Belgian and Dutch Beer

Hoegaarden grand Cru. And the good news...down from£1.89 to £1.27 in my Waitrose.
Duvel sits you on yer bum too.

Tony

The Belgians have several beers still brewed by trappist monks which are very good and I think some of them are available in uk. They are Orval, Chimay, Rochefort and Westmalle. There is a fifth one, but it's name escapes me at them moment and it is hard to find in Belgium so I don't fancy your chances of finding any in UK.

The latter 3 I mentioned are available in various varieties chimay white, red and blue. Rochefort 6 (I think there is a 6), 8 and 10. Westmalle double and triple. There strength goes up with each beer, my favourite being the Rochefort 10 which is very possible my favourite beer ever and I've tried quite a lot of beer...

One remains a painful memory - Duvel.
Got absolutely shit-faced drinking this after watching Leeds beat Anderlecht 4-1 in Brussels in the Champions League.
The stuff is about 16% proof if I remember correctly, and I've been told it continues to ferment in the glass after it's been poured (though I'm not sure I believe that bit).
I was so ill I looked like a Panda next morning.

Ah Duvel, yep it has a real kick - I remember once in Italy having just 0.5L on an empty stomach and couldn't believe how plastered I felt. Good stuff.

I'm drinking my first of the seasonals today - Sierra Nevada Celebration. Very nice.

Dan

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The stuff is about 16% proof if I remember correctly, and I've been told it continues to ferment in the glass after it's been poured (though I'm not sure I believe that bit).

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it's about 10% and I've never heard the stuff about it fermenting in the glass, although I believe quite a few Belgian beers do continue fermenting in the bottle.

Whilst living in Brussels I went to Antwerp for the weekend and I went to a bar that we read had around 600 beers on it's menu. It's beer menu was the largest I have ever seen by a long long way. I wasn't bored enough (or sober enough) to count, but it could well have been around 600 beers. They also sold vintage beers, I remeber you could order a chimay blue 1980 (this was in 2001) and it was about 10 times more expensive than a regular chimay blue.

Off the top of my head

Duvel is precisely 8.5% ABV.

Chimay Bleue - 9% ABV

Chimay Blanche - 8% ABV

Chimay Rouge - 7% ABV.

Orvalle

Westmalle

Rochefort

Leffe - various guises from the ubiquitous Blonde or Brune to Radieuse and Triple.

Grimbergen - Blonde and Brune

Delirium Tremens - one of my favourites.

Only 4 brands in the list above are genuine trappist beers. There is a fifth, I can't remember its name but it is brewed in Holland not Belgium.

Regards,

Steve.

I remembere the name of the fifth Belgian Trappist beer, it's called Westvleteren. In 3 years of living in Belgium I managed to find it in a bar once. Several bars advertised it, but never had it in stock. A colleague used to go to the monastory once a year to buy the stuff because they did not make too much of it.

Grimbergen also do a triple which is very good and although I like Delierium Tremens (again there is a dark version of it) I find it gets a bit sickly after a couple of them.

The other Belgian one to note is Bush, a golden beer and is the strongest I've found at 12%.

Can any one remember the Belgian beer that is served in a round bottomed glass held in a wooden fork shaped stand?
The bar we went in made us take off a shoe that the barman kept hold off as he was pissed of with all the Brits running off with them!

Paul.

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Can any one remember the Belgian beer that is served in a round bottomed glass held in a wooden fork shaped stand?

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Kwak

If you ever get a chance to go to a Belgo's I'd highly reccomend it.

A wonderful mix of begian beers, mussels and fries (amoungst others)

Belgo's

They serve most of the beers mentioned on this post so far.

CD5/112/150/S5e's/smiling

What's the moral implications of monks brewing beer? Do they have to pray extra hard for their hypocrisy!

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What's the moral implications of monks brewing beer? Do they have to pray extra hard for their hypocrisy!

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What hypocrisy? is brewing beer supposed to be the work of the devil? From my understanding the money they make goes to the upkeep of the monastery and to charity.

Some of these Monks also have websites:
Orval
Chimay

Thanks guys for jogging my memory – We started off on Duvel (I remember that bit). Yes it does sit you on yer bum Tony.

A visit to Asda yielded Leffe Blonde & Bruin, Duvel, Hoegaarden Grand Cru, (I’ve had the regular Hoegaarden before), Westmalle Dubbel and a German one, Erdinger Weissbier.

The Leffe was easy-drinking but a wee bit sweet for me, the Erdinger was quite fine. Going to try the Westmalle & Grand Cru with my late Sunday roast beef, and will keep an eye out for Chimay & Rochefort - thanks Two-Sheds & Steve.

Found these websites - www.bottledbeer.co.uk and www.corman-collins.be

Beer – it’s your friend!

Kev.

Thanks to Mike Lacey in another beer thread from a few weeks back, I discovered Majestic Wine.

They sell beers as well as wine including Leffe, Hoegaarden and Duvel at competitive prices.

Although not on their stock list, they got me two cases (i.e: 40 50cl bottles) of Franziskaner hefe-weissbier for £50. I waited a week and they phoned me on my mobile to say that my order had arrived.

They stock Erdinger, but I find it a bit too smooth and slightly sweet in comparison with the crisper-tasting Franziskaner (5.% ABV) and Paulaner (in stock and 5.5% ABV), both from Munich.

Although it says on the website that cases of beer need to be ordered in conjunction with a minimum of 12 bottles of wine and/or spirits, they will usually, at the manager's discretion, supply just beer, provided you order an additional case in lieu of wine/spirits.

Hefe-weissbier should be drunk from the proprietary hefe-weissbier glass, and I've seen these on sale at TJ Hughes

Regards,

Steve.

[This message was edited by Steve Toy on Mon 22 November 2004 at 4:54.]

Belgian beers are by far more spectacular than Dutch beers. I always like Bourgogne des Flandres (dark beer), all the beers by La Chouffe, Chimay and obviously mainstreamers like Palm, De Koninck, etc.

If you want really special Dutch beers, see if you can get the ones by Brouwerij 't IJ, but I suspect they don't export.

There's another Belgian beer which I like called "Tripel Karmeliet". It's about the same same strength as Duvel (which I also like), but has a more complex, slightly sweeter taste. I think it's brewed with three grains, wheat, barley and oats.

Highly recommended, but I suspect difficult to get hold of. Fortunately, my local specialist beer shop started to stock them after I suggested it to them about two or three years ago.

There's also one called "Kasteel" which comes in a blonde or bruin version. This is pretty strong stuff (c. 12%), but still highly drinkable. Only recommended if you don't have anything to do the following day....

Kevin

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Originally posted by Two-Sheds:
There is a fifth one, but it's name escapes me at them moment and it is hard to find in Belgium so I don't fancy your chances of finding any in UK.

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My gawd, I'm afraid there are hundreds of them... Most don't get exported though. You probably mean Leffe, which is quite drinkable. Another one I like is De Koninck, which is an Antwerp beer, rather dark and about 5% proof.

Duvel (translated as -you guessed it- devil, is a real PITA. Don't drink more than two in one session, or you'll end up with your head in the toilet (like I did several times )

Willem

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or you'll end up with your head in the toilet

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Or, as a friend of mine and a buddy of his did, woke up the next morning in separate beds with rather large Amsterdam prostitutes. After the beer I guess, they were on a budget.

Hands down my absolute favorite two are:

And the 2000 version of

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My gawd, I'm afraid there are hundreds of them... Most don't get exported though. You probably mean Leffe, which is quite drinkable.

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Nope there aren't hundreds of them. There are only 5 Trappist brands in Belgium (Chimay, Rochefort, Orval, Westmalle and Westvleteren). I think globally there are another couple (Germany and Holland I think although I'm not sure).

Leffe (and hundreds of others) are Abbey beers. This means that they were originally brewed by monks, but are now brewed by commercial companies to the old recipe.

As for Duvel, I was once told there were around 5 beers in Belgium names after the Devil. I only ever managed to find around 3 of them (Duvel, Lucifer and Satan).

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There's another Belgian beer which I like called "Tripel Karmeliet". It's about the same same strength as Duvel (which I also like), but has a more complex, slightly sweeter taste. I think it's brewed with three grains, wheat, barley and oats.

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I've managed to get that that from my local Safeways/soon-to-be Morrisons.

£1.49/bottle iirc.

Regards,

Steve.

Some other beers that haven't been mentioned yet. First there is Gulden Draak (Golden Dragon) which I rather like, a strong dark beer, but with a quite a sweet touch if I remember rightly.

The other ones to try that haven't been mentioned yet are lambic beers. These are not brewed by adding yeast, but ferment with the natural yeast already present already. Included in lambic beers you can get fruit beers (which I don't really like, I find them too sweet really. Lindemans is one of the big names of Belgian fruit beers I think).

Then there are some lambic wheat beers, the big one I remember was Belle-Vue Gueuze. I could never make my mind up if I liked or hated this stuff. From memory it's very different and I'm going to have to go and search out another bottle to see which way I'm going to swing this time.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Steve Toy:

I've managed to get that that from my local Safeways/soon-to-be Morrisons.

QUOTE]

Steve

Thanks very much for the tip

Kevin