Re: Belgian Beers brewed in UK -- London Guide to Belgian Beer

The London Guide to Belgian Beer

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 15:15:59 08/31/04 Tue
Author: Bill Stansfield
Subject: Re: Belgian Beers brewed in UK
In reply to: Andrew Chambers 's message, "Belgian Beers brewed in UK" on 21:10:25 08/08/02 Thu

Do we have any real knowledge that Leffe or Hoegaarden are being brewed in the UK or brewed to a different recipe? I'm not being ingenuous, but I do try to keep a factual note of where various "foreign" beers are brewed. Badger (Hall and Woodhouse) are perfectly open about their Hofbr�u beers being brewed in Blandford not Munich. And Sam Smith similarly about their licensed Ayingerbrau beers coming from Yorkshire not Bavaria.

Occams Razor suggests that the cost of setting up a brewing line in the UK for minority beers when there is easily sufficient brewing capacity for those same beers at Leuven and Strasbourg make it unlikely that Interbrew would be bothered to brew over here, but who can say? Similarly I don't think it would be economic to brew relatively small quantities of a different recipe beer for the UK. However the more Hoegaarden gets drunk over here the more likely it would be for it to be UK brewed.

The problem is that taste is notoriously unreliable. I know from past experience back in the days on the committee of my local Camra branch some of the claims and descriptions for "great pints of beer� turn out to be people tasting with their hearts not their palates. I also know from drinking Leffe Blonde in France (where there's little alternative)that these ales (and I include Affligem and Grimbergen) seem to need greater care in cleaning lines and serving than lagers and more than they often get. I�ve had some pretty nasty glasses of these beers on draught in London and very often served at the wrong temperature. But then there are still bars that bring back ones faith in beer. Leffe blonde may not be a great beer but it beats the hell out of English brewed pilsner/lagers WHEN SERVED WELL.

If you have any DEFINITE knowledge of any foreign beer now brewed in the UK (not obvious fakes like Stella Artois of course) I'd be very grateful if you'd let me know, preferably with details of the brewery (e.g. Kirin brewed by Chas. Wells in Bedford)

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]