his troupe in such elaborate productions as Faust; The Passion; and Christopher Columbus and the Peruvian Tragedy.

In the past, Toone performances would have been given entirely in a Brussels patois of French, Flemish and local slang. The recent premiere run of Michel de Ghelderode's re-telling of Christ's passion was spoken almost entirely in French. Only two brief scenes were delivered in Flemish.

Shakespeare and Art Nouveau
The lively, even boisterous atmosphere at Falstaff, 17-23 Rue Henri-Maus, suits well its fin-de-siécle brasserie decor. Named for Shakespeare's beloved boozer, Falstaff has a conviviality equally attractive to out-of-town visitors and Belgian families.

Two dozen Belgian brews are offered from the bar at prices from 50 to 100 BF ($1.43 to $2.86). Among the most popular labels are Chimay, famous for its rich and creamy trappist ales (Chimay bleu and rouge are distinguished by their blue and red bottlecaps; the former is darker and slightly stronger) as well as Duvel, a delicate, golden-hued beer with a meringue-like head.

Another common name, Jupiler, is perhaps Belgium's most unremarkable beer, a light Pilsener beer much like Budweiser. Falstaff's menu, several pages long, offers an extensive range of cold and warm plates from the French grilled ham and cheese sandwich croque monsieur to the hearty Flemish chicken stew Waterzooi . The uninitiated should know that américain frites is not a U.S. version of french fries, but another Belgian specialty also known as filet américain -- a baguette sandwich of raw ground beef mixed with mayonnaise and capers.

In a city resplendent with elegant Art Nouveau buildings, surprisingly few cafés in the style have survived intact. Along with Le Perroquet, the only prominent example is De Ultieme Hallucinatie (Flemish for "the last hallucination"), 316 Rue Royale and about a seven minute walk from the city's Botanical Garden.

This well-preserved café (built originally in 1850, but rebuilt in 1904) is a showcase of Art Nouveau's sprightly, flowery architectural forms; finely carved woodwork and stained glass details. The clientele at De Ultieme Hallucinatie is predominantly Flemish-speaking and visitors should expect a rare bilingual greeting, goeiendag, bonjour.

For an adventuresome beer-food combination, we tried a 35 cl. bottle of Cantillon Framboise with a plat du jour luncheon special of rabbit cooked in gueuze with raisins and apples and potato purée. The framboise was powerfully redolent of raspberries and, unsweetened, seemed a delicious match for our rabbit.

Web-Crawling, Brussels Style
Also in a Flemish quarter, at Place du Jardin aux Fleurs, is what claims to be Brussels' oldest café, established in 1762.

In 't Spinnekopke (pronounced, "in hut Spin-eh-kop-ka" and Flemish for "the Spider") has no doubt seen several renovations over the years. Today, it has a somewhat seedy, 19th-century atmosphere on the street level, though in two recently-remodeled upstairs rooms, the arrangement of antique beer posters and metal signs above varnished wooden booths is pleasantly post-modern.

On tap at Spinnekopke is the unusual Steendonk, a wheat beer brewed with curaçao and coriander (the flavor of the herbs is barely present in the drink). Menu offerings include waterzooi with lotte or monkfish as well as carbonnade au lambic, a hearty Belgian beef stew prepared with beer.

Under the same management as Spinnekopke is the more difficult to find L'Etoile d'Or, 30 Rue des Foulons (near the Anneesens metro station). L'Etoile d'Or is rare among Brussels cafés for serving Bel Pils, a delightful new pilsener by the brewers of Duvel.

Luncheon specials, such as blood sausages served with onion confit and warm goat cheese wrapped in pastry are a good bargain for frugal travelers. Of all Brussels' cafés, none is more closely associated with one label of beer than Mort Subite, 7 Rue Montagne aux Herbes Potagères.

Since just before World War I, Mort Subite has been brewing and serving its own lambic beers. The café's name, "Sudden Death," refers to a once-popular dice game, happily, not to any ill effects of the beers.

Brussels-born singer Jacques Brelwas a Mort Subite regular when he was studying at nearby Collège St. Louis in the late 1940s. Today, another generation of students still gathers beneath the ornate mirrors, gilded ceiling and cigarette-stained walls to enjoy a sudsy break from classes. The third generation of his family to own and manage the café-brewery, René Vossen advises anyone unfamiliar with lambic and other Belgian specialties, "Give it a try. When we serve a beer, we explain how it is made. By the fourth beer, you are going to like it."

Click the NEXT page to learn about the different types of Belgian beers, and where you can find them in the USA.

• Lambic: A beer naturally fermented by atmospheric yeasts and other microflora. A straight lambic has little carbonation and, for beer, an unexpected sourness. Fruit flavors are often added, resulting in raspberry-flavored framboise and cherry-flavored kriek (pronounced "creek") beers. Faro is a special, low-alcohol, sometimes sweetened or lightly spiced beer.
• Gueuze (pronounced "gerz"): A blend of young and aged lambic beers, which results in a sweeter drink. The difference between lambic and gueuze is not unlike that between a single malt whiskey and a blend.
• Trappiste: These rich, dark ales are produced only at five Belgian monasteries--Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle and Westvleteren. The beers are brewed by monks or under their supervision and according to centuries-old methods.
• Wheat beers: Also called "white beer," these are made with a concentration of wheat as well as barley malts. Wheat beers are generally tart and frothy with a hint of fruit flavors.

Obtaining Belgian Beer in the US
In the U.S., Cantillon lambics are imported by Shelton Broers, 8770 Sunset Drive, Suite 159, Miami, FL 33173, tel. 800-809-7725 or 305-859-8877.

Importers Vanberg & DeWulf bill themselves as "the experts in Belgian beer." Wendy Littlefield and Donald Feinberg, a husband-and-wife team, distribute a collection of 30 Belgian beers from nine breweries including Duvel, Affligem, Boone, Rodenbach, Scaldis and Blanche de Bruges. For information, contact Vanberg & DeWulf, 52 Pioneer Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326, tel. 800-656-1212, fax. 607-547-8374. You can also visit their web site at www.belgianexperts.com.

Later this year, Littlefield and Feinberg will open a farmstead brewery for the production of traditional Belgian beers in Cooperstown. "The siting of the brewery is particularly appropriate," notes Littlefield. "The area has both a hops history and Belgian connection."

Between 1835 and 1880, Otsego County was the center of hops growing in America. The Belgian connection dates from 1614 when Kleynties, the navigator on Henry Hudson's Dutch East India Company, mapped Otsego Lake and the Susquehanna River for the first time. For further information on traveling in Brussels and throughout Belgium, contact the Belgian Tourist Office, 780 Third Avenue, Suite 1501 New York, NY 10017, tel. 212-758-8130; Visit their web site at www.visitbelgium.com.

Sabena Belgian World Airlines has four U.S. gateways: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, and New York; for fares and schedule information, call toll-free: 1-800-955-2000; www.sabena.com.

To find the beers served in Brussels cafés as well as many others, you may want to visit the city's arguably best-stocked beer shop, Biéres Artisanales, 174 Chaussée de Wavre, 1050 Brussels. Tel. 512-1788. Open Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

To learn more about how Belgian beers are made, the Confederation of Belgian Breweries sponsors a quick tour at the Maison des Brasseurs (Brewers' House), 10 Grand' Place, 1000 Brussels. Tel. 511-4987. Open daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Entrance fee includes a tour and beer tasting.

Fans of gueuze and lambic will want to take in the self-guided tour of Musée Bruxellois de la Gueuze (Brussels Gueuze Museum) where Cantillon beers are brewed, 56 Rue Gheude, 1070 Brussels (near Gare du Midi). Tel. 521-4928. Open Weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Saturdays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission includes a glass of Cantillon beer in the museum's estaminet.

Cafés referred to in this article:

Chez Marcel, 20 Place du Jeu de Balle, 1000 Brussels. Tel. 511-1375. Open daily 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.. An antique/flea market is held on the Place daily from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. L'Etoile d'Or, 30 Rue des Foulons, 1000 Brussels. Tel. 502-6048. Open weekdays noon to 3 p.m., 7 p.m. to midnight; Saturdays 7 p.m. to midnight. Closed Sundays and holidays.

Falstaff, 17-23 Rue Henri Maus, 1000 Brussels. Tel. 511-9877. Open daily noon to 5 a.m.

Mort Subite, 7 Rue Montagne aux Herbes Potagées, 1000 Brussels. Tel. 513-1318. Open daily 10:30 a.m. to 3 a.m.

Le Perroquet, 31 Rue Watteeu, 1000 Brussels. Tel. 512-9922. Open daily 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 a.m.

Poechenellekelder, 5 Rue du Chêne, 1000 Brussels. Tel. 511-9262. Open daily 10 a.m. to midnight, Fridays and Saturdays until 2 a.m.

In 't Spinnekopke, Place du Jardin aux Fleurs, 1000 Brussels. Tel. 511-8695. Open daily, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Toone, 21 Petite Rue des Bouchers (Impasse Schuddeveld), 1000 Brussels. Tel. 513-5486. Café open daily noon to midnight. For theatre reservations, tel. 511-7137.  Showtime is 8:30 (theatre-goers should note that any reservations are not for "reserved" seats but for general admission only. A line for the best seats usually begins forming a half hour before curtain).

De Ultieme Hallucinatie, 316 Rue Royale, 1210 Brussels. Tel. 217-0614. Café open daily noon to midnight, weekend night until 1 a.m. Restaurant service noon to 2:30 p.m., 6 p.m. to midnight.

Fewer than a dozen Brussels cafes still serve traditional Cantillon beer. They include, however, these top-flight Belgian drinking institutions:

L'Etoile d'Or, 30 Rue des Foulons, 1000 Brussels. Tel. 502-6048. Open weekdays noon to 3 p.m., 7 p.m. to midnight; Saturdays 7 p.m. to midnight. Closed Sundays and holidays.

To search out the roots of the lambic style at its birthplace visit the Boone Brewery, Fonteinstraat 65, Lembeerk, tel. (02) 356-6644, fax. 356-3399; tours are given from May through September on Wednesday afternoons or by appointment.

In nearby Beersel, "De Drie Fonteinen," tel. (02) 331-0652, serves its own gueuze and kriek brews along with hearty traditional Belgian cuisine. Henri Vandervelden's "Brouwerij Museum" is at Laarheidestraat 230, tel. (02) 380-3396.