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Katie Erlinger may ring up bottles of Caracole’s Nostradamus and Rulles Tripel for one customer at Royal Liquor in Kansas City and gas for the next.
Royal sits just on the Missouri side of the Missouri-Kansas state line, in the heart of the heartland, selling three grades of gasoline, hundreds of brands of beer and plenty of expensive wine.
Erlinger did a quick count and found more than 50 beers from Belgium on the shelves, as well as scores more of Belgian-inspired beers brewed in America.
"A whole lot more people are willing to try these beers," Erlinger said. "They are buying them again because they’ve decided they are worth the money."
Nearly eight years ago Belgian-born Michael Tassin of Belukus Marketing suggested a shakeout could be ahead for Belgian beers. "Belgium isn’t different than any other country, there are good brewers and bad brewers," said Tassin, who began importing Duvel into the United States in 1978.
Instead, new beers seem to arrive weekly. Some are worth the money, others not. Some are from well-known brewers and other from breweries smaller — like the Bink beers (put them in the worth-the-money category) from Brouwerij Kerkom — than most American brewpubs.
That’s wonderful for the consumer, as long as she or he can figure out what to buy. There’s the rub — ask 10 Belgian beer enthusiasts to list their 10 favorite beers and you might end up with 50 or 60 different choices. At Royal, for instance, the St. Louis fruit lambics are excellent sellers, but they receive low marks at beer rating sites.
What follows are names of a cross-section of better ales Belgian brewers send to the U.S. So if you find yourself at Royal Liquor with a beer such as Val-Dieu Tripel in hand, don’t feel you have to put it down because it didn’t get listed here.
First growths:
To borrow from France’s wine classification system from the 19th century, it’s easiest to first spotlight the nine breweries whose beers earned Michael Jackson’s highest ratings in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Three Trappist breweries make the list: Chimay (see Chuck Cook’s story), Orval (which sells a single beer author Tim Webb has described as "God’s homebrew") and Westmalle (for its Tripel, although the Dubbel is equally innovative — the first Belgian beer known to use dark sugar syrup, in the 1920s).
Three beers define a style: Saison Dupont from Dupont, Hoegaarden White from Hoegaarden (now owned by InBev, which moved brewing elsewhere and now is closing the historic brewery), and Duvel from Duvel Moortgat (where the underrated Maredsous abbey beers are also brewed).
Three classic producers ferment their beers with wild yeasts: Liefmans, the last brewery associated with East Flanders oud bruin and most notably for Goudenband; Rodenbach, which recently brought Rodenbach Grand Cru back to the U.S.; and Cantillon, shipping an extraordinary range to the U. S. including the Lou Pepe beers.
What else?
Things change — brilliant new breweries open, others (including some of those above) lose their way.
Trappist beers. Monastery breweries at Achel and Rochefort brew beers as good or better as any other Trappists.
Wild and/or sour and/or fruity. Many of the lambics from Drie Fonteinen, Boon and Girardin are "first growth" quality. Don’t stop there — consider Flemish Primitive from De Proef, ranges from Hansenns and Lindeman, and Duchess De Bourgogne from Brouwij Vehaege.
Abbeys and saints. Brasserie des Rocs — well respected for its all-malt beers that feature unusual spicing — changed its name from Abbaye des Rocs to avoid the appearance of being brewed in an abbey. Most other breweries, such as Leffe, foster an abbey connection when it is only tenuous. Some of the better beers you might have thought were brewed by monks include those from St. Feuillien, St. Bernardus (the 12 certainly rivals anything the monasteries brew), and the Witkap Pater and Tripel from Brouwerij Slaghmuydler.
Farmhouse ales: In Belgium this means saison, with Brasserie Fantome, Brasserie des Geants, Brasserie Blaugies and Brasserie a Vapeur all producing classic versions. In some cases — and this certainly includes Dupont with Moinette — their strongest beers easily pass for tripels.
Hops: With Brasserie D’Achouffe which already has something of a cult following, creating Houblon Chouffe (labeled an IPA Tripel) it seems a few Belgians are ready to climb on the "extreme" hop bandwagon. Urthel, which already made fine almost-traditional beers, rolled out a beer it called Hop-It last fall, calling it a Belgian Double IPA.
DeRanke, which also brews an excellent kriek and the triple-ish Guldenberg, hales its XX Bitter as the hoppiest beer in Belgium, but what really sets it apart is "first growth" character.
But wait. Why haven’t we found a category for DeDolle Browers, which makes first-rate beers like Stille Nacht? Well, it’s Belgium. So we could be listing beers into the night: the strange characters with cool glassware from Bosteels (Tripel Karmeleit, DeuS, Kwak), Malheur (from the same small town as Bosteels), Grand Cru of the Emperor (and not just because the real Flemish name is "Cuvee Van De Kaiser") from Het Anker, Hercule Stout from Ellezelloise (really a stout, really Belgian), De Koninck Ale (the defining Belgian pale ale), Scaldis Prestige (or any the beers Dubuisson calls Bush in Belgium and Scaldis in the states), Petrus Aged Pale (because it was Michael Jackson’s idea) and...
Stan Hieronymus apologizes in advance for leaving your favorite beer off the list. Send him e-mail at
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to complain.
Copy us at
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and we’ll compile a list of your favorites on our website. And don’t forget many of your favorites will be available for tasting at ASN’s Ultimate Belgian Tasting March 24.
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