Suggestions for good Belgian style beers

Anything from Ommegang. They're easy to find too.

 

As far as Belgians go, anything from Unibroue or Ommegang will be the best representation for a widely available brand and usually priced better than most.

Fun fact of the day. Belgium is the country, Belgian would describe the people, products or influences the country provides.

 

There are a ton of breweries that may only distribute in a couple of states, let us know your location, it will be easier to recommend beers that you can find where your at.

 

Go here

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/style

Read and Look at the list of Belgan styles. Pick one. Look at the description. Click the link to look at the highest rated in that style. Make a copy of that list. Go shopping. Buy what you can find and afford. Then enjoy!! And welcome to the site.

 

petrus aged pale, maredsous,chimay, piraat ale, all easy to find Belgian brews

 

if you have a Trader Joe's near you I would see if they have the Unibroue taster pack in stock. They do a 4 pack with Maudite, Trois Pistoles, La Fin du Monde and Don De Dieu for around $8-9. They also have another taster 4 pack with 4 other Unibroue beers, I don't remember exactly which ones they were.

 

so is it just saison style beers or do you like belgian style IPAs... if so flying dog makes a very good one, as well as green flashes rayon vert........

 

Ithaca Ground break.....

 

north coast Pranqster is also very good

 

I love Westmalle Tripel and Tripel Karmeliet. The only downside is they are pricey.

 

Since you like Golden Monkey and La Fin the Westmalle Tripel is a no brainer to try. You're probably going to pay about 4.99 for 11.2 oz bottle and 11.99 for the 750 ml. It's worth it.

 

I know this won't help you out a whole lot money wise, but you should try the Trappist stuff. Rochefort is excellent (8 and 10 are the best)... as others have mentioned, Westmalle is also a good choice. Chimay is the most mainstream, pretty good but not the best. Achel and Orval should also be available to you. It's all good stuff. These can be some of the best tasting beers in the world, and they also tend to get better with age (especially the high ABV stuff).

The further you go, the more you may get into sours. Belgians also brew the best sours in the world. Hopefully you're making good money when the time comes that you get into sours. It's top shelf stuff in the beer world.

New Belgium also brews a Dubbel and Tripel (I think) and they should be pretty affordable.

 

American interpretations of Belgian beers vary from horrible to very good, with an occasional offering creeping into excellence. But as a whole, if you want Belgians, buy BELGIAN beers. This board is very very biased towards American breweries.

I recommend the Rocheforts and Westmalle offerings (only 5 beers total from both breweries) all 5 are world class.

Anything by St. Bernardus

Orval (only 1 beer available from that brewery)

The chimays are all very good, not quite on the level of the aforementioned but not far off. La Trappe/Koeningshoeven are on the level of Chimay, and their beers are all named by style ie dubbel, trippel, quad, blond (exception is Isid'or which is a Belgian Pale Ale) so they might help you understand the classic abbey styles (ditto for Westmalle).

Outside the trappists, I really like anything from De Ranke. Their XXX Bitter is arguably the best Belgian IPA in the world. De la Senne also makes awesome beers, their Taras Boulba is another world class hoppy Belgian/Belgian IPA and is lower in alcohol than most Belgians, which are rarely under 7%. Maredsous makes beers in the abbey style but isn't technically a trappist (which only means monks brewed it or oversee the brewery, it has no effect on the beer) and their beers are all solid. Affligem and St Feuillien are solid.

De Struise is known for their Pannepot/Pannepeut series beers, which are strong ales some of which are aged in barrels, this is probably the best example of Belgians that use barrel aging to add to their beer's character, something more typical in American beers. I also really like their St. Amatus 12 and Outblack.

The Van Steenbergs are a good gateway into Belgians but as a whole, aren't on the level of the aforementioned beers.

For sour/funky beers, Drie Fonteinen, Cantillon, and Oud Beersel are pretty widely available (less so for Cantillon) and are all great but a bit expensive for a starving student. De Ranke also makes this style very well. For cheaper offerings in this style look for Liefmans, but you get what you pay for generally with wild beers. The good American wilds are pretty much exclusively as expensive or more expensive than the imports. There is plenty of info on these boards about them (they're basically all anyone ever talks about when they're not talking about IIPAs and BA Stouts).

In the same vein, there is a similar but perhaps more approachable style of wild beer called a Flanders Red or Oude Bruin which is a soured brown ale. There are some affordable world class beers in this style, my personal favorite being Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge. Strubbes Grand Cru and Bocker's Bellegem's Bruin are also great and on the cheaper side of things.

The best cheap 6 pack of Belgian beer (and IMO, one of the best cheap 6ers period) is Leffe Brune, which was formerly unavailable in the US until this year. It's starting to make its way onto the shelves. Much better than the Blond which has been widely available for years. About 9 bucks a 6er.

The Belgians get their character from the yeast. American beers tend to have more neutral yeasts and are generally defined mostly by the use of aromatic and bitter hops, although American breweries do every style and flavor profile. Americans make the most use of barrel aging. English beers are characterized by a different yeast strain and typically are malt-forward. Belgians are like English beers but more robust, bigger and of course have a VERY expressive yeast character. The Belgian yeast strains have noticeable spice and fruit characters that drive the beers. In keeping with their yeast-forward tradition, they also pioneered brewing with bacteria and brettanomyces yeast and still do these styles best.

Welcome to Belgians.

 

Drinking a North Coast Le Merle at the moment. for $7.59 for a .750 it's a damn good value, and should be relatively easy to find.