Why can't most American breweries master Belgian styles?

Funny how it could be like that. I guess it is just...I don't know, I can't explain it.

I live in what can only be described as apple heaven, perfect habitat and climate and miles upon miles of orchards growing the best apples and pressing the best cider in the country, and yet the grocers still sell pasteurized apple juice from concentrate and people still buy it. I guess that is the same thing.

 

Making a good lambic is one thing but just making lambic is another. Lambic used to be the cheapest beer out there – the reason faro was invented because people hated the sourness and taste of it. Once living standards went up, pilsners became more common and breweries started producing sweetened and preferred version the lambic breweries went belly up. People could drink things they actually liked. Drinking geuze was associated with the old generation – young people didn’t want to come across like their grandparent. Most people don’t like the taste of sour beers.
I suppose the same is true for cider. People don’t want complexity but oump of sweet cider. People think I am telling fairytales when I tell them that cider shouldn’t taste like sweetened apple lemonade. Most people are not even aware cider can be anything else. Same with Kriek most people don’t believe me when I say that non-sweet Kriek beers exist and they are turned of by the idea.

 

Your observations about the oven are particularly relevant in my view. As a long term home bread baker with an extensive library of books about the topic and a bit of relevant direct experience with different ovens I can attest to the importance of that brick oven, or any brick oven compared to a modern industrial oven, as an influence on their resulting breads.

But remember that bread dough is also filled with living organisms actively shaping the outcome right up to the point of their death from the heat of baking. So for beer the difference with yeast action would come in after the humans have finished what they do. :-)

 

I know very little about home-brewing or bread-making, for that matter. I know you do and I respect your posts. I am the guy on the other end. There is NOTHING like a brick oven pizza. Very few places around here use them anymore.

 

The list is nearly endless these days. Ommegang, The Bruery, Dogfish, Avery, Weyerbacher.... Here in Ohio, Rockmill Brewing in Lancaster creates spectacular Belgian styles that would probably make a Monk smile. I love the amazing amount of choices on Belgian styles that American brewers provide. As beer advocates, for many years we've been living and drinking during a very creative era for beer. Keeping an open mind and a respect for the craft brewmasters who are trying to develop their own distinctive ale inspired by Belgian magic ~ is a worthy endeavor and wonderful. I for one, am enjoying the ride. When I want an authentic Belgian ale, it's always there and dependably delicious.
: )

 

I suspect it is for much the same reasons that many people in their teens and twenties think they invented sex and that their parents never did it (and still don't :-) ). They think that their own taste and experience, no matter how limited, defines reality.

 

So how is it then that there are Monks living in old Abbeys who can't brew a decent cuppa coffee, let alone a world class beer?

 

I live about half a block away from the brewpub of Revolution brewing. I can tell you as a longtime resident of the area that that one start up was the anchor for my fits and starts of a neighborhood and it turned a formerly desolate stretch into a big deal, and made the neighborhood a destination and that one single act has also driven up real estate prices. In about a years time, I'll have two coffee roasters, a distillery and a barrel aged bar to visit, a head shop, yoga studio, vegan diner, a coffee shop, tattoo parlor, art gallery, and my deodorant is also made on the same block. Five years ago, this whole stretch was a practically a ghost town and ten years ago you could still find hookers out trying to work a corner after dark.

 

I had gueze while I was there. Perhaps my host was more beer-savvy than most.

 

The Belgiums are a peace-loving folk, and they like good food and beverages. They just want to be free and make their lives as happy as can be. I have no quarrel with Belgian. Neither does God. Chimay Blue is His favorite beer.

 

Sometimes we see what we want or expect to see. Several years ago, in Vienna, I had a sidebar chat with a colleague who assured me that people there didn't eat at McDonalds, even tourists. As part of his argument he pointed out there was only 1 McDs in the central district. When I corrected him and named the four different locations in the central district where there was a McDs, he agreed to having passed by each of them at one time or another. But continued to assure me that nobody ate there or drank coffee at any of the Starbucks that were thriving in the central district.

 

A timely article in the Sept. All About Beer. It's about Belgian brewers being recruited to American breweries. A lot of talk about the benefits of a Belgian trained brewer but also why it is so different to brew here. I thought this was an appropriate quote for this thread. On belgian brewers brewing gueuze. ".....there's one thing about making gueuze generation after generation- they grow into this. They know by trial and error how to do this right. They've been through a long learning curve, while in the US, we want to do it right and we want to do it right from the get go."
- Belgian trained brewer. Steven Pauwels. Boulevard Brewing

 

"Why can't most American breweries master Belgian styles?"

Because in the US bigger is better and if you don't brew a 10% tripel or a 9% dubbel or a spice bomb, or a verry funky Belgian style, or bourbon barrel aged it would not be well received (even if it makes it totally off-style).

Ommegang Abbey Ale is a good exemple: it is pointed out so many times as a great dubbel, but too me it's too strong, too sweet, too malty and too high in acohol to be a dubbel (not a bad beer, but not a dubbel). It is even sometime qualified as a good example of the style (compare to a chimay red or a westmalle and you will see how different they are). I even see sometimes brother thelonius called a dubbel.

Most of the micro-brewed tripel I have tried are also usually way too sweet too, and not carbonated enough (and around 10-11% abv). But if they were well made 8% tripel (such as the chimay) they would not sell because not big enough.

Now yes, of course it's a little exaggerated and American breweries can master Belgian styles. But I don't buy a lot of "American-Belgian" anymore, because they are usually as expensive as the actual Belgian ones (I never understood that...).

 

Why cant most Belgian brewers master American Adjunct Lagers?

 

lol why would any one want too.....but sadly they have many examples of lagers done almost as bad.

 

I was in Northern Michigan this summer, and had their imperial red "Big Red Coq." Friend bought a bunch for the funny name, but it was a quality Belgian-style.

 

Because American Breweries cannot produce anything as good as Belgian ales. I'm biased though I guess, I'm not a fan of IPAs and it seems like Americans are mostly obsessed with those. For me I like aged ales and Belgian ales.

 

i had to look that Big word up...
wikipedia:
Tautology (rhetoric), a self-reinforcing pretense of significant truth