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Belgium Beer

History
Nestled in the heart of Europe lies a place where grain is more precious than gold. The very air quivers with devotion to the almighty barley and the sweet nectar it produces. After all, existence without beer in Belgium can be likened to existence without wine in France.
A good ale begets a good tale. And Belgium is not without it's share of beer lore. Persuading townspeople to drink beer in place of water during the plague earned one forward thinking monk a sainthood: Saint Arnoldus, patron saint of Brewers. Beer was also brewed by the early Trappist monks as a substitute for bread when times were particularly tough, with brewing taking place in secret, in cavities deep beneath the abbey.
With tradition like this, it’s understandable that the proper brewing and enjoyment of beer has been instilled in the heart of every Belgian citizen. It might also explain why, to this day, Belgians continue to accept a higher standard as a right, not a privilege.

Characteristics
There are profoundly aesthetic and gastronomic sensibilities toward beer in Belgium. Its highly-developed beer-culture is quite different from those of the leisurely British or the elemental Bavarians. Every beer in Belgium has its own special glass, belonging not to the style but to the individual label. It may be a flute or a goblet or, often, a variation on a Burgundy sampler.
The world’s most wine-like beers are to be found in Belgium. The spontaneously-fermenting Lambic family of the Senne valley are the winiest of all, both in method of production and in palate.
The use in fermentation of resident microflora occurs in several Belgian styles. The employment of herbs, spices and fruits in some Belgian beers predates the universal acceptance of the hop as the agent of seasoning and aroma.
No other nation has a more colourful, individualistic, or idiosyncratic assortment of beers. There are to some extent regional styles, but the narrower term streek, meaning “district”, is preferred. Many towns and breweries like to think of their style of beer as being exclusively their own. Having at times been governed by the Romans, the Spanish, the Burgundians, the Austrians and the Dutch, the people of Belgium are extremely anti-authoritarian, and are not given to accepting rules as to how everything should be done. Each town has its own way of brewing. Why not?
The total brewers in operation, some sporadically, is more than 100. Beers come and go, but at any one time there are four or five hundred in production, and as many as 700 in the cellars of cafés. In beer styles, there are eight or nine principal families and three times as many variations. This is in a country not much more than 150 miles across at its widest point, and with only ten million people. The number of cafés in Belgium rival s the tally of pubs in England, a country with five times the population.
Some restaurants offer Cuisine à la Bière: meals are presented in which each dish has been prepared with a different beer. Yet another beer will be suggested to accompany each course.
There are no other countries where strong beers are as commonly served as in Belgium. One reason for this is a law passed in 1919 that forbade the serving of spirits in cafés. This law was part of the same international wave that gave Britain its odd pub hours and other countries Prohibition.

Different Styles
There are various sources of reference out there that attempt to categorize Belgian beer styles. This is very hard to do because of the seemingly limitless diversity of the Belgian beer landscape.

Lambic
Lambic is the most unusual style of beer made in the developed world. First of all it’s a Wheat Beer, itself being an unusual, old clan of beers. Second, the wheat is unmalted, resulting in a milky-white wort, which may have to be boiled for between 3-6 hours. Thirdly, it is spontaneously fermented, which is a tradition in the production of wine.
Variations of Lambic include Straight Lambic and other blended forms as Gueuze, Kriek (Flemish word for cherry), Faro (adding sugar and caramel).

Pilsener
The standard Pilseners are regarded as everyday beers, with appropriate for a basic beer, in Belgium. The standard Belgium Pilseners are regarded as everyday beers, and enjoy a good 70% of the market, though are less distinctive than their German counterparts. Stella Artois is internationally the best-known example of a Pilsener-style beer made in Belgium. It has in recent years lost some of its distinctive “newmown hay” character, but gained a little cleanness and dryness.

White Beer
Serving as Belgium’s dessert beer, the white beer can also be known as the orange muscat in the beer world. This type of beer used to be a fashionable one in the past, after an enthusiast Pieter Celis created the Hoegaarden White Beer that captured the imagination of young drinkers. Today’s product is not so obviously lactic, but it is distinctive enough, it is known as Hoegaarden White in the English-speaking market, Oud Hoegaards in Flemish.
Oud Hoegaards is brewed from 45% wheat, containing 5% oats, both raw, with remainder of the mash bareley malt. The gravity is a conventional 12 Plato, and the beer has its alcohol content 3.8 by weight and 4.8 by volume. Using oats is an old-fashioned way that leads to the oily smoothness. Of course the spicing of the beer with Curaçao orange peels and coriander couldn’t be neglected.

Red Beer
Among the Red Beers, Rodenbach is the undisputed classic, made by the most traditional method. The red colour comes in part from the use of Vienna malts, but a greater contribution is from the tannins and caramels of the massive, vertical tuns of uncoated oak in which Rodenbach beer is matured, and in which it gains its distinctive sourness.

Saison
As strong, heavy brews, Saisons are the summer and harvest specialties for French-speaking Belgium, known as Wallonia. They vary greatly with gravity, from 13 to 20 Plato. At the lower end, they might have an alcohol content of 4.5 by weight, 5.6 by volume; at the upper end 6.0 (7.5). The characteristics of the style are powerful carbonation; a creamy soft texture; a full orange colour; a very fruity, citric sourness; sometimes an iron taste, often spicy notes.

Specialties
Giving the specialties that fit into clear families (the Lambics, the Saisons, the abbey beers), many top-germenting others do not, and all these categories could loosely be described as ales. Characteristics of these type of beer is often cooper-coloured, with gravity of 12 – 13.5 Plato, top-germenting, fruity, perhaps sweetish, sometimes spicy. This brew style is often identified simply as Spéciale in a café.

Abbey Beer
Back in the days when most water was not safe to drink, monks brewed to meet their own needs. The tradition grew in times when the only travelers were pilgrims and the only inns run by monks. They brewed beer for their guests, to accompany their meals. Monks made beer in all of the traditional brewing nations until the Reformation, and continued to do so in Catholic countries until Napoleon enforced secularization.
Nowadays, every café in Belgium wants to ahvee an “Abbey Beer”, and every brewer wants to make one. However, only in the five abbey breweries of Belgium and the one in the Netherlands have monks developed their own classic style and the best abbey beer. As these six are all Trappist abbeys, that is the stylistic designation given to their beers. Only they may use the terms Trappistenbier.

Enjoy your bottle or pint in an Art Noveau style café the next time you visit Brussels, or any other city in Belgium, and tell me how you feel about it.
-Irene Lau irene@expatjournal.com.hk







	Belgium Beer History Nestled in the heart of Europe lies a place where grain is more precious than gold. The very air quivers with devotion to the almighty barley and the sweet nectar it produces. After all, existence without beer in Belgium can be likened to existence without wine in France. A good ale begets a good tale. And Belgium is not without it's share of beer lore. Persuading townspeople to drink beer in place of water during the plague earned one forward thinking monk a sainthood: Saint Arnoldus, patron saint of Brewers. Beer was also brewed by the early Trappist monks as a substitute for bread when times were particularly tough, with brewing taking place in secret, in cavities deep beneath the abbey. With tradition like this, it’s understandable that the proper brewing and enjoyment of beer has been instilled in the heart of every Belgian citizen. It might also explain why, to this day, Belgians continue to accept a higher standard as a right, not a privilege. Characteristics There are profoundly aesthetic and gastronomic sensibilities toward beer in Belgium. Its highly-developed beer-culture is quite different from those of the leisurely British or the elemental Bavarians. Every beer in Belgium has its own special glass, belonging not to the style but to the individual label. It may be a flute or a goblet or, often, a variation on a Burgundy sampler. The world’s most wine-like beers are to be found in Belgium. The spontaneously-fermenting Lambic family of the Senne valley are the winiest of all, both in method of production and in palate. The use in fermentation of resident microflora occurs in several Belgian styles. The employment of herbs, spices and fruits in some Belgian beers predates the universal acceptance of the hop as the agent of seasoning and aroma. No other nation has a more colourful, individualistic, or idiosyncratic assortment of beers. There are to some extent regional styles, but the narrower term streek, meaning “district”, is preferred. Many towns and breweries like to think of their style of beer as being exclusively their own. Having at times been governed by the Romans, the Spanish, the Burgundians, the Austrians and the Dutch, the people of Belgium are extremely anti-authoritarian, and are not given to accepting rules as to how everything should be done. Each town has its own way of brewing. Why not? The total brewers in operation, some sporadically, is more than 100. Beers come and go, but at any one time there are four or five hundred in production, and as many as 700 in the cellars of cafés. In beer styles, there are eight or nine principal families and three times as many variations. This is in a country not much more than 150 miles across at its widest point, and with only ten million people. The number of cafés in Belgium rival s the tally of pubs in England, a country with five times the population. Some restaurants offer Cuisine à la Bière: meals are presented in which each dish has been prepared with a different beer. Yet another beer will be suggested to accompany each course. There are no other countries where strong beers are as commonly served as in Belgium. One reason for this is a law passed in 1919 that forbade the serving of spirits in cafés. This law was part of the same international wave that gave Britain its odd pub hours and other countries Prohibition. Different Styles There are various sources of reference out there that attempt to categorize Belgian beer styles. This is very hard to do because of the seemingly limitless diversity of the Belgian beer landscape. Lambic Lambic is the most unusual style of beer made in the developed world. First of all it’s a Wheat Beer, itself being an unusual, old clan of beers. Second, the wheat is unmalted, resulting in a milky-white wort, which may have to be boiled for between 3-6 hours. Thirdly, it is spontaneously fermented, which is a tradition in the production of wine. Variations of Lambic include Straight Lambic and other blended forms as Gueuze, Kriek (Flemish word for cherry), Faro (adding sugar and caramel). Pilsener The standard Pilseners are regarded as everyday beers, with appropriate for a basic beer, in Belgium. The standard Belgium Pilseners are regarded as everyday beers, and enjoy a good 70% of the market, though are less distinctive than their German counterparts. Stella Artois is internationally the best-known example of a Pilsener-style beer made in Belgium. It has in recent years lost some of its distinctive “newmown hay” character, but gained a little cleanness and dryness. White Beer Serving as Belgium’s dessert beer, the white beer can also be known as the orange muscat in the beer world. This type of beer used to be a fashionable one in the past, after an enthusiast Pieter Celis created the Hoegaarden White Beer that captured the imagination of young drinkers. Today’s product is not so obviously lactic, but it is distinctive enough, it is known as Hoegaarden White in the English-speaking market, Oud Hoegaards in Flemish. Oud Hoegaards is brewed from 45% wheat, containing 5% oats, both raw, with remainder of the mash bareley malt. The gravity is a conventional 12 Plato, and the beer has its alcohol content 3.8 by weight and 4.8 by volume. Using oats is an old-fashioned way that leads to the oily smoothness. Of course the spicing of the beer with Curaçao orange peels and coriander couldn’t be neglected. Red Beer Among the Red Beers, Rodenbach is the undisputed classic, made by the most traditional method. The red colour comes in part from the use of Vienna malts, but a greater contribution is from the tannins and caramels of the massive, vertical tuns of uncoated oak in which Rodenbach beer is matured, and in which it gains its distinctive sourness. Saison As strong, heavy brews, Saisons are the summer and harvest specialties for French-speaking Belgium, known as Wallonia. They vary greatly with gravity, from 13 to 20 Plato. At the lower end, they might have an alcohol content of 4.5 by weight, 5.6 by volume; at the upper end 6.0 (7.5). The characteristics of the style are powerful carbonation; a creamy soft texture; a full orange colour; a very fruity, citric sourness; sometimes an iron taste, often spicy notes. Specialties Giving the specialties that fit into clear families (the Lambics, the Saisons, the abbey beers), many top-germenting others do not, and all these categories could loosely be described as ales. Characteristics of these type of beer is often cooper-coloured, with gravity of 12 – 13.5 Plato, top-germenting, fruity, perhaps sweetish, sometimes spicy. This brew style is often identified simply as Spéciale in a café. Abbey Beer Back in the days when most water was not safe to drink, monks brewed to meet their own needs. The tradition grew in times when the only travelers were pilgrims and the only inns run by monks. They brewed beer for their guests, to accompany their meals. Monks made beer in all of the traditional brewing nations until the Reformation, and continued to do so in Catholic countries until Napoleon enforced secularization. Nowadays, every café in Belgium wants to ahvee an “Abbey Beer”, and every brewer wants to make one. However, only in the five abbey breweries of Belgium and the one in the Netherlands have monks developed their own classic style and the best abbey beer. As these six are all Trappist abbeys, that is the stylistic designation given to their beers. Only they may use the terms Trappistenbier. Enjoy your bottle or pint in an Art Noveau style café the next time you visit Brussels, or any other city in Belgium, and tell me how you feel about it. -Irene Lau irene@expatjournal.com.hk