Page 281 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Belgium & Luxembourg

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Speciality Belgian Beers

Duvel Chimay Brugse Tripel De Verboden Vrucht Kwak

Speciality beers are common in Belgium, where the
huge variety of brands includes unusual tastes and
flavours. For a characterful amber ale, Kwak is a
good choice. Fruit beers are a Brussels speciality
but are available throughout the coun try. The
most popular, kriek, is traditionally made with
bitter cherries grown in the Brussels suburb of
Schaerbeek. Picked annually, these cherries are
added to the lambic and allowed to macerate,
or steep. The distinctive almond tang comes from
the cherry stone. Raspberries are used to make a
framboise beer, or frambozen.
Strong beers are also extremely popular.
These include the pilseners De
Verboden Vrucht (The Forbidden
Fruit) and Duvel (Devil). Leffe
Radieuse holds 8.2 per cent
alcohol by volume, while at 10.5
per cent, Hainaut’s Bush beer ranks
among the strongest. The best sellers,
Fruit beer mat of Jupiler and Stella Artois, are also
Chapeau brewery good-quality beers. The façade of a beer emporium in Brussels
Blanche Beers How to Drink Belgian Beer
Belgium’s refreshing wheat There are no snobbish distinctions made in Belgium
beers are known as blanche, between bottled and casked beer. Some of the most
or white beers, because of prestigious brews are served in bottles, and, as with casks,
the cloudy sediment that bottles are often laid down to mature. However, the choice
forms when they ferment. of drinking glass is a vital part of the beer-drinking ritual.
Sour, crisp and light, they Many beers must be
are rela tively low in drunk in a particular
alcohol at 5 per cent. glass, which the
Blanche is produced in bar man will usually
the Brabant town of of supply. These range
Hoegaarden, after which from goblets to long
the best-known blanche thin drinking tubes.
brand is named. Many Beers are often served
people now serve them with a com plementary
with a slice of lemon snack – cream cheese
to add to the refreshing on rye bread and
taste, especially on warm radishes are a popular The traditional drinkers’ snack of fromage
Hoegaarden summer evenings. accompaniment. blanc on rye bread

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