Beer: Belgium’s upstart innovators

One thing is clear: They aren’t alone. Larger, less experimental Belgian breweries are dabbling in bitterer, more American-seeming beers (often labeled “Belgian IPAs”), and other young Belgian upstarts such as De Leite and de la Senne are innovating in their own ways. So during a trip to Europe this year, I spent two days in Belgium’s province of West Flanders to visit Alvinne and Struise and see what the future of Belgian brewing might look like.

In a musty farmhouse in the small city of Kortrijk, Alvinne’s Castelein, a special-education teacher, gave me a tour, accompanied by Davy Spiessens, the brewery’s only full-time employee, who oversees most of the actual brewing. (A third man, Marc de Keukeleire, is in charge of maintaining the yeast.) Above a ground floor filled with brewing tanks, a small bar adjoined the “shop.” Shelves were packed with not only Alvinne and Struise bottles — the breweries collaborate regularly and organize beer festivals together — but also beers from American breweries, such as Hoppin’ Frog and Lost Abbey.

(Deb Lindsey/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST) - Alvinne makes its Extra Belgian Ale with American hops.

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One Alvinne highlight, Freaky, was light and floral. “It’s inspired by our trips to England,” Castelein said: an English bitter made especially aromatic by American and Belgian hops, with a fruitiness from Belgian yeast. Another standout, the undeniably extreme Cuvee d’Erpigny — a 15 percent alcohol barleywine aged in white wine barrels — was Alvinne’s take on a beer from Norrebro, the celebrated Danish brewery. But the Cuvee Freddy, a riff on a sour Flemish old brown, seemed more typically Belgian, and it was particularly good.

Quality, however, is only part of the reason for Alvinne’s popularity, as Castelein is willing to admit: “We are a bit in the slipstream of Struise.” Struise, in contrast, doesn’t seem to be modest about anything. “We don’t have to go around and sell our beers,” Grootaert said. “People beg.”

That success was easy to spot at Struise’s headquarters, a former schoolhouse in the hamlet of Oostvleteren whose staff consists of Grootaert and the head brewer, Urbain Coutteau, plus two part-timers, Philippe Driessens and Peter Braem. The theme from “Footloose” played as Grootaert showed me rows of boxes containing bottles ordered through the brewery’s online “webshop.”

Struise’s reputation is almost entirely a consequence of the Internet. “In the early days, it was impossible for us to sell beer in Belgium,” Grootaert said. But after a RateBeer.com user in Denmark contacted Grootaert and tried his beer, Pannepot began circulating within the Danish beer-geek community, and its Web-savvy fans broadcast their approval to the rest of the world. Sales took off, and by 2008, when RateBeer analyzed more than 1.4 million user reviews to identify the world’s best brewers, Struise emerged as No. 1.

In keeping with this modern success story, my favorite Struise beer, the rich and complex Black Damnation Mocha Bomb, is unlike anything else Belgium has ever seen: a blend of three imperial stouts, one aged with Colombian coffee, one aged in Four Roses bourbon barrels and one aged in Jack Daniel’s barrels. Still, as Grootaert put it, “I think a beer has to carry some history behind it to be respected.” He showed me a bottle of Struise’s St. Amatus 12, a quadrupel that is similar to a sought-after monk-brewed beer, Westvleteren 12. The label resembled a stained-glass window: three saints, with the face of God above them.

The story behind the label? “It was a Canadian journalist that called Struise Brouwers a bunch of ‘self-promoting narcissistic bastards.’ So we said, ‘Okay, next time we make a label we’re going to put our faces on it.’ ”

The middle saint is Grootaert, flanked by Driessens and Braem. Coutteau, the head brewer, is God. A beer might need some history to be respected, but respected brewers apparently can be whoever they want.

Fromson is an associate editor at the Atlantic.