About Belgium

Belgium is famous for its beers. No other country can stand the comparison. But why is it that Belgium turned into a Mekka for beer-lovers?

Let me begin by saying that we are the only nation with such an incredible collection of beers. With our 115 breweries (in 2006), over 400 different beers of various types and innumerous limited edition beers we live in a real beer paradise. If you like beer it’s impossible to get bored here: once you have tasted them all, you can start all over again!

Aside from that Belgium has developed a real beer culture. Belgians handle their beers with as much care as the French do with their wine. For example: each beer has its own typical glass and serving a beer in the wrong one is considered a big sin. The reason for this is that for us beer is not some ordinary drink to get you drunk quickly and that the shape of the glass influences the taste.

Then there’s the availability: where American supermarkets have aisles and aisles of breackfast cereals, we prefer to fill them with beers of all kinds. Lagers, ales, specialty beers, fruit beers, white blond and dark beers, abbey beers, and so on… Make sure to scedule enough time to check them all out Also in every restaurant, bar, nightshop or grocery store you are offered at least a basic selection of the most known beers from the categories above.

Beer has become a highly sofisticated product. It’s made with more ingredients than wine and these determine a large part of the taste of the beer. Centuries of beer brewing have given birth to innumerous brewing processes. And up till today there’s a lot of innovation going on in the industry. Brewing a new beer is like composing a jigsaw: a malt dried at high temperatures give your beer a caramel-like taste, using water with a lot of minerals result in stronger flavours, you have to choose the amount and kind of fermentations, hops, grains, yeast … should I continue?

And last we have the alcohol level: something foreigners are often deceived by. In general Belgian beer has a higher alcohol percentage. The Belgian specialty beers even undergo various fermentations. Next to normal fermentation, these can be spontaneous fermentations in open air, extra fermentations in the bottle and/or in Barrels. The beers with two fermentations are called “Double” and those with three “Triple”. No wonder Belgium makes the beer with the highest percentage of alcohol in the world: Bush Amber from brewery Dubuisson with 12% !

What are you thinking? Are you comming to visit my country?
Yes! Mission accomplished!