Duvel is one of those rare masterpieces that comes along every generation or so and redefines our understanding of what beer is.

When it was first released back in 1970 people struggled to comprehend how a beer so light in colour could contain such intensity of alcohol and fruit flavour. It so radically defied the style rules of all beers before it that a new one had to be created to name it – a Belgium strong golden ale.

The story behind Duvel – the Flemish word for Devil that is properly pronounced ‘Duv-all’ – is a remarkable one, not least because  this palest of beers started out as a completely different style of beer altogether.

Between the two world wars Belgium drinkers couldn’t get enough of Scotch ales and the McEwans brand in particular. To see what made this beer tick celebrated brewing scientist Jean De Clerck teamed up with a small brewery called Moorgat based in the tiny village of Breendonk just north of Brussels.

Together they de-constructed McEwans’ Scotch Ale’s yeast (unlike today back then the beer was bottle conditioned and contained live yeast) to try and understand how it got its distinctly fruity flavours.

De Clerk managed to isolate the yeast strains he felt were most desirable and used them to create an experimental dark ale

However after the end of the Second World War and just as this darker Scotch ale hybrid was gaining popularity the trend for lighter pilsner-style beers swept across Europe. In response the Moorgat brewery, with De Clerk’s help, produced a lighter version of the beer.

It is this brew that a worker at the brewery supposedly sampled and remarked “That is the devil of a brew”, leading to the beer being named Duvel. The rest, as they say, is history.

What makes Duvel such an intriguing beer is its colour. It’s exceptionally difficult to create a strong balanced beer that it as pale as Duvel because the amount of malts needed to generate such alcoholic strength tends to colour beer bronze.

The Moorgat brewery uses an unusually pale malt that lends Duvel its famous faint golden glow as well as a firm, clean and slightly dry malt body.

To this is added Styrian Goldings and Saaz hops and then Duvel undergoes a particularly complex 90-day three-stage fermentation process involving warm and cold treatment.

Dextrose is added to boost the alcohol at the start of the brewing process and again halfway through when the beer is filtered and re-primed with a dose of yeast before being bottled.

The final result is an 8.5% ABV beer that outwardly has exceptional elegance and grace but inwardly wields the power and aggression of a cage fighter.

In look, colour and carbonation you could probably mistake Duvel for a fine champagne if it wasn’t for the enormous fluffy white head it always builds when poured.

Fruity aromas of pears and apples, white grape and peppery spices are drawn both from the hops and the descendent of the Scotch ale yeast that started this story off. In the mouth this beer’s pinhead carbonation lightens the sweet malts and shrouds the beer’s alcohol deceptively well.

Duvel is rightfully ranked as a beer classic and should be a well-visited stop on anyone’s journey through beer.

You can buy it at the Systembolaget and in terms of rating I’m giving it 4.6. Highly recommended.

What an amazing little brewery Brasserie Caracole – the creater of Saxo Bio – is.

Take a macro beer producer like Spendrups, spin it on its head and turn it around 360% and if you’re lucky you’ll end up with something like this delightful little artisanal Belgium brewery.

A hotchpotch of second-hand brewing equipment, wood-fired brew kettles, hand-filled bottles and labels individually applied by hand – this is brewing old school style!

Such a sleeves-up, hands-on approach to brewing can only result in beers with real depth and soul and Saxo Bio doesn’t disappoint.

An organic, unfiltered, unpasteurised Belgium Strong ale that looks like a luscious dessert in a glass, Saxo Bio has a cloudy body reminiscent of pressed apple juice topped with a huge whipped egg white head.

Lemons, grapes, apples and pears smothered in cream are all in the nose, supported by yeasty, spicy cloves and more than a pinch of herbs.

There are, in my opinion, several similarities to a better known Belgium strong ale, Duvel, although Saxo isn’t as dry and crisp, tending to be more creamy and banana-like, with a pleasant acidity that tingles the edges of the tongue.

I occasionally got an unwanted taste of over-ripe fruit but then beers made like this should have a few idiosyncrasies, shouldn’t they?

Almost as charming as the beer is the label artwork, depicting (as with all Brasserie Caracole beers) a snail on the bottle. The snail is the emblem of Namur, the province in southern Belgium this brewery is situated in and where the word for a snail in the local Namurois dialect is ”Caracole”.

So why the saxophone? It’s in honour of Adolphe Sax, the inventor of the saxophone, who was born nearby in the town of Dinant.

Quirky? Yes. Odd? Oh most definitely. But if you don’t want your beers to be interesting, you know what to do don’t you!

Saxo Bio

A Strong Ale from Brasserie Caracole, Belgium

7.5% ABV

Article Number: 1628

Are you already tired of staring out of rain-spattered windows waiting for the first snow to set in? Do you feel clumsy and lethargic because you can’t remember the last time you saw the sun?  If you do then you need to try this beer. It’s summer in a bottle.

La Trappe Witte was launched in October at the Systembolaget nestled among a crowd of much darker, more meaty beers that seemed on face value much more suited to the winter season.

I confess I thought the Systembolaget planners had lost the plot launching this bright and breezy Belgium-style Witbier (white beer) just as the cold weather set in. But perhaps on second thoughts they knew exactly what they were doing all along as this beer is more welcome than a flu jab and the side effects are much more enjoyable.

La Trappe Witte Trappist is the only Trappist Witbier made anywhere. By way of background explanation there are only seven Trappist beer producers in the world – six in Belgium and La Trappe (the brewery behind this beer) based in the Netherlands.

To qualify as a Trappist beer means passing three strict criteria; the beer must be brewed within the walls of a Trappist monastery under the supervision of Trappist monks;  the monks need to be in charge of operations and finally all proceeds must go to charities or the running of the brewery.

Witbier is the Belgium interpretation of a wheat beer, brewed with a proportion of unmalted wheat and then traditionally spiced with Curacao orange peel and coriander.

La Trappe Witte pours a stunning pale hazy gold. It looks like I’d imagine home-made lemonade would look like poured by a kind ol’ Texas grandma on a scorching hot day in the deep south.

And zesty lemons clearly play their part mixed in with the beer’s aroma too, together with flower petals, green herbs and spicy bitter oranges.

In the mouth the creamy wheat smoothens out the spice heat and you’re left with a mild and uplifting acidic finish, with a lingering sensation as though you’ve just squeezed a drop of lemon juice on your tongue.

La Trappe Witte Trappist

A witbier from De Koningshoeven in the Netherlands

5.5% ABV

Article Number: 1573-03

(ps: It’s the yeast that largely makes the beer cloudy. Remember to swirl the bottle halfway through pouring it into your glass so you get all that yeasty goodness!)