Belgian beer: what to taste and where

• Variety. Belgium did not restrict brewers with purity laws as Germany did: spices, fruit, sugar and wild yeasts are used.

• Beer is part of cooking. Meat is stewed in it, cheese rinds washed in it, and it is paired with food like wine.
• UNESCO recognised the culture itself, how beer is woven into everyday life, from cafés to kitchens.

Trappists are a Catholic monastic order. Beer brewed at Trappist abbeys under monks' supervision, with income supporting the abbey and charity, receives the Authentic Trappist Product mark. The International Trappist Association has protected the mark since 1997.

Belgium currently has five Trappist breweries with this mark:

Another Belgian abbey, Achel, lost Trappist status in 2023.

Styles: enkel to quadrupel

• Enkel: a basic light beer, historically for the monks themselves;
• dubbel: dark, 6–8%, caramel and dried fruit;
• tripel: pale and strong, 8–10%, spicy and fruity;
• quadrupel: stronger and darker still, such as Rochefort 10 and Westvleteren 12.

Abbey beer and Trappist beer are different

“Abbey beer”, or abdijbier, is often brewed by commercial breweries under an abbey licence or simply in a monastic style. Trappist beer is brewed in active Trappist abbeys.

Lambic is a unique Belgian style from the Senne Valley and Pajottenland near Brussels. No yeast is added: wort cools in open vessels, and wild airborne yeasts start fermentation. The beer then matures in wooden barrels for years.

• Lambic: young, still and sour.

• Gueuze: a blend of young and old lambic, refermented in the bottle, sparkling, dry and tart; called the “Champagne of Brussels”.
• Kriek: lambic aged with sour cherries; framboise uses raspberries.

Real gueuze and kriek are sour and dry. Sweet supermarket “cherry beers” are a different product with syrup.

• White beer, witbier: wheat beer with coriander and orange peel, cloudy and refreshing.

• Saison: dry, spicy farmhouse ale, originally brewed for seasonal workers.
• Flemish red ale: tart, oak-aged and wine-like.
• Strong golden ale: pale, around 8–9%, deceptively light.

In Belgium, each beer has its own glass: chalice, tulip, barrel-shaped glass or stemmed glass. Shapes suit the style: a broad chalice releases Trappist aromas, while a tall glass holds a white beer's head. A good bar will never serve beer in the wrong glass.

• Flemish carbonnade: beef stewed in dark beer;

• mussels and chips: with white beer or gueuze;
• waterzooi: creamy chicken or fish stew;
• abbey cheeses: with Trappist beer from the same abbey.

• Temperature: pale and wheat beers cold, 4–7 °C; Trappists and strong ales cool, 8–12 °C, so their aromas open up.

• Glass: chalice for Trappists, tulip for strong ales, tall glass for white beer.
• Sediment: many bottled beers have yeast sediment. Pour gently and leave it behind; for white beer, swirl it and add it instead.
• Slowly: drink 8–10% beers in small portions, like wine.

Belgium also means chocolate: Jean Neuhaus invented the praline in Brussels in 1912. Dark Trappist beers and kriek pair surprisingly well with dark chocolate and pralines. Try quadrupel with bitter chocolate and kriek with cherry praline.

Belgium hosts dozens: a summer Belgian beer festival on Brussels' Grand-Place, plus lambic and Trappist celebrations nationwide. Dates change yearly, so check before travelling.

• Trappist beers: Westmalle, Chimay, Orval and Rochefort; Westvleteren sales are limited, but you can drink it at the café opposite the abbey;

• gueuze and kriek from lambic blenders;
• branded glasses, available at many brewery shops;
• chocolate and pralines.

Brussels has hundreds of beer cafés, from historic 19th-century wood-panelled establishments to bars listing hundreds of beers. Family spontaneous-fermentation breweries still operate in the city, where you can see open cooling vessels and barrels. Beer comes with cheese cubes and sausage with mustard.

• Bruges: UNESCO-listed medieval city of canals, historic-centre breweries and square-side beer cafés.

• Ghent: city of three towers and the Ghent Altarpiece, the Graslei guildhouse waterfront and historic beer cafés.
• Antwerp: city of Rubens and diamonds, with its own beer culture and a famous local ale.
• Leuven: university town and major brewing centre.

Read more on the Belgium region page.

Many brewing abbeys also make cheese, aged and sometimes washed with beer. Pair beer and cheese from the same abbey, for example at the café opposite Westvleteren. These cheeses are sold in abbey shops and markets.

Beer is a kitchen ingredient in Belgium as wine is in France:

• Flemish carbonnade: beef stewed for hours in dark beer with onion and thyme;

• rabbit in kriek or gueuze;
• mussels in white beer instead of white wine;
• beer-washed cheeses at abbeys;
• beer sauces for sausages and meat.

Traditional Flemish restaurants are the best places to try these dishes.

Lambic is brewed differently from other beer:

1. Mash barley malt and unmalted wheat, which can make up a third.
2. Boil with aged hops that have lost their bitterness; their role is natural preservation rather than flavour.
3. Cool in an open vessel, a wide, shallow bath beneath the roof. At night, wild yeasts and bacteria from the air enter the wort.
4. Transfer into wooden barrels, where beer ferments and matures for one to three years or longer.
5. Blend: young and old lambic for gueuze; lambic with cherries for kriek.

Traditionally, lambic is brewed only in cold months, autumn to spring: summer air contains too many unwanted microbes. It is among beer's slowest and least predictable production processes.

Many renowned gueuzes come from blenders, gueuzestekers, who buy young lambic from different breweries, age it in their own barrels and blend it, like Champagne winemakers assembling a cuvée. Pajottenland's blenders west of Brussels are gems of Belgian beer culture, and arranging tastings with them is not easy.

Belgian beer takes much from wine:

• barrel ageing;

• secondary bottle fermentation in gueuze and many ales, as in Champagne, hence gueuze's “Champagne of Brussels” nickname;
• corked bottles with wire cages, like sparkling wine;
• food pairings, like wine with dinner;
• ageing potential: strong Trappists and gueuze change and improve over years and attract collectors.

That makes Belgian beer familiar to wine lovers: the same ideas of terroir, wild Senne Valley yeasts, ageing, blending and food pairing.

Many breweries release Christmas beers, Kerstbier or bières de Noël, dark, strong and spiced. December brings Christmas markets to Brussels, Bruges and Ghent, while beer cafés offer seasonal brews. A good reason for a winter visit.

Saint-Sixtus Abbey in Westvleteren village in western Belgium is the most closed of the Trappist abbeys. Monks brew only as much beer as they need to support the abbey, refusing to expand despite their fame. Westvleteren 12 has been among the world's highest-rated beers for decades. Bottles have no labels; the information appears on the cap.

Purchases are limited and follow the abbey's own rules. The easiest way to taste is In de Vrede café opposite, serving all three abbey beers and its cheese. Nearby are Poperinge hop fields, the centre of Belgian hop growing, and Ypres, with its First World War history.

Within the European Union, beer for personal use can be carried with almost no limits. Outside the EU, countries set their own alcohol allowances; check your country's rules before travelling. Pack bottles in clothing in your suitcase: Belgian beer often comes in glass bottles with corks and wire cages, like sparkling wine.

1. Drinking strong tripel like ordinary lager. At 8–10%, drink slowly.
2. Confusing abbey and Trappist beer.
3. Expecting sweet kriek. Real kriek is sour.
4. Drinking from the bottle. Belgian beer opens up in its glass.
5. Going shopping at Westvleteren without booking. Abbey beer sales are limited.

Westvleteren by Saint-Sixtus Abbey, private Pajottenland lambic blenders, Leuven breweries, chocolate and waffle workshops and Flemish food, seven days in one tour. → Belgium food and wine tour · Belgium region