just started sampling the delights of belgian beers and am after more reccommendations 🙂

so far only tried the common stuff:
Hoegaarden – yum yum
Duvel – nice
Chimay red – nicer than duvel i think. but its hard to tell as i’m only having one bottle a night cos they are quite strong!
timmermans kriek – strange but good

What shall i try next? i’m thinking of making a case up from on of the online places. Quite fancy trying Delirium tremens (used to have it in a pub i went to as a student but i never tried it!)

Kwak, Leffe Vielle Cuvee, La Chouffe and McChouffe, Westmalle Triple and Double, Orval, perhaps even some Floris or some Mangozo for a little lunacy. I could go on all night…!

Oh, and Lindemans Pecheresse. Astonishing.

Duvel is falling-down-juice.

Orval quite nice.

Bacchus kriek/frambozen worth a punt as well.

Andy

Some of that Leffe stuff, one of them is about 9 per cent! Used to knock a couple of those back in the day 0 ta pissed in 30 mins!

Leffe

That will be a Kwak then.

You also want to add a couple of gueze type beers to the mix if you want something particularly Belgian

Delirium Nocturnum – bloomin’ lovely but £3.50 a bottle.

Rich, dark & somewhat sweet so you don’t want to drink too many of them, especially at around 8%.

Curve ball – Stella!!!

We buy the Belgian imported Stella and it’s lush 😉

leffe is amazing stuff, and like has been said earlier, duvel is a bit mental, but nice all the same

how about some

Cherry beer….. yummy….

Just been looking at the Delirium website – now want a few bottles of Delirium Christmas at 10% ABV 😯

There’s one that tastes like a McDonald’s banana milkshake – lovely. But I had it 15 years ago so am not best placed to say what it was. Had it in an awesome Belgian bar with a signed picture (taken on the premises) of Michael Jackson (he’s dead! I didn’t know!) on the wall!

I had one once called Lucifer and hallucinated all night. But Leffe Brun is a good ‘un.

Orval.

There are others but if I had one beer left to drink on this earth, if would be an Orval.

Delirium Christmas > all other beers in the world!

I had two Duvels for lunch!

Vedett is nice too, not sure if Belgian or not though.

Leffe Brun large bottle £2 in Tesco’s today 😆

De Koninck

Just about to have a Leffe

there have been some good calls made here, so i’m just adding to the list; corsendonk is nice, as is maredsous.

i haven’t found many that aren’t excellent, but vedett is expensive lagery pi55.

almost every one comes in 2 or 3 ‘flavours’ – i haven’t really paid attention, but they’ll be things like ‘dubble’ or ‘tripple’ or 6′ or 8′ or something.

i’m hankering after some vestvletteren, but it’s intentionally very difficult to get hold of…

i sat in a bar in Rotterdam last month trying various different beers. the barman proceeded to give me various beers. i thought i was paying for them, but he then said, “so, which one?”. the three 1/4ltr glasses he’d given me were all testers.

after the fifth beer i then realised the alcohol content of each was around 7-12%! still, i think i had about 8 beers that night, but in my defence they were 1/4 or 1/3ltr bottles.

i felt fine going to bed, but my head hurt in the moring. each little bump i rode over on the way to Hook of Holland hurt like hell.

can’t remember the names of the beers that night, but it was good fun.

have a look at… Hopus, karmeliet tripel, golden draak and rochefort 10.

Try to get hold of some Bush Amber beer. It’s 12% so not for the faint hearted but doesn’t taste that strong. Tis seriously lush 😛

Have a look at some of the online beer retailers like http://www.mybrewerytap.com which is run by a fellow mtb’er who’s a decent bloke.

If you’re ever in Norwich pop in to the Belgium Monk for a few as its a specalist Belgium Beer pub. They buy direct from the brewerys by taking a van over there once a month to stock up on beers inc some that you won’t be able to buy elsewhere.

Sammiclaus – which may be German actually I’ll have to look it up. Very nice, very port like. I think it was something like 13 to 15%. My nephew bought it for me for X-mas 5 years ago. It is recommended that it is best aged. A mate of mine drank one young and wasn’t impressed. I left mine 5 years and only drank it recently. Lovely. Took me a while to drink it and didn’t feel I wanted anything else (which is unusual for me when I’ve had beer).

My only word of warning is that there is a style of Belgian beers that are very sour. I can’t remember. Really unpleasant. Tastes like a real ale that has gone septic in the lines. Only had one once at a beer festival and it ended up fetching up everything else I’d drunk. Wish I could remember the name of the style for both you and me. Though not had one by accident since.

Here is Mr Jackson’s take on Santa Claus –

http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-000100.html

leffe is mainstream beer. you can get it on tap in lots of pubs/bars

the abbey and abbey style beers are in a different league.
my favorites are corsendonk, westmalle, grimbergen and maredsous.
brown (brun) beers are nice too. ciney and petrus old brun.
i really like the lambic gueze style beers but they are an acquired taste, you have to put the siccup bile taste to one side and enjoy their tart slightly vinegary but clean flavours. (they are fermented with natural airborne yeasts not brewers yeast)
like the blonde beers too like blanche de Brussels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_in_Belgium#Oud_bruin.2C_or_Flemish_sour_brown_ale

A Wiki article on belgium beer and styles. Looks like the Flemish Red is the one I was talking about as being sour. If you can get a sample somewhere it may be worth trying put at the cost of Belgian beers I wouldn’t spend money on one unless I knew I could handle it.

Blanche de Brussels is nice and a good cheaper alternative to Hoegaarden if you can find it on draft. Des Engles in Leek is a good bar selling belgian beers (though I have to say I feel the old premises in the bank was more in keeping with a Belgian bar). One of my favourite places to go for a beer if I get the bus out to Leek.

Leffe raduise (spelling ? Should know I used to work in a bar in Brussels), belle vue kriek , kwak . For normal lager jupiler is very nice and made by Stella lot for belgiums lovely stuff. God I miss Belgium

Should these Belgian beers be served chilled or room temp’ ?

mmm
leffe
chimay.
hog
duvel.

leffe….mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

They tend to be served cold over here but I think different ones in theory should be served at certain temps. Not necessarily room temp but not “Cold” either. From memory I think the Chimay variants all have a recommended serving temp printed on the bottle, and I think that at least two of the three I have drank have a different recommendation.I tend to store them out of the fridge and then put them in just prior to serving and try to judge time in the fridge to get an approximate temp from the time in fridge.

It says 6deg C on the bottle(s) that Mrs. S has just brought back from Asda….

If you’re ever in Norwich pop in to the Belgium Monk

I went to a stag do in Norwich, that bar was definitely the best thing about the place. I think the Belgium Monk could well have been the key contributing factor to losing the stag 🙂

If someone’s interested in knowing how to visit one or more of these small family breweries in Belgium, feel free to ask. With a bit of moderation 😆 it’s perfectly manageable to combine this with a bicycle tour in Flanders.

Anyone recommend a good company for buying cases in the UK? Well, Christmas is just around the corner…..

Bought some different stuff from here in the past and had good service http://www.beersofeurope.co.uk/acatalog/
Didn’t particularly enjoy the Delirium Tremens though and some of the African beers are ropey :p

Another vote for Beers of Europe. Flat rate postage, so it’s in your interests to buy as much as you can!
Personal recommendation, if you like sour beers, is Duchesse de Bourgogne …. mmmmmmmmmm.