Thirsty Pilgrims Move On. That's Why We're Called Pilgrims.

Announcing the important announcement of an announcement... No, I'll just come out and say it: We're leaving Belgium soon. We're moving to Costa Rica in about a month. But this blog will keep on chugging.

I don't need to explain the challenges inherent in moving a beer blog's base of operations away from beer paradise and into a beer wasteland (even if that wasteland is, more or less, an actual paradise). Nor the problem that I've apparently become a beer writer. My next book: Around Costa Rica in 80 Bananas. Ho ho.

Here's the thing about the blog: If I'm right, it won't change all that much. It will still be about drink and food and travel, with an emphasis on craft beer. The photos will be sunnier. Until now the blog's spotlight has been pretty narrowly focused on Belgium, mainly because it's where I've lived and there's more to write about here than any one blog can handle. Initially I'd intended to cast the net much wider. Now I'll have another chance to do that.

What you can expect: More useful information and news for thirsty and hungry travelers worldwide, including Europe and North America. I'll keep covering Belgium, to a degree, because despite my cynicism I still think this country makes the best beers on Earth.

Meanwhile I'll have a unique chance to cover the Latin American craft beer scene... Imagine going back in time and being able to write about the handful of 1970s and early '80s American microbreweries, knowing what we know now. A scene like that can use honest writers, I think, to help keep it healthy.

I'll also be writing more about homebrewing, and what it's like to brew in a place like Central America. Because partly out of sheer need I'll be doing a lot of it.

That's the plan anyway. It will change. It always does. Meanwhile I still have plenty of Belgitude to empty from my notebooks. Stay tuned.

In the somewhat crappy five-year-old photo: The hot-spring-fed swimming pool at Tabacón Resport, near the base of the Arenal Volcano in northern Costa Rica. From our honeymoon. Going down the water slide and swimming across to the bar in one smooth motion fulfilled a life goal. Never mind what we drank. In the future, all bars will be swim-up bars.