Low sugar/final gravity Belgian ales

It's kind of in the opposite direction of what he likes, but you never know...anyway, 'unfruited' Lambics will be extremely dry and hopefully not too hard to track down in Belgium.

 

Ah- OK. Unfortunately that's the one type of beer where he'd be guaranteed of there being almost no residual sugars remaining. The stronger beers he likes do utilize simple sugars in the process (which are 100% fermentable by the yeast) in order to 'dry out' the beer, but that really is a relative term- they will be drier than other beers of that gravity, but still have a good amount of residual sugars.

Hopefully somebody from Belgium chimes in with some other suggestions that are more locally known, now that this thread has been moved.

Enjoy your trip in any event!

 

Caulier Developpement markets their beers as "sugarfree by nature". Haven't tried it yet but maybe it's a good compromise for your friend.

Ratebeer link because BA puts this incorrectly under the other Caulier brewery's name : https://www.beeradvocate.com/ratebeer/?path=/brewers/caulier-developpement-la-maison-caulier/12283/

 

Saison Dupont is bio, grayjacket from la senne brewery, maybe check out gruut brewery because they use herbs and no hops in the beer

 

Another vote for saisons. I'd also add most Flemish red/browns, witbiers, and any table beers you can find. Dubbels may be a stand-in when you want lower residual sugar than quads, but still want a similar flavor profile.

 

For the similar taste profile I support the dubbels suggestion, which usually have lower FGs. There's a good number of low ABV suggestions on here which may be accurate in terms of low residual sugar/beer but not necessarily low sugar/ABV. But some witbiers can have final gravities around the range of some dark strongs, meaning comparable residual sugar. Of course you low abv beers will still have less sugar than stronger beers given the same final grav, but 1 dark strong at 1.090 to 1.012 (10.3% ABV) has fewer calories than 2 wits at 1.050 to 1.012 (5%) according to this calculator:

http://kotmf.com/beer/2012/alcohol-tools/

Something like orval or saisons as mentioned above would also have a lower FG.

 

Fantome saisons are higher than typical for the style (8%) and also generally rather good and unique. Dupont's Avec les Bons Voeux is probably the classic high ABV saison.