Fruit and beer.

For many people, the two concepts don’t belong together. For example, one of my ex-colleagues had a letter published in Viz which sneered at the whole concept of a “lager top” as being the Southern softy drink of shandy under a euphemistic name.

Funny though the letter was, I don’t think he was altogether right. OK, it’s a shame to spoil a decent ale by pouring half a pint of R. White’s into it. Snakebite destroys the lager, the cider, and half of your braincells at a stroke. And Guinness and blackcurrant is an abomination.

But there are plenty of respectable beers on the Continent which involve fruit in some way. Take Hoegaarden, for one. Wheat beer is nice enough in itself, but adding that Curaçao orange peel to the process gives the drink a zing which makes it perfect for sitting outside on a summer’s day.

The Belgians seem to be particularly big on fruit in beer. Kriek, the beer made with cherries, is probably the most famous instance of this.

Just now I’ve been drinking a bottle of framboise, or frambozenbier if you’re in Flanders rather than Wallonia; beer flavoured with raspberries. Like Hoegaarden, it’s a great drink for summer – it’s refreshing and has a pleasant zing to it which really helps take the heat off. (Pity it’s a bit on the pricey side, though on the other hand that does mean you’re less likely to gulp it down in industrial quantities and be totally wasted by dinnertime.)

The Germans do something very similar in Berlin, called Weiße mit Schuss. But in the German case they simply add raspberry syrup to the finished beer, whereas the Belgians use real raspberries in the brewing process. Nice though Weiße mit Schuss can be, it’s not got the bite that framboise has. It’s a bit stickier, too.

So the message seems to be: Don’t knock the idea of fruity beer until you’ve tried it; but if you’re going to do it, do it properly, with real fruit, not rubbish with additives and colourings.

We’ve looked at “white” or wheat beer already in Part 1, so now let’s move on to the more widely-drunk, “standard” Belgian beers: the “blonds” – broadly speaking, lighter, more lager-like beers – and the browns, which are maltier and more like English mild or German Altbier. (And no, there don’t seem to be any redheads – unless of course you count kriek, the cherry-flavoured beer…)

Blond beer
(blond bier/bière blonde)

Leffe Blonde/Blond

Leffe’s one of the better-known Belgian breweries (it’s an abbey beer), and this is one of their two best-sellers. It’s a fairly typical lager colour, or perhaps a little darker. There’s not as much aroma to it as, for instance, Hoegaarden, though the smell’s more like white beer than lager. When cold the flavour’s mellow, almost syrupy, a little like barley wine. Let it warm a little, and it becomes much more interesting – again, vaguely reminiscent of white beer.

Maredsous 6° Blond/Blonde

Brewed by Brouwerij Duvel Moortgat (the same company that produces the far better-known Duvel – see below), under licence from the Maredsous Abbey (who are Benedictines, not Trappists). The “6°” in the name refers to a traditional Belgian beer-grading system. In this case, Maredsous’s 6° equates to 6% ABV. It’s darker than Leffe Blond – more of a tawny or amber colour. Really not much aroma to speak of at all. But it makes up for that in the taste; it’s fairly close to an English bitter, with hints of smokiness and dryness. Think of the best homebrew you can imagine (and we’ve had some excellent ones in our time) and you’re not far off.

Palm Export

We weren’t sure whether this one really belonged with the blond beers at all; for starters, the label says that the main ingredient is maize! (There’s no mention of maize on the website – perhaps it’s a translation error?) The colour’s darker still than Maredsous – it really does look like a British bitter, or as if it’s had a little caramel added for colour (though there’s no mention of it on the label). There’s a faint maltiness in the aroma, which is much more pronounced when you come to drink it. Definitely an ale rather than a lager – and their website confirms that it’s top-fermented – though well on the refreshing side; like an IPA, perhaps.

Brown beers
(bruin bier/bière brune)

Leffe Brune/Bruin

Leffe’s brown beer is a rich brown colour with a hint of ruby about it. Surprisingly for something with such a strong colour, there’s very little to smell of it, at least when it’s cold. Another surprise is the sharpness; you’d really expect something much more mellow. Yet underneath the sharpness, there’s a lovely rich chocolate flavour, with plenty of maltiness. Much more memorable than the Leffe Blonde, I’d have to say.

Belgium doesn’t get much of a look-in when it comes to the world stage. Ask most Europeans, and they’ll think first and foremost of Brussels, and thus of the EU. If pushed, they might think of the odd famous Flemish artist, or Maneken Pis (there you are, you see – Brussels again).

You wouldn’t necessarily think of Belgium as a great destination for gourmets. Passing through it on the motorway, one thing you notice is that all the service area signs have an icon on them which looks like a little triangle with matchsticks poking out at the top. These are a representation of chips, the dish that Belgium’s perhaps most famous for, especially along with mussels. Don’t knock mussels; baked in breadcrumbs with butter and garlic, they’re heavenly.

But there are two food items that Belgium gives to the world which are probably unsurpassed anywhere. One of them is chocolates. (The Swiss might argue the toss over that one, and they might have a point as far as straightforward chocolate in bars is concerned. But they’d be struggling to come up with anything quite as wickedly luxurious as a box of chocolates from Leonidas or Godiva.)

The other, of course, is beer. The English and the Germans may think that their beer’s something to brag about, but when it comes to variety and quality, you’d be hard pushed to beat the Belgians, especially given the relatively small size and population of the country.

So we were delighted when we found that our local branch of Carrefour was stocking, not just one or two Belgian beers (they’ve always had a couple on the go – usually Hoegaarden or the three different coloured labels of Chimay) but about a dozen of them. Better still, the supplier was a local company based in our area!

This was too good a chance to miss. So we grabbed a couple of bottles of each (and more of some of them) and settled down to plan a couple of tasting sessions…

“White” (wheat) beer
(witbier/bière blanche)

Hoegaarden

We started off with this one as a control; we’d been used to drinking it in the UK and France (in fact, the branch of Londis just round the corner from us used to lay it in – at 30p less than Sainsbury’s price – because we were regular customers!). So we had a good idea of what it ought to taste like, and whether it had been heat-damaged at all.

We were glad to find that it was every bit as good as in Europe, with no evidence that the journey had harmed it. It’s a light-coloured beer, perhaps the colour of dark champagne, and cloudy when poured as recommended – you’re supposed to pour two-thirds of it, swirl the bottle around to loosen the yeast sediment at the bottom, then pour in the last third. This also results in quite a large head, which stands for quite some time.

It’s quite a fragrant beer, too, even herbal, and this shows in the zingy, zesty flavour. Wheat beers often seem to have an almost banana-like taste to them, and there’s evidence of this; but there’s a bit more fruit and herb beyond that. The reason’s quite simple. Unlike Germany (or, strictly speaking, Bavaria) Belgium doesn’t compel its brewers to use just water, malt, yeast and hops, so during the Hoegaarden brewing process they add Curaçao oranges and some coriander! Anyway, it’s a lovely refreshing drink for a hot day.

Read on for Part 2 - Blonds and Browns