BEER AND PUBS

BELGIAN beer has been on my mind quite a lot in the past few weeks, I had to make a selection for the Bottled Beer Bar at Stockport Beer and Cider Festival, and I also hosted a Belgian Beer Night at Dexter and Jones in Knutsford (worth a visit if you’re out that way, incidentally).

More particularly I’ve been stuck by the quality and authenticity of some local UK interpretations of classic Belgian beers, or of beers influenced by Belgian brewing.

There is in fact some history of breweries here in the north-west producing remarkably authentic Belgian-style beers beers.

Back in the 1990s Liverpool’s long gone Passageway Brewery turned heads with some superb brews and if they’d been around in today’s craft scene they’d as likely as not be sought after cult beers.

It’s all down to the yeast of course.

Belgian ale yeasts can impart spicy, estery notes to beers.

It’s a very distinctive imprint and if you want to make a truly authentic Belgian-style beer you really need to use one.

Passageway Brewery got their yeast from the famous Chimay Trappist brewery and, while they may not use Chimay yeast, some local brewers are now successfully following the trail blazed by Passageway.

Let’s look at three which I picked up from Heaton Hops in Heaton Chapel where they cost £3.50 a piece.

Other beers hops should have one or more of them available. ●●Buxton Brewery Dubbel (7per cent)

A Dubbel is a classic Belgian beer style based in the monastic brewing tradition.

The style was really pioneered by the Westmalle Trappist abbey brewery but most are now made by secular concerns.

This is one of a range of Belgian-style beers recently produced by Buxton Brewery all of which hit their target in quite splendid fashion.

Dubbels are usually in the 6-7pc region, brown and gently spicy.

Here there’s sweet spiciness on the nose (perhaps a hint of cinnamon) and caramel, hints of chocolate and candied fruit notes in the sweetish palate which ends with a moreish dry finish. ●●Ticketybrew Tripel (8.2pc)

Duncan and Keri Barton’s Ticketybrew is based in a railway arch at Stalybridge and uses Belgian yeast in all of its beers.

To my taste one of two of them have misfired but their takes on Belgian beers always hit the mark.

This is the latest and follows on from a Blonde and a Dubbel.

Tripels are usually pale in colour and always higher in alcohol than a Dubbel, expect something in the 8-9pc region.

Again the Westmalle Trappist brewery seems to have set the pace in Belgium where it makes one of the Belgian benchmark tripels.

This one 8.2pc but, in the Belgian tradition, includes sugar in the recipe which serves to lighten the body and so makes an easy to drink beer despite the high strength.

There’s spice and fruit on the nose here followed by an almost juicy fruitiness as you drink.

There’s a growing warm alcohol glow on the finish. ●●Cloudwater White IPA (6.5pc)

White IPAs are not a Belgian beer style.

What they are, though, are beers with a spicy Belgian character, whether from the yeast or the addition of wheat beer spices such as coriander and dried orange peel, married to the extravagant hopping of a modern IPA.

They are usually wonderfully refreshing.

This is one of a series from Cloudwater (they make a series of most things, all good) using Mosaic and the experimental E431 hops for aroma. The label tells us that the yeast is in fact a Vermont yeast that imparts both Belgian spiciness and a ‘peachy fruity finish.’

It does too, but first there are spicy and herbal notes on the nose while as you drink there are fruit, herbs (a hint of lemon thyme perhaps) and spices jostling for attention. Then there’s the peachy fruit and a moderate but lasting bitterness.