The story of Belgian beer

I guess I don’t have to introduce many people to Belgian beers. But what is the real story behind the beer culture in our country? Many have tried to capture the history of our beers. I decided to make a story which brings us from the very beginning to where we are today and show the influence of history on the current beer trends.

Where does our beer culture come from?

This is the part you might already know. The history of our beer tradition goes back over centuries. It were in fact the Romans who brought beer to us in Europe. They didn’t invent it. It is believed they got to know it in the old empire of Mesopotamia, which is more or less Iraq, Kuwait and parts of Syria and Turkey today.

The first beer brewers were actually women at home. Since one of the biggest assets of beer is that you can keep it for a long time, it was a good product for supplies. That is why people just made it for themselves. We started taking over that habit in Europe as well.

How did we go to craft beer?

Now you have to take a leap to the Middle Ages, when religion had become a big thing in society and abbeys were important centres for harvests and other supplies. Monks were also doing crafts, of which brewing beer was one.

Monks were brewing beer to drink for themselves because the water quality in that time was terrible in most places and our region did not have the climate to grow grapes to make wine.

But still, those beers still originated from basic recipes and had no extra combinations of flavours. This would all change when brewers started using “gruit”, a mix of different herbs or hops, which were the abbeys favourite because they could preserve their beer better.

That is why hop fields became quite common in Flanders and they are still there today. In the 13th century brewers were obliged to use hops instead of gruit by new laws.

Except for West Flanders where the use of gruit was kept because Bruges was an important city in the production of gruit. So now we had hop and gruit based beers and that really widened the Belgian beer culture.

In the 16th and 17th century, beer was subject to lots of regulations to ensure the quality of the beverage. The German 'Reinheitsgebot' which said that beer should be brewed from water, barley and hops was one of the important laws of that time.

In Belgium there were lots of regional regulations which brought us “lambiek” beer, barley beer, white beer, brown beer and several other styles which we still know today.

By this time, beer was also made by commercial breweries. During the French revolution a lot of abbey breweries were actually destroyed because the monks were undermining the growth of other brewers.

Industrialized brewing

During the Industrial Revolution, brewing and beer culture in general changed a lot. The brewing process scaled up and more efficient methods were introduced to produce higher volumes of beer. This revolution would stop when the First World War kicked in. The Germans robbed Belgian breweries from copper vats, equipment and vehicles to support their war economy. This meant the end for a lot of Belgian breweries.

The big downfall

Shortly after that we had the economic crisis, followed by the Second World War. After all that misery, there were probably less than 1.000 active breweries left in the whole country and the small ones would suffer even more when the economy had to revive itself. Big investments were needed to start brewing again, so the big breweries started dominating the market.

The big return

In the sixties, there was a renewed interest for Belgian craft beers. This would actually get our beers to a point of global fame in the next decades. New breweries started: big, medium and local microbreweries. What really strikes is that the smallest breweries are mainly brewing beer for export because other countries were looking for those Belgian specialty beers. That trend has only continued in the 21th century until the point where we are today.

Present and future

At this moment, we see a new trend emerging. There are more and more hobby brewers who start bringing their own beer to their customers directly through beer fairs, local bars, etc.

This fits into a general evolution towards more authentic products. People are a bit done with big corporations. We look for added value and local things more often. Craft beers are definitely a part of that. So today business is booming and that probably will continue in the following years.

Another thing we see is that the Belgian beer influence actually influences craft breweries all over the world. In the USA, we see the rise of ”Belgian Style” beers. Those beers are American, but start from Belgian recipes or sometimes even collaborations between American and Belgian brewers.

All that leads to a globalized beer culture in which we also move away from strictly traditional recipes. Craft brewers now take classic beers as a start and go innovate those with new ingredients, different combinations, etc.

What strikes is that craft brewers are actually brewing at home again, just like people did at the very beginning of the beer story centuries ago.

My guess is there are many more interesting times coming up for beer.