Best belgian beer

[Jon Miller]

pick one or a couple

(I had one tonight, extra credit to guess which one)

JM

[BlackCat]

Chimay Blue

[Dinner]

Westvleteren 12.

[alva]

Leffe (from a tap!)

[Spaced Cowboy]

A Belgian beer a night, probably take a year or more to try them all.

I've only had two on the list, Stella and Duvel.

I preferred the Duvel (Although the first time I had it, I was in Shanghai).

[regexcellent]

Only one I've even heard of is heineken and it's not on the list.

[Sava]

i've heard of stella, that's it

not bad

belgians should stick to waffles

[Dinner]

Only one I've even heard of is heineken and it's not on the list.

*Pats Reg on the head*

[dannubis]

Only one I've even heard of is heineken and it's not on the list.

Heineken is dutch crap.

[dannubis]

BTW, asking what beer is best is the same as asking which wine is the best.

What type of beer are you looking at.

I like Chimay Blue very much, but a La Chouffe is sometimes better. Which cheese you need to taste Orval.
For getting drunk a simple Duvel will do more than enough damage.

[MOBIUS]

Firstly that's a pretty crappy list considering there's hundreds to choose from! It misses out a few obvious ones like Bush (12% ), Delerium Tremens and Verboden Vrucht...

Anyway, as dannubis says, depends on the occasion really. I picked Orval cos I really like it and I only had one choice.

I once went to a place called Kulminator in Antwerp where the bar owner had moved from his old bar and in the process discovered a forgotten cellar full of really old and forgotten beers going back years (so the story goes), so not only were there hundreds of beers on the menu, but many of them had numerous 'vintages' as he found out that Belgian beer can actually improve with age! Or it was some gimmick to pull a fast one by charging tourists over the odds for out of date beer... Not sure if it's still there or whether they're able to keep unearthing 'forgotten supplies' or not. Anyway, it was awesome!

Out of the many I've tried, I really like:

Chimay
Duvel
Westmalle
Orval
Hoegaarden
Rochefort
Leffe
La Chouffe
Brugse Straffe Hendrik Blond - a local Bruges beer
Gueuze/Lambic from Cantillon, a brewery using the old traditional open air fermentation methods for a very tart kind of taste
Achel, quite difficult to get hold of, so it's nice to have a Belgian friend living here in Cardiff!

Plus a bunch of others I can't remember or are a bit crappy (Maes), or mass produced export **** (Stella - though I'm sure they have a nice version actually in Belgium!)) or touristy (Kwak) etc...

Oh and I'm quite partial to the fruit flavoured beers from brewers like Bellevue, Lindemanns, Timmermanns and Mort Subite. One of them is particularly good for the flavours, but I can't which - Timmermanns?

I like Belgian beers!

[Traianvs]

Yeah Jon, it's hard to choose just one, and a good number of them can't be compared really. I chose Rochefort because it's food and drink at the same time. Drink a few of those and you'll be writing world class poetry while tapdancing at the bar.

For a more subtle beer I'd go for Orval. For a local beer my preference goes out to Gouden Carolus, a beer from my hometown Mechelen (Malines).
For heavy drinking Chimay (blue) is my favourite.

[dannubis]

Rochefort

Poetry ... while drinking rochefort

[Jon Miller]

I said you could choose more than one.

I mostly wrote down beers I remembered drinking. I know there are many more and I know there were some 'big' ones I didn't include.

JM

[Jon Miller]

Chimay Blue and Duvel were both favorites for a while (last year).

Early favorites included Hoegaarden and Lindemanns Kriek (The latter was the first beer I liked).

JM