Belgian beer

You want to hear something funny? Even though I drink it all the time, I'm remarkably ignorant about Belgian beer. Why is this? I'm not totally sure.

Look at my almost-comprehensive European Beer Guide. Can you see which major brewing nations aren't covered? I'll give you a few minutes to take a look.

In the meantime, I'll continue. The answer will follow shortly.

When a conversation gets heavy about Belgian styles I try to keep my mouth shut. You can't be an expert on everything (or anything, in many cases). Knowing the limits of your expertise is particularly important if you're a smart-arse know-it-all like me. Exposing your ignorance on one topic tends to devalue your opinion on all others. So when the topic of "What's the origin of Dubbel and Tripel?" comes up, I keep shtum. Oud Bruin? Not the foggiest. It appears to be pretty ancient, but appearances can be deceptive. I've not seen the name crop up in the medieval/renaissance period. There it's all Keut (however you spell it), Jopen and the like.

Britain and Belgium. That's the answer to the question above. The only part of the UK I cover is Northern Ireland. For Belgium I just have a short Antwerp pub guide and a very incomplete brewery guide. The brewery guide is really there to complement my Dutch pub guide pages. So many draught beers in Dutch pubs are from Belgium that it really was necessary.

Why haven't I bothered with those two countries? Because I didn't need to. Someone else had already done the work for me. I'm sure I'm boring you with this, but I'll say it again in case there are any newcomers. My website has been created for my own convenience. The UK is so well covered by The Good Beer guide that, living outside the country, I could never hope to come anywhere near matching it. And the GBG fulfills my needs when visiting Britain. The same is true for Tim Webb's Good Beer Guide to Belgium. I see no point in producing an inferior version of his work.

Because I've never needed to research it, I lack decent sources about Belgian beer. I've no old brewing manuals, with the exception of a handful of magazines. No archive documents. Nothing. Just Michael Jackson's "Great beers of Belgium". Not much point lecturing you on the basis of that.

St. Bernardus Abt. That's the Belgian beer I drink most. Very few others, truth be told. La Chouffe sometimes when I'm out. Westmalle Tripel in pubs with a very limited choice. Not very adventurous, am I? Adventures - they're for kids and pirates. And spacemen. I'm keeping my feet on the ground.

So if I start pontificating about Belgian beer, remind me I don't know what the feck I'm talking about.