Beer Infinity Beer, Brewing & Beyond
| Belgium is such a tiny country that it usually surprises people to learn that there were several regions within its cramped boundaries with distinct brewing traditions. Even today, when you consider the wheaty beers associated with Hoegaarden and Brussels or the rustic farmhouse ales in the south, you see vestiges of these traditions. Or when you pass through Flanders, the northwestern part of the kidney-shaped country. There you will find dark ales, sometimes rich and rounded, as made by the monks at Westvleteren, or acidic and fruity, like those at Verhaeghe and Rodenbach.
These go back at least two hundred years. When he toured Belgium in the 1840s, the brewer Georges Lacambre found different kinds of brown beers all across the region. The ales got dark not by the addition of roasted malt, but because they boiled the worts for insane lengths–from 12 to 20 hours (!). Over those great lengths, the malts caramelized. Everyone felt at the time that only good beer came from long, … |
Source: Beervana
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