Belgium beer is famous

Beer!

Belgium beer is famous, so are chocolates and diamonds, among other.
I have been posting about our national treasure including some stories.
Our Page of Belgian Beer is now updated with the new list of the beers!

Yes I drink other beers!

 

While we may make jokes about other countries, we do appreciate other beers, such as from Holland and Germany. I am also a regular at some of the locally micro-breweries, often for American style IPA and other.

Where to find Belgian beer

Amazingly one can find a vast choice in bars and even more online. Even Westvleteren, not for sale in retail in Belgium, can be found here. It is actually considered one the the very top beers in the world. Yes, the price is not cheap…

Some of the obvious locations: Morel’s Restaurant, Heaven Supermarket, and many other restaurants and bars. Some shops that sell wine, whisky and other alcohol often have a wide range of imported beers, including supermarkets such as April Gourmet and Jenny Lou.Some of the outlets go bust, new ones appear so one needs to look around.

Online, so much!
As always Taobao sells about anything you want, including a wide range of Belgian beers. But you really need to use the Chinese language platform…
See here some screen shots of what you can order.

Another platform is “Beer Hub”, located in Wenzhou, Zhejiang
See some screenshots.

Beer Hub started like many other businesses: 2 guys drinking Belgian beer in Europe and wondering why this isn’t available in China. Now 5 years later they boast a great variety of over 200 beers from the United States and Belgium.
The company extended warehouse locations to 3 main cities in China, they serve 15 major cities.

Focus on Belgian beers

More to come

I have been writing about it but I am starting a new focus on Belgian beers. More articles are in the pipeline with also an updated list of beers I discovered in Beijing.

Be patient, I am working on a revision of beer-related articles.

Previous posts

See here a look back at previous beer-related posts.

The Federation of Belgian Brewers (104 members) has published the results for 2018: The world biggest beer exporter is Belgium.

Belgian beer in Beijing updated: about import problems (the acesulfame story), Gentse Strop, Stroppendragers, and more!

In Beijing there is plenty of Trappist beer but finding Westvleteren in Beijing was a surprise. Westvleteren is one of the recognized Trappist beers. More about Trappist beers, Chimay and Westvleteren.

More about two beers with Waterloo history, “Cuvée Napoleon” and “Waterloo Beer”. About a small farm called Le Caillou at Ligny, near Waterloo, La Bataille de Hougoumont, La ferme de Mont-Saint-Jean and other stories of Napoleon and Waterloo.

If Belgium is the land of beer, I have been surprised to find so many of them in Beijing. So I started a Page of Belgian beer! Discover in Brussels Delirium Café and A La Mort Subite. How it started near the end of the 10th century to create so much history around Belgian beer.

I should not forget Ghent, my hometown in Belgium, where I was born, grew up, went to school and university. About the history of the Belfort, Gulden Draak, Strop beers, how the people of Ghent came to be known as ‘Noose Wearers’ (“stroppendragers”), and the famous “Gentse Feesten”.

World’s biggest beer exporter

Belgium number one

The Federation of Belgian Brewers (104 members) has published the results for 2018: The world biggest beer exporter is Belgium.
Exports went up into the European Union. Exports declined a little outside of the EU (USA, Chine et Canada). The source is in French.

World’s biggest beer exporter

One of the famous beer shops in Brussels near Grand Place

It also mentions:

  • Exports went up into the European Union. Exports declined a little outside of the EU (USA, China and Canada).
  • Overall Belgium beats Germany in terms of exports. Top importers are France, followed by the USA, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy and China.
  • Consumption of beer in Belgium declined a little.
  • There is a notable increase in low-alcohol beer and no-alcohol beer.
  • In Belgium we have about 300 beer production centers; there were 40 new breweries in Belgium in 2018.

The joy of trying out Belgian beers in Beijing

The updated list of beers is here.
See some pictures of my investigation!

Yeah hard work!

Belgian beer in Beijing updated

Problems with import

Another Belgian beer in Beijing updated.
Recently the market for Belgian beer in Beijing has been through turbulent times. Sometimes the Belgian exporters are stubborn, don’t follow advice, cut their former channels. Or the Chinese block and destroy containers of beer because of “prohibited content”: that is the little-know acesulfame story. The chambers never look into this. Delirium is suffering and will get worse. Duvel still in some bars and shops but some of my sources are worried about next months import. All very unclear.

Updated list

See https://www.beijing1980.com/belgian-beer/
Bottles added! I will post more updates on Beer in Beijing and beer stories.

Gentse Strop

Ghent, my hometown in Belgium: see the earlier post.
I mentioned the story of Stroppendragers. And the beer Gentse Strop that you can find in Morel’s Restaurant.

See here more details on that story: stroppendragers

Westvleteren in Beijing

Trappist Beer

In Beijing there is plenty of Trappist beer but finding Westvleteren in Beijing was a surprise.
Westvleteren is one of the recognized Trappist beers. See here the introduction by Listverse.

In the silent halls of a 17th-century Trappist monastery, something dark is brewing. The Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, commonly referred to as the Trappists, is a monastic order that focuses on the work of one’s own hands as the true path to salvation. Although they don’t take an official vow of silence, Trappist monks avoid speaking unless absolutely necessary, and any speech that mocks or puts down someone else is a sin. All in all, they’re not bad fellows.
But regardless of any religious affiliation, Trappist monks brew some of the meanest beers in the world. There are only 10 authentic Trappist breweries in the world, and six of those are in Belgium. Westvleteren XII, a Trappist beer brewed not far from the city of Ypres, is often called the best beer in the world. Everything the Trappists make from their beer goes back into their abbeys in accordance with their vow of poverty.

According to another source there are now officially 11:
6 in Belgium, 2 in The Netherlands, 1 in Austria, 1 in USA and 1 in France:

  1. Achel, of Hamont Achel
  2. Chimay
  3. Engelszell – Austria
  4. La Trappe – The Netherlands
  5. Orval
  6. Rochefort
  7. Spencer – USA
  8. Westmalle
  9. Zundert – The Netherlands
  10. Westvleteren
  11. Mont de Cats – France (recognized in 2011)

More about Trappist and Westvleteren

Read this: “Ale and hearty: Aging Trappist monks brew on”  by Philip Blenkinsop
A gold standard for beer connoisseurs, the Trappist ale in Westmalle Abbey streams through state-of-the-art equipment with not a monk in sight.
The full article is here.

From Wikipedia:
Westvleteren (Brouwerij Westvleteren) is a brewery founded in 1838 at the Trappist Abbey of Saint Sixtus in Vleteren, Belgium. The brewery’s three beers have acquired an international reputation for taste and quality, Westvleteren 12 being considered by some to be the best beer in the world. The beers are not brewed to normal commercial demands but are sold in small quantities weekly from the doors of the monastery itself to individual buyers on an advance-order basis. Read the full story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westvleteren_Brewery

20 February 2013 – Vleteren Journal
“Cult Beer Alters Town, but Not the Monks Who Make It”, by John Tagliabue NYT:
VLETEREN, Belgium — On the face of it, this quaint Belgian town has few attractions — a charming brick parish church; a tall wooden windmill at the town’s main intersection. But it has the world’s best beer. In the past few years, several Web sites that ask beer drinkers to rate their favorite brews have accorded that honor to a strong, dark local brew known as Westvleteren 12. In fact, the enthusiastic American Web site RateBeer.com gave the beer the honor two years in a row, dethroning a Swedish dark beer, Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter.
Read all in this article.

And about Chimay:
15 January 2003 – Chimay Journal; “Monks’ Brew Showers Blessings on Belgian Town” by John Tagliabue NYT.
With his billowing white beard and black and white hooded habit, Dom Armand Veilleux, a Canadian-born monk in his mid-60’s, more resembles a figure from Umberto Eco’s novel of monastic mystery, ”The Name of the Rose,” than your average brewery executive.
Yet just across a snow-dusted garden from the room where he receives visitors, a microbrewery throbs, its six huge stainless steel vats fermenting more than 13,000 gallons of beer a day.
Only five years ago, the Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Scourmont, where Dom Armand has been abbot for almost five years, turned out 15 percent less. But these days, Belgian Trappist beers — heavy brews, often dark and with as much as 9 percent alcohol — are surging in popularity, spreading blessings on the hilly farmland around Chimay, pop. 10,000, traditionally one of the poorer Belgian lands that snuggle against the French border.
Read the full story here.

Westvleteren in Beijing

I was most surprised to find the beer online: RMB129. Then one evening I was in “Bottleshop”, on Xindong Street, close to Jiamei Dental, a small shop and bar with an impressive choice of top beers. There it was sold for RMB200.
I decided to share my precious Trappist with Renaat Morel who knows all the little secrets of the brewing industry in Belgium.

According to Renaat Westvleteren is pretty close to St. Bernardus Abt 12. I won’t dare to judge.
I had never tasted the beer before as it it basically not available in Belgium, except if you queue up at the Abbey..