Global Beer Community Rallies Around Belgium After Bombings

The owner of Philadelphia’s Eulogy Belgian Tavern had simple but strong words for the IS rebels who detonated three bombs in Brussels Monday. Posting on his Facebook page, Michael Naessens, a first-generation American of Belgian descent wrote, “Heaven is an afterlife of Belgian beers, chocolates and frietjes that the terrorists shall never know.”

Like its neighbor France, whose capital city endured its own devastating attack last year, Belgium’s heart beats with a rich culinary culture, identified most readily by its diverse cheeses, gourmet chocolates and cones of thick, crispy, twice-fried fries. But increasingly, Belgium is drawing on its crucially influential 2,000-year-old brewing tradition to define itself at home and abroad, and for millions of deeply reverent fans around the world, Monday's attack was personal.

“Our thoughts are with the people of Brussels and Belgium. This is a very sad day for a city and country that means so much to us,” wrote Jeff Pillet-Shore, marketing director for the Belgian-inspired Allagash Brewing Co. in Portland, ME, in a statement released Tuesday.

Allagash founder Rob Tod narrowly missed becoming a victim himself, having arrived to the Brussels airport with five employees in tow for a flight home minutes after the bombs exploded. Fortunately, the group managed to fly home safely from Paris the same day.

By all available accounts, none of the dead or wounded worked in beer or brewing, and as far as can be discerned, the industry itself shouldn’t directly suffer. But as IS attackers prove with every mass murder they perpetrate against the west, terrorists don’t reserve their hatred for the inhabitants of their geographic targets. More insidiously, their actions aim to psychologically disassemble the very essence of what each of these populations holds most dear. For many Belgians and their visitors, beer tops that list.

“In Belgium, beer is more than just a frothy beverage - it is a culture,” proclaims the country’s official tourism website. “The country has enjoyed an unparalleled reputation for specialty beers since the Middle Ages,” it continues. “Connoisseurs favor Belgian beers for their variety, real flavor and character.”

A mix of 168 established, corporate, artisanal and family brewing companies -- including Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest -- produces an annual 15 million barrels (1 bbl = 31 gallons), just 1% of the world’s beer. But the nation of 11.2 million citizens holds an international record for making ten times that relative to the size of its population. Nearly two-thirds of that beer gets exported, mostly to France, then to The Netherlands and the United States, which practically doubled its Belgian imports between 2013 and 2014 and knocked Germany out of third place.

Belgian children are raised sipping low-alcohol brews that hover in the 2% ABV range, and the legal drinking age, for whatever it’s worth in Europe, is 16. A vast majority of Belgian adults enjoy drinking lagers, and to a lesser extent, ales, served at their local hangout, or “stamcafé,” and expect to do so out of stylistically appropriate glassware.

The country the size of Maryland produces 1500 different beers and directly employs 4,500 workers. It houses no fewer than eight brewing museums, with the Belgian Brewers association raising money for a grand new one in the former Brussels Bourse, set to open in 2018. The association has recently launched its first non-brand specific marketing campaign and it’s waiting to hear whether UNESCO will approve its beer culture for inclusion on its World Heritage list.

“Belgian beer represents a unique diversity, tradition and craftsmanship,” argues the Belgian Brewers’ latest annual report, from 2014.

In Belgium, monks first centralized brewing after the fall of the Roman empire and for sustenance created styles like the Abbey Blonde, Dubbel and Tripel whose unique and often complex flavors have spawned hundreds of replications that helped ignite the craft beer movement. The Trappist order, whose brewing members number approximately a dozen, produce some of the most sought-after and hard-to-get beers in the world. Just ask anyone who’s tried to score bottles from Westvleteren. Most likely, they either paid a Belgian at least $100 to bootleg a six-pack through the mail or they followed the monastery’s directions by calling during a narrow window to make an appointment to pick up no more than two cases at a time no more than once every 60 days.

Perhaps more than any other country, Belgium can claim responsibility for inspiring American and other craft brewers to inventive heights. With native airborne yeast strains that impart sour and funky flavors, early Belgian brewers unintentionally discovered these white-hot beers, often found in “farmhouse” styles like saisons, and some historians posit that it was the Gauls in current-day Belgium and its environs who first aged their beers in now-ubiquitous wooden barrels. Fans of Coors Brewing Co.’s best-selling Blue Moon and Allagash’s flagship White can thank Flemish monks for creating the first recipes for the refreshing, pale witbier style.

International interest in Belgian beers may never have been higher. Exports are at near record levels, and Belgian bars are spreading across the globe, popping up in places as far flung as Mauritius, Malaysia, Abu Dhabi, Central China, and Carlisle, PA. In Japan, a Belgian Beer Fest organized by the Belgian Brewers took place over five cities.

But for as much attention as it gets, not everything’s settling properly in Belgium’s beer belly. Successful campaigns against drunk driving have caused domestic beer consumption to plummet to some of its lowest levels in decades, and production is practically stagnant. Hit hardest are lagers, which can be viewed as the beverage of choice for mainstream drinkers, though specialty ales are on the rise.

The tax environment is proving difficult too. The Belgian government levies excise taxes that are double those in Germany, and despite an unsuccessful appeal to the European Union, the French are refusing reverse their large recent increase on excise taxes on imported beer.

“The challenges for 2015 are considerable. The year 2015 started slowly as regards volumes and the economic context continues to be difficult,” reads the Belgian Brewers’ 2014 economic report.

For all the wishy-washy indicators, the public still clamors to sample these beers at the source. It’s hoped that none of the countless tour operators who lead trips to the nation’s brewing landmarks will falter in the face of Monday’s attack on Belgian soil.

At least one American group will not be deterred from its eight-day excursion, scheduled to leave on April 17. Tour leader and Ale Street News editor Tony Forder sent this email to his 35 travelers the day of the attack.

“Like ourselves,” he wrote, “You must be shocked, saddened and outraged by the recent tragedies in Brussels. And no doubt some of you are anxious about our upcoming trip to Europe. And for some of you our trip to Denver two weeks after the 911 attack may have been brought to mind. On that occasion we remained steadfast, as we intend to now. … This is our 18th excursion to Belgium, or Beer Paradise as it is known, and we have never been disappointed, from the established breweries, to the mystical monasteries, to the neverending diamonds in the rough, there is always something to discover.”

No one, says Forder, has cancelled.