Belgian Beers to try?

[strange-steve]

Marstons EPA

Really, against a random Belgian beer?

 

[trueblue]

Both countries brew some top quality beers and both counties brew some crap. I do love a Belgium beer but English beers will always be my beer of choice although of all the Belgium's I have tried I have never come across any as bad as John Smiths or Carlin.

 

[strange-steve]

Both countries brew some top quality beers and both counties brew some crap.

For sure, there's crap everywhere even Belgium (Leffe, Jupiler...) but I was surprised that Marstons EPA was mentioned.

 

[samale]

I asked the question because I have never been exactly impressed with anyone's I have tried. Some are just ok. I was thinking I was trying the wrong one's

 

[AMyd666]

Avoid Grimbergen. Artificial tasting and too sweet. Reminiscent of those traffic light lollipops when I was a kid. Gulden Draak and Piraat are lovely, as are Tripel Karmeliet and Kwak too, at the more floral end.

 

[Wherrypuzzled]

I was trying to get a comprehensive list together of the bottles / draught Belgian beers I had drunk but my spreadsheet got to about 130 different ones before I ran out of supplies

I was getting loads from UK suppliers at first - then specialist suppliers - then I had more and more trips to Bruges Antrwrp Ghent Brussels etc where it was easier to find new ones. I would drink as many as possible over a weekend and then bring back as many more as I could carry but my trips have been curtailed even pre Covid

I used to grade every one out of a 100 and lets face it most Belgian Beers are fantastic and the only one that I can remember with clarity was Dubuisson "Bush" which Googling now seems to have changed Bottle design but what I wrote in my notes was "too strong to taste" and when I looked the abv was over 13%.

Years later I gave it a second chance in a Bruges Bar and gave it away (most unlike me)

 

[keith1664]

Het Anker Cuvee Van de Kaizer Blauw is amazing.
De Ranke XX Bitter if you like bitter beer.
And I like a Flanders red, Duchesse de Bourgogne is a good starting point.

 

[Richard_H]

Oh i love the Belgian stuff!

For me Westvleteren 12 is the best, we were lucky enough to go over to the cafe and pick up a decent amount.
Tried Rochefort 8 for the first time down my local the other day, lovely drop but the cognac and port flavours made it an acquired taste.
For me Tripel Karmeliet is the most balanced Tripel i have ever tried, fantastic stuff

 

[Haroldo Teixeira]

Westvleteren XII and Strafe Hendrick Heritage are two of the best beers I had ever tasted (the other is Founders KBS, but out of Belgian styles). Chimay, Westmalle, Rochefort and Duvel are also fantastic. Even Leffe has its value. But It´s hard to talk about Belgian Beer without remembering Delirium Tremens :)

 

[kelper]

Go to Antwerp for a week and soak up the café life. Geuze is a sour beer but wonderful. One bar I visited had 900 beers on offer, some meant moving your table so the staff could go down into the cellar. De Muze has jazz six nights a week.

 

[Sadfield]

One bar I visited had 900 beers on offer,

Kulminator?

 

[kelper]

Aux Armes de Tirremans or something like that.

 

[matt76]

Warning - old thread bump!

I don't like Belgian beers, they taste like licking an old varnished wooden table. I believe this taste is more correctly described as "phenolic".

So based on this thread I decided I'd take the opportunity to try again to expand my horizons and ordered a few to try over the Xmas period. I can report my findings thus:

La Chouffe Blonde and Tripel Karmeliet - Yuk! Sorry, but I just cannot get past the phenols. Weird because I tried both last time I was in Leuven and recall liking both (may have been in a state of refreshment prior).

Saison Dupont - Bloomin' phenols again... oh hang on a sec... actually there is something else there, more subtle, more complex... yeah I can see what they mean in the tasting notes about grapefruit and strawberry etc. Not sure I want tonnes of the stuff but I could get used to it.

Orval - Mine was bottled Oct 2020, so quite young I believe. But wow, yeah, very complex again. Hard to pinpoint but the tasting notes I googled were handy once again. I liked it.

Rodenbach Grand Cru - What the holy f.... Oh hang on a sec... Umm... Actually this is really nice. I don't understand how a beer with big hints of vinegar (plus other sour things going on) can work but somehow it does. Really complex again but I could really start to apppreciate this.

Boon Oude Geuze - Umm... Now I do like sour beers. This was OK but it had a bit much of the phenolic thing in the background for me. Based on the Rodenback one I'd skip this and keep looking.

Wesmalle Dubbel - This is one I expected to like the least. It was one of my favourites. Again there's a lot of complexity so the tasting notes were useful once more. But for sure I could drink more of this.

Westmalle Tripel - Another one I'd tried before and recall liking. Interesting to note this was way better IMO than the Tripel Karmeliet - instead of just being phenolic blurgh it had a lot more complexity to it.

So all in all a bit of a mixed bag, but a pretty interesting learning experience for me. I think my faves were the Westmalle Dubbel, Rodenbach Grand Cru and Orval.

EDIT To Add: If anyone has any further recommendations what else to try based on those then I'm all ears

I don't for a second imagine I could reproduce such beers myself but it does inspire me to experiment more, in particular with sour and brett strains.

Cheers,

Matt

 

[NormanHurst]

Really interesting, Matt. I did the same over the summer - bought a box and worked through over a fortnight or so trying one a day.

I loved the Orval and the Westmalle Tripel and Dubbel too. The latter is now a regular on my Tesco order!

I liked the Dupont and the Boon Geuze a lot more than you did. I couldn't get a handle on the Rodenbach GC or others like the Duchesse de Bourgogne. I'd prefer a funky glass of wine to either.

I have enjoyed some of the St Bernadus beers recently if you have a local stockist.

 

[chthon]

@matt76 : As a Belgian homebrewer, and lover of all beers, but not a trained taster, I fail to understand what you mean by phenolic?

I admit knowing the nail varnish taste, from brewing a strong ale with S33. But that was subdued, it was not unpleasant, a bit like the difference between a tiny bit sulphur and too much sulphur. And after some time it disappeared.

If I take the technical explanation of phenolics, it would seem you taste more than cloves. But what do you taste? Are you a supertaster?

 

[matt76]

@matt76 : As a Belgian homebrewer, and lover of all beers, but not a trained taster, I fail to understand what you mean by phenolic?

I admit knowing the nail varnish taste, from brewing a strong ale with S33. But that was subdued, it was not unpleasant, a bit like the difference between a tiny bit sulphur and too much sulphur. And after some time it disappeared.

If I take the technical explanation of phenolics, it would seem you taste more than cloves. But what do you taste? Are you a supertaster?

No, I'm not a supertaster either (well, as far as I'm aware!)

Maybe I'm incorrect to call it phenolic, possibly it's something else, maybe clove, maybe nail varnish, I'm not sure...

What I can say is:
- I don't like it - I have literally thrown away batches of beer (e.g. bitter, APA) that had this off flavour (caused I think by dirty bottles)
- It's a flavour I associate as being characteristic of some Belgian beers (though clearly not all!).
- In particular I got this flavour strongly from La Chouffe and Tripel Karmeliet, a little bit from some (Westmalle Tripel, Boon Oude Geuze), and not at all from others (Orval, Rodenbach Grand Cru).

I see "phenols" and "phenolic" descriptors in the tasting guides so I assume that's it, but maybe I'm wrong.

I wish I could be more precise because then it would be easier to know what to try and what to avoid!

 

[Richard_H]

Could it be a combination of the sweet banana esters from the yeast, the sweetness from the sugar and the Pilsner malt? IMO something Tripel Karmeliet does to perfection but it is a dominating flavour of the beer and is quite common in this style. Interesting you like the Westmalle Tripel which has a slightly sharper taste to it and a much stronger alcohol flavour. I claimed earlier in this thread that Karmeliet was the most balanced in this category which is still my opinion but as a huge fan of the Westmalle that could well be the best...

I woud give a Duvel Triplel Hop a try which can be sourced easily from Tesco as the hop profile balances out the sweetness. If you don't enjoy that one that it may be worth aging a few bottles of the examples you did not enjoy and see how they are after 6-12 months conditioning.

Failing that then try a few more Dubbel's and try some Quad's, some great beers in these categories which i suspect most will be more to your taste.

 

[Sadfield]

Phenolic typically refers to 4-vinyl guaiacol (clove), guaiacol (smoky) or
4-ethyl phenol (Band Aid, Barnyard), generally considered an off flavour in British brewing where yeasts are typically POF/- (Phenolic Off Flavour Negative). Where as Belgian and Germen top fermenting strains are often POF/+, and lower levels of these flavours are considered a characteristic rather than an fault.

 

[chthon]

Those examples are also the most known names.
Alternatives to try for tripels (strong blond):

• Affligem tripel
• St.-Bernardus tripel
• Kasteel Tripel
• Achel Blond

Alternatives to try for dark beers:

• Kasteel Donker
• Moose Blues
• Malheur 12
• Rochefort 12

These are a bit off the top of my head. According to Untappd we tasted around 300 Belgian and 300 Dutch beers (and we're still not finished).
Try to find/order beers from "De Dolle Brouwers" and "De Struise Brouwers".

 

[matt76]

Blimey, the things I do in the name of science..... OK, I think I've identified the "unpleasant" flavour as clove, as described below...

First up, thanks @chthon for your suggestions above. If you or anyone else has any further suggestions based on this then I'm open to your recommendations, perhaps for examples that are not heavy on the clove flavours.....

So, I had a rummage through the spice rack and found a jar of cloves - only fractionally out of date

Anyway, I had a chew on a couple of cloves - there are some almost aniseed-like flavours I recognise and like from when you use them on roast ham for example, but also that kind of woody taste I associate with Belgian beers.

Just to check I opened up my remaining bottle of La Chouffe...

It actually goes a lot better with food (pizza in this case - which coincidentally is how I first tried it a couple of years back in Leuven), but on it's own I think I just struggle with that clove taste. Each to their own.

Slightly weird sidenote - I really like German Hefeweizen whch is also renowned for having clove and/or banana flavours, but I've never had an issue with it. Perhaps the clove is just somehow much more pronounced in some Belgian beers???