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About

Finding this one is half the fun. You head down a staircase beneath Barley's and land in a dark, low-ceilinged basement of old brick and heavy timber that feels less like downtown Greenville and more like a tavern somewhere in Belgium. The name plays on both the trap door you come through and the Trappist monks behind some of that country's most famous beer. The house specialty is moules frites, Belgium's national dish: a pile of mussels steamed in your pick from a rotating set of broths that runs from bright and herby to rich and beer-based, served with hand-cut frites and dipping sauces. Around it is a menu of Belgian comfort cooking, from Flemish beef stew braised in ale to crispy bitterballen and a Flemish onion soup regulars order on repeat. The real headline sits behind the bar: well over a hundred Belgian beers sorted by style and region, alongside absinthe and cocktails you won't find in many spots around here. It opened in 2011 as the first Belgian place in town, an idea the owner first caught on a trip to Sydney and then built into a basement that had been sitting behind old drywall and years of trash. The whole thing runs on a plain motto: eat good food, drink good beer. Beer folks from well beyond the Upstate keep it on their list for the depth of that selection, and plenty mention leaving with a new favorite they'd never heard of, talked into it by a bartender who actually knows the wall. Which beer that turns out to be, and which broth becomes your usual, is the kind of thing you sort out a night in the basement at a time.