Belgian Cuisine - Beer

Beer

For a comparatively small country, Belgium produces a very large number of beers in a range of different styles – in fact, it has more distinct types of beer per head than anywhere else in the world. Almost every style of beer has its own particular, uniquely shaped glass or other drinking-vessel.

A number of traditional Belgian dishes use beer as an ingredient. One is Carbonade (French: the Flemish term is stoofvlees or stoverij), a stew of beef cooked in beer, similar to Boeuf bourguignon. The beer used is typically the regional speciality — lambic in Brussels, De Koninck in Antwerp, and so on — so that the taste of the dish varies. Another is rabbit in gueuze. In't Spinnekopke, Brussels, and Den Dyver, Bruges are famed for their beer cookery.

The varied nature of Belgian beers makes it possible to match them against each course of a meal, for instance:

• Wheat beer with seafood or fish.
• Blonde beers or tripel with chicken or white meat
• Dubbel or other dark beers with dark meat
• Fruit lambics with dessert