Here are the two beer meccas of Europe, but which one will you visit first?

By Amy Cooper

Germany and beer are inseparable. I learnt this on a school exchange there. I was amazed and delighted to find that beer was served at family breakfasts and even at 13 years old, I was invited to partake. (I still do, from time to time.) My hosts were not some Teutonic version of Shameless - beer is a way of life in Germany, woven into its history, culture and daily habits. No other nation is as hop-lessly devoted to brew.

We're talking about a nation that considers beer so nutritionally crucial that Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria created the world's first food regulation in 1516 to ensure its quality. The Reinheitsgebot (beer purity law) limited beer's recipe to barley, hops and water (yeast came later), and that simple formula still defines the clean flavours of Germany's vast beer spectrum - from light, crisp lagers to rich, malty Bocks.

Seven million litres of this German lifeblood have just been quaffed at this year's Oktoberfest in Munich by 6.7 million people. The two-week epic annual Bavarian bash is the world's largest folk festival - but it's just the froth on top of Germany's everyday celebration of beer, from Dortmund to Dresden, Berlin to Bremen and throughout the world's beer heartland, Bavaria, home to half the country's breweries.

In a country that produces more than 7000 different beers in 1500 breweries, with 100 litres per person consumed annually, you can't help but soak it up.

Munich, the ale epicentre, has some 200 beer gardens, and its centuries-old beer halls include the Hofbrauhaus, where the likes of Mozart and Lenin have supped. An ale trail through the medieval city takes in the 14th-century Augustiner-Keller and Spaten breweries, and the 8000-seater Hirschgarten, the world's largest beer garden.

True aficionados consider Bamberg, 230 kilometres north of Munich, the true German beer capital. The UNESCO-listed medieval town has 184 breweries, producing about 2500 different beers. In Reising, conveniently close to Munich Airport, Weihenstephan is the world's oldest continually operated brewery, founded by Benedictine monks in 1040.

There's more to imbibe beyond Bavaria. Cologne's 20 breweries produce the local brew, Klsch, served as custom demands by waiters in blue knitted jackets, in alehouses lining the picturesque route between the cathedral and Rhine Promenade. In Bremen, you can tour the Beck & Co brewery, home of the famous pilsner. Berlin is home to my favourite German beer tradition: wegbier, meaning "beer for the road". Buy your bottle from a Spti (bottle shop), they'll open it for you, and you can sip as you sightsee. It's allowed - and everyone in the capital glugs on the go. Now that's what I call a civilised city.

Mal and his fancy Flemish friends can big up Brussels, but Deutschland is the dedicated drinker's home sweet foam.

By Mal Chenu

Just because Amy can carry a dozen pints at once and looks amazing in a dirndl does not make Germany a superior beer-cation destination. Belgium boasts the better bitter and has the culture to match. Belgians have beer with their waffles, beer with their chocolate, beer with their moules-frites and beer with their Brussels sprouts. If you want a schnack with your Beck's in Germany, it's just the wurst.

Belgium hosts heaps of beery events to rival Oktoberfest, too, including the annual Belgian Beer Weekend Festival in the central square of Brussels, the BAB-bierfestival in Bruges and the Karakterbieren Festival in Poperinge, the country's hop-growing capital. These are typically more boutique and sophisticated affairs than Munich's annual lederhosen-laden piss-up, and prove you don't need enormous steins and an oompah band to have a good time.

Belgian beer can be a religious experience. Literally. Beer brewed by Trappist monks has its own appellation and logo, and six of the 13 Trappist monastery breweries are in Belgium, at Orval, Chimay, Westvleteren, Rochefort, Westmalle and Achel.

Trappist beers - and some others in Belgium - are categorised dubbel, tripel and quadruple to indicate their alcoholic content, so you know when you are getting more bang for your euro.

In 2012, the Belgian Post Office honoured the legendary Trappist breweries with commemorative stamps. And in 2016, UNESCO even recognised the brilliant Belgian beer ethos on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Not even Fosters has had that honour, mate.

Read more on Explore:

Belgian beer is an art form. Each is poured in a specific way into a particular glass. The unique shape of each glass promotes individual aromas and flavours, and pairing a brew with the proper vessel is taken very seriously. The classic-style beer glass is called a Tulip because that's what it looks like.

Dedicated beer hunters know Belgium has the best boozers and breweries. Visit the Stella Artois brewery in Leuven, where pubs are renowned for their long bars and even longer lingers. Sample the tripel blond Abbey beer at the Leffe museum and tasting room in an old monastery in Dinant. Order a bolleke glass filled with boutique tipples such as Tripel Anvers and Wild Jo at De Koninck Brewery in Antwerp. Brugse Zot and Straffe Hendrik come from the De Halve Maan brewery in the romantic medieval city of Bruges, where the local citizens paid for a three-kilometre underground pipeline to bring the beer to the bottling plant.

Belgians have amber fluid running through their veins and Belgium's beer culture can't be beat. Even the nation's most famous statue, Manneken Pis, shows you what to do after you've downed a couple of dubbels.