Best American Belgian-Style Breweries

And Logsdon is there too! Looooove their Seizoen Bretta. And everything else, really, but it's one of my favorite year-round offerings from anyone. Plus they do farmhouses in an actual farmhouse!

 

Ditto.

 

Oxbow
OEC
Hermit Thrush

 

Allagash

 

Ommegang is my number one

Weyerbacher got me into Belgian styles

Honorable mention to Flying Fish in NJ has an awesome Dubbel, its their flagship i think too.

 

Olvade out of Rollingstone, Minnesota makes some really good Belgian style beers. Very small operation, and we see limited distribution here in the metro. The Auroch's Horn is their flagship, but everything they do is very well done.

 

It's tough to say best Belgian brewer, because you have some (like Unibrowe) that does awesome Big-Belgian styles, while others have made their most famous brews in the the barrel aged sour styles (Crooked Stave, Allagash, Wicked Weed RR, etc). Then there are the saison experts (Ommegang) and now various hybrid Belgian styles (funky/sour saisons, hoppy kettle sours, hoppy saisons (Prairie etc.). Hard to say which brewer nails all of these at a very well level. I guess I go with Allagash then as their White is great for lighter style while their barrel aged sours are fantastic and big bottled quads/Belgian strongs are quite good as well.

 

Ommegang in Cooperstown NY

 

Sierra Nevada Ovila

 

I love jolly pumpkin.

 

Out of the breweries that have dedicated themselves to Belgian beer, and make multiple styles that pay perfect tribute... Allagash.

Out of the breweries that have some Belgian inspired beers in their lineup, and carve out their own take... Boulevard.

Out of the breweries that deserve more credit, and aren't one of the usual suspects in these threads... Southampton.

 

New Belgium for their Tripel, Abbey, and La Folie alone.

 

Haven't had all of these but I can certainly agree with Ommegang, Allagash, The Bruery and Russian River. New Belgium is, well, hit or miss.
Look for small breweries too, you'll find a gem on occasion. One near me, Boojum Brewing Co., made an absolutely killer tripel. I'm quite picky about American recreations of Belgian strong ales as they're my favorite styles but this one was awesome. The Wedge also makes a good Belgian reminiscent of an Orval.

And for a shameless plug, the tripel I made on site that went on tap at a local nano brewery and one of its bars was really good too....

 

I stand corrected, Sir!

 

Barleywines are Belgian?

 

This thread is sorta interesting in that I started with the idea that the OP was referring to "classic" Belgian styles such as Quads, Dubbels, Tripels, Belgian Pales, Witbiers, BSDAs, etc. In that case, the top rung is pretty easy to identify - Allagash, Ommegang, Boulevard, Unibroue. (One oddity; no one seems to have mentioned New Belgium. I mean, really - New BELGIUM?!) Then there are a huge number of regional players that were mentioned.

But what made it interesting is that I constrained my thinking to those styles. Why hadn't I thought of Biere de Garde's and mentioned Jolly Pumpkin? Why hadn't I thought of saisons and places like Upright, SARA? What about Gueuze / Lambic and Funk Factory? I suppose because this makes the request almost too broad. I suspect the OP really was referring to those classic styles.

One other thing I find interesting is how unfashionable those Belgian styles have become in the US craft scene. Note that Allagash, Ommegang, New Belgium, Unibroue are pioneers. They're the breweries that (along with Sierra Nevada and a few others) turned most of the craft beer geeks of a certain age onto beer ... but they're all old. It's not where their growth is. Few "hot" breweries are coming up these days making those Belgian styles. When I ask folks "what styles do you like" I often get an answer similar to "anything but smoked beers ... and not a big fan of Belgians" (referring specifically to quads / dubbels and such since these folks would be happy to get a lambic or saison). But when you go to less mature craft beer communities, you often see breweries embracing these styles. Example, I was just in Indianapolis this weekend and within a short jaunt of one another is a brewery called Brugge and one called Bier, both doing tripels / quads / etc.

All this implies to me that they are solid gateway beers; they helped kick off the craft beer movement, they built some of the successful early companies (and Wits drive success in faux craft with Blue Moon and such), and they help onboard drinkers in less "sophisticated" scenes. So why is it that there is a kind of disinterest bordering on disdain for them in parts of the craft beer geek community?

 

Another shout out to Brewers Art in Bmore

 

It's too bad that their distribution is so limited, otherwise, this brewery would have been mentioned much earlier in this thread. I haven't been keeping track of them to know if this is still true, but I think their best offerings from them are available only at the brewery, which in and of itself is a very nice country setting and a great part of the overall experience toward enjoying their beers.

 

Allagash and Unibroue. La Fin du Monde, Maudite, Trois Pistoles, and La Terrible are all just exceptional.

 

Ommegang!