Beer: A Belgian Brew Master Shakes Things Up

"Two fingers! Two fingers of foam!" shouts Belgian brew master Alain De Laet over dinner at Brasserie Beck. The object of his wrath is our server, who is pouring the beer ever so gingerly down the side of the glass, allowing hardly any foam to form.

De Laet contends that the carbon dioxide needs to explode out of the beer, releasing the aroma and forming a dense, billowy head "two fat fingers" wide. "If you don't have that much foam, it means the bartender is being too generous."

Belgians take beer seriously. That's especially true for De Laet, general manager of the Huyghe Brewery in Melle (near Ghent), a business his family has run for more than a century. He spent four days in the United States in March to mark the 20th anniversary of his flagship brand, Delirium Tremens, the beer with pink elephants, green gators and purple dragons on the bottle.

Delirium tremens is an alcohol-induced dementia characterized by hallucinations and violent shaking, but De Laet says the brand isn't making fun of abusive drinking, nor is it an inducement to get drunk. "It's a gimmick," he says. "It's not our aim to be offensive."

Rather, the name evokes an irreverent, puckish, let's-push-the-limits attitude common among the Belgians. Other strong blond ales of this ilk have sinister names: Duvel ("devil"), Lucifer, Brigand, Piraat. Treat them as a red flag: The higher alcohol contents of these beers (Delirium Tremens measures 8.5 percent by volume) demand moderation. As it happens, the price -- nearly $10 for a 25-ounce bottle of Delirium Tremens at Whole Foods Market -- tends to limit consumption.

Delirium Tremens was first brewed in 1989 for the Italian market. The label was designed by an art student who had flunked graphic design; he received two cases of beer as remuneration. The unusual opaque gray bottles came from a German brewery that had overstocked and was willing to dispose of the extras cheaply. By the time the first run of bottles had sold out, the beer had become so popular that the brewery didn't dare change the design.

"It's probably the most unconventional beer label you could ever imagine," says importer Martin Wetten, who despite occasional resistance to the name has gotten the beer into 48 states. Wetten also imports two line extensions: the darker, maltier Delirium Nocturnum and the winter seasonal Delirium Noel.

Delirium Tremens pours a hazy gold, with notes of apples and lemon and a soft, sweet spiciness. De Laet notes that a pinch of coriander goes into the beer, but much of the flavor comes from the yeast. Three strains are used, and the beer undergoes a secondary fermentation in the bottle. There is some bitter hop in the aftertaste and an alcoholic warmth. The beer is assertive enough to accompany most fowl and red meat dishes, and it would pair as well with Indian or Thai cuisine as with traditional Belgian fare such as beef carbonnade.

For De Laet, it's not enough to master the pouring regimen. Like so many other Belgian beers, Delirium has its own brand-specific glass. It's goblet-shaped, slightly tapered at the top and suitably adorned with pink elephants. The "balloon glass," as De Laet calls it, is voluminous to hold the thick foam and wide enough at the brim to stick your nose in. Serve him with a different vessel at your peril. "I was in the middle of Wisconsin where I got a pint glass of Delirium," he says. "I said, 'This is not a Coca-Cola I'm drinking!' "

Altogether, the Huyghe Brewery makes 22 beers, says De Laet, including 12 fruit beers. Available stateside is Floris Apple. It's diluted with 25 percent pure fruit juice to reduce the alcohol to a mild 3.5 percent by volume, and it has a tart, intensely fruity flavor, making drinking it not unlike sucking on a Jolly Rancher candy. At the Brasserie Beck dinner, it was served as an aperitif but would have gone splendidly with the chocolate mousse dessert. Huyghe makes other brews that are not available here, including several exotic flavors (palm nut, banana, coconut) under the Mongozo line of fair-trade beers.

"I am the craziest brewer in Belgium," De Laet asserts.

At the Brasserie Beck beer dinner, De Laet shared the spotlight with two other Belgian brew masters: Charles Leclef of the Het Anker brewery in Mechelen, maker of the strong ale Gouden Carolus, and Xavier van Honsebrouck of the Von Honsebrouck brewery in Ingelmunster, which brews the spontaneously fermented line of St. Louis lambics.

De Laet calls his dinner companions colleagues, not rivals. "We are not competitors, certainly not for the export market," he says. "We are producing such different products, we have entirely different consumers for them."

Greg Kitsock's Beer column appears monthly. He can be reached at food@washpost.com.