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.
