Page 151 - (DK Eyewitness) Top 10 Travel Guide - Brussels Bruges Ghent & Antwerp

WHERE T O EA T AND DRINK  149

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. Fruit beers are a Brussels speciality but are
available throughout the country. The most popular,
kriek, is traditionally made with bitter cherries grown
in the Brussels suburb of Schaerbeek; picked
annually, these are added to the lambic and allowed
to macerate, or steep. The distinctive almond tang
comes from the cherry stone. Raspberries are also
used to make a framboise beer, or frambozen.
For a characterful amber ale, Kwak is good choice.
Strong beers are also popular; apart from the Trappist
beers, of which Chimay is a popular
variety, the pilseners De
Verboden Vrucht (meaning
“forbidden fruit”) and Duvel
(“devil”) are almost as strong
as red wine. Brugse Tripel, from
Bruges, is also popular. Even
Belgium’s best-sellers, Jupiler
Fruit beer mat of and Stella Artois, are good
Chapeau brewery quality beers. The façade of a beer emporium in Brussels

How to Drink Belgian Beer
Blanche Beers There are no snobbish distinctions made in Belgium
Belgium’s refreshing wheat between bottled and casked beer. Some of the most
beers are known as “blanche”, prestigious brews are served in bottles and, as with casks,
or white beers, because of the bottles are often laid down to mature. The choice of
cloudy sediment that forms drinking glass, however, is a vital part of the beer-drinking
when they ferment. Sour, ritual. Many beers
crisp and light, they are must be drunk in a
rela tively low in alcohol at particular glass, which
5 per cent. Blanche is the bar man will
produced in the western supply, ranging from
region of Hoegaarden, goblets to long thin
after which the best- drinking tubes. Beers
known blanche is named. are often served with
Many people now serve a com plimentary
them 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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