Salon Arents (Arentshuis)

This guide to the Arentshuis in Bruges starts with a strange medieval rule: for centuries no local brewer could gather his own flavoring herbs, because one family held the exclusive right to sell the secret blend called gruit. It follows that family, the van Gruuthuse, and the walled garden and townhouse that passed through their hands and later into the Stappens de Harnes family. You'll hear how an eighteenth-century patrician mansion came to rise on ground once licensed for beer's flavor, and whose name it eventually took. Look for the two salvaged stone columns propped in the garden on your way in.