I found two white-label style beers from De Prael in Ton Overmars on Saturday. One was an IPA:
The other a vaguely Stout-like beer:
Until now, De Prael had stuck with the Belgiany-ish sort of stuff Dutch small brewers have made for the last 30 years.
The IPA isn't bad. None of that grapefruit shit I hate, just a pleasant, straightforward bitterness. I wasn't as convinced by the Zwaart Reek: a bit muddy both in appearance and flavour.
I hope the Dutch beer world isn't going to end up all IPA's and Imperial Stouts like some other countries. They have their place, but if that becomes all you get everywhere in Europe, I don't see that as an enrichment of beer culture. There are plenty of geeks all over Europe who wish, beer-wise, that they lived in the USA. I hope it doesn't become reality. Because that's my nightmare.
Sad that I'm reduced to drinking from a cheapo Koniginnendag Leffe glass. My butter fingers dropped my lovely St. Bernardus glass into the sink a few weeks ago. Haven't got around to buying a new one yet.
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More IPAs and stouts than ever at the Bruges beer festival last weekend.
Around 21 this year - 2009 had about half that number, so I reckon you're about right - it's a trend, rather than a deluge, at the moment, at least.
Rod, I wish I could have made it to Bruges to see for myself.
You were missed, I can assure you. Several people asked if you we're coming. Always next year, of course.....
As a counter to the IPA trend, there seemed to be more sour beers too, with good examples from new boys Verzet (Oud Bruin) and Tilquin (Oud Gueuze). New producers are not necessarily abandoning trad beers.
Rod,
I had some Tilquin at the ZBF last year. Pretty good stuff.
Two of Amsterdam's breweries have introduced an IPA in the last 12 months. I quite like the Ij one. But I dread the type of IPA overload you have in the US spreading here.
Ron,
While I kind of agree on the IPA/Stout "overload" in the US, until they combined start outselling adjunct lagers, Im not gonna worry about it any.
In other words, there is a bigger overload to worry about.
Of course, sours are booming in the US too, so maybe you dont have to worry about it either.
As you say, the American flavour has its place, but it seems to getting undue attention from European brewers. Even German brewers are starting to notice as mentioned in Stan Hieronymous's fine new book on hops (a must-read for anyone here).
What needs asking is why well-hopped, traditional-tasting English-style beers are so few on the international scene. These beers, which are the inspiration for the U.S. pale ales/IPAs, need to stand up and be counted. Why are brewers not making more of them?
The answer may be in Stan's book, where I was shocked to read that only a few thousand acres are being devoted to hop culture in the U.K. today, down from a peak of around 70,000 in the late 1800's. Not just that, but growers there are starting to raise some U.S. varieties, notably Cascade, in response to demand.
Germany and the U.S. have much, much greater acreage under cultivation than the U.K.
English hops need to be available to make English-style beers. Without the hops though, the beers won't much see the light of day (outside of the U.K. at any rate). The new school will become the norm.
Gary
Gary,
there have been plenty of English beers brewed in the last 150 years using no British hops at all. It's possible to brew English-style beers without British hops.
Ron, in general terms, agreed. But I am talking primarily about pale ale/IPA. Stout is different because classically, porter had little aroma, its keynote was an incisive, almost neutral, bitterness (Guinness still has this).
But for pale ale and IPA, which are the stars of the American brewing firmament, you need English-grown hops to lend the keynote taste. Even where not 100% of the hop bill they (traditionally) were the majority and also the type used for dry-hopping.
There should be as many of these English-tasting beers, if not more, next to the American pale ales that are the rage on the Continent. There aren't. This is due IMO to three reasons when one drills down further: i) fashion; ii) the hops aren't available in large quantities. I was shocked again at how small is the acreage of the English hop fields today - Slovenia's is much bigger for example; and iii) English brewers focus on cask beers to showcase the English taste in pale beer. They abandoned bottle-conditioning on any scale. But the Americans didn't only turn bottle-conditioning and even can- conditioning into big business, they perfected the bottling and canning of rich-tasting, filtered (but unpasteurized) beers. There is no analogue to this in the U.K. that I am aware of.
When you add it all up, it is clear why the English pale ale taste, which is superlative but reduced almost to a rump in international terms, has become junior to the American big brother.
Gary
Ron,
IIRC, in one of your pieces a while back on the importation of hops into the UK, you had quotes from brewers about how the North American hops were inferior and so only used for bittering, they stuck with english hops for late additions.
I think english-style beers would lose a lot without goldings or etc. Take a bitter and add late additions of citra instead of goldings, and Im not sure how "english-style" it remains.
Rob,
there have been plenty of British beers brewed without Goldings. Saaz and German hops have been in their place.
Gary,
Also, sometimes unfiltered and unpasteurized, like Bell's, for example.
Ron, did you let those beers settle after you brought them home? They look like bottle conditioned beer that was jostled around. Or they're really making a poor product, in terms of clarity.
"None of that grapefruit shit"
Blasphemy, Ron.
Dana,
no. I drank them an hour otr two after buying them. I've another bottle of each that I'll try later. We'll see how clear they are.
Lady Luck Brewing,
I simply don't like grapfruit. That and mustard are about the only foods I really dislike.
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