Beer Travels with Adrian Tierney-Jones

At the recent British Guild of Beer Writers’ awards and dinner I was seated next to a Belgium brewer whose sole beer was a wine-beer hybrid, which used Chardonnay grapes. These sort of mash-ups between the grape and the grain are commonplace in Italian brewing circles, but as far as I know, Viva brewery is the only one doing it in Belgium. I tasted the beer and it was light and ethereal, definitely standing on that borderline between the heft and weight of beer and the lightness of wine. It was rather delicious and I imagine will be rather beautiful if served with seafood, or one my favourite dishes from that part of the world, North Sea shrimp croquettes.

However, another thought was engendered by the tasting and talking with the brewer Marc: is there such a thing as Belgian beer? Or are there just beers that are brewed in Belgium, under the banner of a family of different styles of beer that various beer competitions categorise beneath the banner of Belgian-style.

Maybe it is a case that when we simply say Belgian beers that this is a disservice to a gorgeous flourishing of various styles or as obtuse as broad-brushing the IPAs, pale ales and lagers of the USA and calling them just American beers. Yet it’s a common thing for some people to say that they like Belgian beers, and the question that should be asked whenever that statement is heard is — which beer style brewed in the fascinating country of Belgium do you like?

Do you like the rich and heady flavours of the ales brewed by, or under the supervision of, Trappist monks, a multi-coloured assemblage of Dubbels, Tripels and Quads, all of which are ideal for either contemplating and studying by the fireside on a cold winter’s night or perfect partners to muscular stews or lighter, more delicate dishes featuring shellfish?

These are beers that are served in chalice-like glasses, vessels that seem as if they belong to the age of King Arthur, or maybe it would be more accurate to suggest that the elegance of these glasses are a divine accompaniment to the beers that are poured into them.

Then there is the witbier, which differs from its Bavarian namesake in that dried fruits, spices and herbs are used to give the beers a flinty, thirst-quenching, fruity parabola of flavour and sensation (the banana custard and cloves character of the Bavarian Weissbier comes from its yeast, the Reinheitsgebot police would be knocking on the door, if, heaven forbid, anything other than the four main ingredients of beer were added).

There are also Belgian-style IPAs, ales, stouts, blondes and, of course, an orchard’s worth of fruit beers, though we must not forget that perhaps the most popular style of beer enjoyed in Belgium is golden lager. However, the beers that breweries in Belgium produce are unique and unswayed in their devotion to flavour and character, maybe it’s the devotion to flavour, the elegiac elegance and the way most beers have their place on the dining table that makes them Belgian.

Finally, and especially, let us not forget lambic and gueuze, that great adventure in fermentation and maturation that produces some of the most distinctive beers in the world. These are beers that have been inoculated with wild yeast and then have slept the sleep of the just within wooden (or stainless steel) vessels before young and old are blended for the perfect beer.

There are also Flemish reds and oud bruins, all of them beers that are commonly called Belgian-style, but just like Trappist ales and witbiers they are individual beer styles that just happened to have originated in Belgium and are now attempted by breweries across the world. The great skill in making beers within this family of styles is utilising time, fermentation, blending and skills that in some cases have been handed down from brewer to brewer.

So when a brewery outside Belgium creates one of these styles and gets it right, then this act is a tribute to the original home of the style, Belgium. And I can’t wait to get back on the Eurostar once I am allowed without spending a fortune in testing rather than tasting.

Adrian Tierney-Jones