Hidden Beers of Belgium with Breandán Kearney – BeerSmith Podcast #315
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Brandon Carty joins me this week to discuss his new book, Hidden Beers of Belgium. This is Beersmith Podcast number 315.

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This is Beersmith Podcast number 315 and it's early December 2024. Brandon Carney joins me this week to discuss his new book on the hidden beers of Belgium. Thank you to this week's sponsor is Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine. They've recently launched an all-new experience called Craft Spirits and Distilling. If you make or love spirits, check out spiritsanddistilling.com for recipes, how-to videos, their Spirits and Distilling podcast, and much more. Again, that new site is spiritsanddistilling.com.

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And finally, a reminder to click on that like and subscribe button on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, or whatever platform you're listening on. Clicking those buttons is a great way to support the show. And now let's jump into this week's episode. Today on the show, I welcome Brandon Carney, the author of Hidden Beers of Belgium. He has been recognized by the North American Guild of Beer Writers, British Guild of Beer Writers, and Belgian Podcast Awards. Brandon, it's great to have you on the show. How are you doing today?

I'm doing very well. It's great to be here. Thanks so much for having me on and I'm really looking forward to the conversation. Yeah. You got your book in the background. I got a copy right here. How are things going with the new book launch?

Really good. It's been pretty exciting the last few months. We had a series of launches here in Europe. We had a big launch in the Brewer's House on the Grand Place in Brussels. Then we had a launch event in London. And the book came out in the US on the 10th of November. It's being distributed by an American distributor there. So yeah, quite excited to see the response to that.

Well, it's a beautiful book, a lot of color pictures, and I really enjoy it. It's all about Belgian beers and highlights a number of them. Can you give us a quick overview of the book and maybe what motivated you to write it?

Yeah, so I obviously I'm not from Belgium, as you can hear from my accent. I'm originally from Ireland and I moved here in 2013 and kind of was immediately captivated by Belgian beer as a way to understand, you know, Belgian life, society and culture more generally. So I kind of did a bunch of research.

sort of qualifications, courses to scale up on beer knowledge and brewing here in Belgium. And I basically started reporting on Belgian beer by going to breweries and writing for magazines like Belgian Beard Food Magazine. I started writing for magazines in the US and the UK.

So I've been doing that for the last 10 years and kind of a lot of that reporting around the country kind of culminated in what, you know, this book has become. I connected with a photographer called Ashley Joanna, who is originally from the

New York, New Jersey area in the Northeast of the States, but had been living in Belgium for a couple of years. And together we sort of wanted to visualize the stories that I was reporting. And then we hooked up with a publisher in Antwerp called Lister who make, you know, really beautiful books. And the kind of the vision for the book was essentially, um,

kind of an inspiring narrative about the people and places that these beers come from. We wanted it to be a resource for people, like a guide almost, for people that wanted to discover lesser known beers in Belgium, which, you know, fuel the whole, I guess, UNESCO World Heritage sort of reputation of Belgian beers. And we also wanted it to be

sort of useful for homebrewers and commercial brewers in terms of the information we could gather from these producers about ingredients, process, the decisions they took in production. So, yeah, it's kind of like some sort of a cross between a coffee table book, a guide book,

sort of production tips and inspirational narrative. That was the vision. Whether we pulled it off, I think is up for readers to say, but we're really proud of it and glad that it's out in the world. And yeah, Belgium's kind of the Disneyland of beers. I mean, they've got every single style, it seems like in Belgium. How do you, how do you go about choosing which, which beers to write about? Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, obviously there are a lot of, a lot of beers, so there had to be some sort of a,

a guideline that we had to follow. We put some sort of rules in place to help us. So like we had some basic rules like the beer had to be produced in Belgium, you know, not like brewed somewhere else and packaged in Belgium or vice versa, that it should be an actual brewery or blendery. So with a physical facility and not sort of beers that were contracted on behalf of another entity.

should be independent, that it should be beers which were regularly produced and also readily available, that it was in business for a certain period of time. There were certain rules about quality and know-how from the producer.

um, beers that were largely unknown. We also wanted the beers to have like genuine or authentic stories that were interesting to people. Um, so we kind of, at the start of the book, we laid out what our, what our kind of vision for a hidden beer would be, but obviously there were, there were more other, more nuanced considerations. So, um,

For example, I wanted to make sure that, you know, Belgium was geographically represented so that we had, you know, beers from different parts of the country. And some regions are, you know, more heavily represented in Belgian beer just because of the density of breweries in those regions. So that was kind of took a lot of curation. We wanted to have style diversity because you can't have a book of like 24 triples, 24 IPAs. You know, you wanted to represent everything from wit beer to Saison to Au Brun to Hoppy Ales.

There were certain producers I was keen to showcase. And I think also like the uniqueness of story, because you don't want like 24 stories that are all the same. You know, even if the beers are all great, you want to show off kind of the diversity of the stories in Belgian beer. And I think that's also important.

What will help people connect? Because these are all matters of human nature and people overcome stuff and they fight to survive and they have things happen to them which they then have to deal with. So yeah, there was sort of a bunch of thinking. It obviously started with a pretty long list down to the final list. And we have 24 deep dive profiles, but then we also have, I think, 60 beers listed at the back, which are kind of

an extra bunch of beers to check out. And I mean, you, you've got some amazing beers. Uh, is this, would you describe, I mean, a lot of them are very small breweries, obviously because of hidden beers of Belgium, right? Um, would you describe these as craft beers? I guess I wouldn't personally. Yeah. Um, because I'm not sure what that means. And I want to be very careful with my words. Um, I understand that in the States you have, uh,

a Brewers Association defined term, craft, which has some meaning in terms of the size and there are different criteria there. I'm just not sure that, well, generally in beer, but specifically in Belgian beer, whether it's helpful. For example, you have obviously a small brew pub producing traditional triples. You might argue that that's craft, but what if the quality of that is pretty poor?

Rodenbach is a very large institution with like 294 massive fooders, which is now owned by a Dutch brewing conglomerate called Bavaria. Yet what Rodenbach does might not be characterized as craft under those descriptions because of, you know, but what they're doing is something very unique and, you know, you could argue artisanal in a certain way. So

I think there's a lot of baggage with the term. And there's just so much variety of types of producer and types of beer in Belgium that I prefer not to use the word craft. And I just hope people will understand why I do that. Well, Brandon, your book highlights a lot of specific small commercial beers. And it's divided into chapters based on the character of the beer. So let's start with the specific maybe thirst crushers.

Which are low alcohol drinkable beers. Can you highlight one of those that you really enjoy? Yes. You're right that, you know, for the most part, it's smaller independent breweries. Although I would say that there's also sort of larger family brewers with beers that are not as well known just again, to, to emphasize the diversity of that. So like,

Brasco Dupont has a beer in the book, which is Triomphe. It's a smoked ale, and everyone will know Dupont from Moinette and Saison Dupont, but actually very few people know about their smoked ale Triomphe, which has an interesting story on its own, connected to a big institution here in Ghent. But yeah, so in terms of like the smaller breweries, one of the beers in Thirstquencher's section is a beer called Colica, which means small hill. And it's the creation of a couple of,

who are cycling obsessed and the small hill is, you know, Colic is cycling parlance for a particular type of hill that you cycle. But their story is quite interesting because they went to the States for a number of years and it was there that they kind of were inspired to begin their brewery and taproom project. They stayed in

the area around Chicago, and they really were exposed to US taproom culture. They travelled all around the country in America. And when they came back, they opened up a small taproom and brewery in Kessilow, which is a really nice area of Leuven. And their first beer, and still their most successful beer, is a Cremale, this Colica beer.

And I think, you know, when they went to the States, what actually happened was that they were cycling around Lake Michigan and Bart had, one of the owners of the brewery, had a serious cycling accident. And

And he was in hospital for a long time. And because of that accident, they weren't able to go on a skiing trip that they had planned. And instead they started to visit some breweries. So they would sit down in these tap rooms. They would, you know, put, he would put crutches down and he would chat with people. And then they, they kind of discovered Creamy Ale.

And, you know, easy drinking U.S. beers. I mean, Bart calls the Cream Ale a lawnmower beer. I think maybe that's what also people in the U.S. Cream Ale is actually a pretty rare beer here, but there are a few famous, you know, Genesee Cream Ale and a few others that have become popular. And it has caught on with a small number of craft breweries as well. But it's kind of rare here, actually. But it is, I think you're accurate when you say it's a lawnmower beer.

Well, that was what Bart said to me. And, you know, if you consider that it's rare in the US, think about how rare it is in Belgium. And, you know, this might be the only cream ale in Belgium. So this very interesting top room in this nice neighborhood in Leuven.

They also have, it's an old Renault car garage. They have, you know, I think it's like four or five, 10, 20 hectolitre tanks, small bar. Everything is covered in cycling paraphernalia. So the bar stools are actually like bike seats. Oh, wow. They have wheels everywhere. It's a very family and community oriented place where kids are welcome. They have a paid forward scheme. And,

And, you know, the beer is just really good. It's always like super fresh because they're just pulling it from tanks. They have really good quality control. And, you know, they're obviously doing other Belgian styles as well as like international, internationally inspired beers. But, you know, as an easy drinking beer after a long cycle on your little hill, Colic is just a really interesting beer and one that I would be keen for people to check out if they're ever passing through Leuven. That's awesome. Yeah.

Well, one of the things I really enjoy about your book is that each of the beers you highlight a story, a backstory perhaps. Can you share with us one of the backstories, one of your favorite backstories tied to a brewer and a particular beer? Yeah. I mean, there's so many interesting ones. Some of them are kind of more quirky, like the story of Brawley Canuda, which is in a part of Odenarde in East Flanders. And

There, the brewery is right beside a cemetery and the water that the brewery uses for brewing water comes from underneath the cemetery. So there's this rumour in the town or the village, Eanna, that the water is taken through the dead bodies of the people of the village and then used to brew the beer. Actually, the villagers call the beer Kerkhof Supp, which means cemetery juice in English.

So, you know, I asked the... That doesn't sound like an attractive marketing point there, I don't think. Well, I asked the brewer about this, thinking that he would deny it and, you know, think it was completely, you know, ridiculous. But he was like, yeah, I mean...

I think that's the case. And, you know, he was totally proud of that fact. And, you know, the thing is, the brewery itself has like a massive history. It started like in the mid 1800s as a soap factory. And Alphonsus Canuda, the great, great grandfather of the current owners, who are three Canuda brothers, basically have taken it on. And it has this legacy. It's brewing like an old brown and a cherry version of an old brown beer.

And the town itself is connected to World War I and particular to some regiments that saved, US regiments that saved them in the war. And the symbols of the regiment of that US, of the US regiment are all over the brewery and all over the village. It's a symbol of a bison. So, you know, the beer, the bison, this is like a cherry old brown.

is really all about the community and the fact that, you know, the older people who are now passed away might be part of that fear adds to the kind of the community vibe of it. And it's really...

I mean, it's obviously, it's a commercial brewery, but it's not, it's not one, it's not a big brewery that markets itself. It's really just, it's more like a heritage project actually. And that's, you know, an interesting one. But I mean, there are so many great stories in the book. Passepartout is one about a Belgian brewery that lies inside the Netherlands. So there is an enclave of Belgium inside the Netherlands. So you have to basically...

step out of it you're totally surrounded by the Netherlands but that's a piece of territory that's owned by Belgium and that's the Dr. van de Korenar a brewer called Ronald Meganink who you know in a way kind of defies boundaries in the things that he does because he is brewing in Belgium he's actually originally from the Netherlands in

in a Belgian brewery. He's using a lot of American yeast and hop-forward profiles, but he's also doing barrel aging. All his beers are French names, and he's nowhere near the Walloon or French border. So it's a very interesting sort of example of how you don't have to do what people say. You don't have to stick to rules. You can cross boundaries. And this kind of enclave, exclave, and the interesting history of the area sort of ties into that. And then you have more...

I think human, more human-based stories of inspiration, like the story of Tilka, Pierre Tilka, who is this Walloon blender of Husa from Namur, who moved to closer to Brussels and is now producing Lambic. And, you know, he was very much the outsider as one of the few non-Husa

sort of Flemish producers of Hughes. I mean, you have Cantillon, of course, but they're not within Hutterall, which is the membership organization that represents most of the Lambic producers. And, you know, for him to force his way in, you know, he basically had to do two things. One was, you know, create Lambic of high quality and get noticed and be respected, which he did. And the second was to

do something new that would also get noticed. And what he did was he was one of the first to use fruits which aren't normally used. So obviously, you know, cherry and raspberry are the common fruits that are used in production of spontaneously fermented beers in that region. And he came out with a plum kooza about 15 years ago, maybe even less than that. And that kind of

I think spoke to a lot of younger producers. It spoke to people about the possibilities of what you were able to do with traditional Belgian Lambic. Interesting. Do the plums come through well? Cause I know it's a, can be difficult to make beer with plums. They do. They do. And, um, I mean, in, in talking to Pierre Tilkin, you learn like the, the, of all the things that he tried, you know, originally trying plums from certain parts of Belgium, but then switching to plums from Alsace and France issues with de-stoning, um,

issues with distribution freshness i mean usually you want a fruit that's more tart or more acidic to uh just just just from a pure flavor perspective but interesting sure and i and i think that to get the flavor through but also to keep it as you know a citrus forward malsa lambic yeah um is the skill and it's not just like an experimental beer that he did once off this beer is

really showed people like what you could do with fruit. And it's still one of his most important beers in his portfolio. So very interesting story. You know, the outsider that, that sort of has to force his way in into like a system, a political system of like strong egos, strong personalities, um, a lot of sort of family baggage and across all the different producers. And so that's just to say that like all the stories are kind of very different. And, um,

And, you know, the book is just full of the fascinating characters that I encountered over the last 10 years, basically. Well, let's jump on to, we were just talking about, you know, Plumish beers, but let's talk about Acid Test, which is your chapter on sour and wild yeast beers. Belgium's obviously very well known for their sours, but what makes some of these beers unique? Well, I think, you know,

I mean, there are so many acidic components of a lot of different types of beers. So, for example, obviously, Old Brown, you have, I think sometimes in American categorization, you also have some sort of subcategory called Flemish Red Brown.

Yeah, I think there's a Flemish red category. BJSAP is all, but in Belgium on the ground, the, you know, Ode Brown is the category. And within that, there are multiple different ways of production, which are extremely hard to categorize.

And, you know, obviously fruited versions of that, but, you know, obviously the spontaneously fermented beers are included, our Lambic, Husa, you know, all the fruited versions of those. And I mean, but there's other pale ales which are, you know, potentially conditioned with protonomyces. There are like acidic elements from, you know, Saison beers. Saison, yeah.

But I think one of the beers in the acid test is a beer, Achusa from Hedboronarf, which is

One of the newer blenders of Huse in Belgium, it's a guy called Senna Elenbos, who originally worked at Drie Fontaine with Michael Blankart and Armand de Belder. And, you know, he's a young, ambitious guy who really cares about the providence of his beers. He knows all the farmers that he works with, you know, by first name. He is very careful about, you know, how he manages components of blending.

And, um, you know, his story is really about, um,

saving his family farm and starting this new business in uncertain times. His parents were going through a divorce and the farm where he had grown up and where his own family had a lambic brewery back in the 1960s, all the way back to the early 20th century, basically was in jeopardy. So it's kind of a story about how he would save that. And it's also like an educational story about

the mistakes he made and the things he learned. There's a scene in the story where he attempts to make a hazelnut lambic because he felt when he was younger that some of the lambics he tasted had a sort of a hazelnut component or a nuttiness to them. So he says, I'm going to make one with hazelnuts. So he does this in Drie Fontaine as a test and he pulls out this very milky, cloudy,

unappealing, messy sample of like a three or four week old Hazelot Lambic. And he goes over to Armand de Balder, who is this iconic Lambic producer in Belgium who recently passed away. And he sort of says, Armand, will you please taste this beer and give me some tips? And Armand looks at the glass, sees the cloudy mess that's in front of him, and he just

pushes the glass back to Senna, this young protagonist and says, if you don't respect this beer enough to age it, then I won't respect you enough to taste it. And so he talks about like the lessons he learned from people who have been doing this for, for years and years and years. And, you know,

you know, time aging patients are all elements that are, you know, not ingredients or production processes, but actually are some of the more important things that you need to learn when you're producing Lamech over a long period of time. Yeah.

Yeah, so, I mean, but I've been really impressed with Senna's Lambic. So he makes really interesting fruit beers. He's also doing sort of cider, lambic, symbiotic blends. But his simple Cusa is malsa, soft, lactic acid, good barrel character, very drinkable. And, you know, I think that anyone who's interested in

spontaneous fermentation from Belgium should definitely be checking out Hood Borenert. Wow. That's pretty cool. That's very interesting. Well, Belgium's also very well known for their Abbey style ales. And while you don't cover the major Trappist breweries, these beers still have a big influence in Belgium, don't they? Absolutely. And, you know, obviously I can't profile one of the Trappist breweries because they

they're not hidden beers, right? Everyone knows about them. Not exactly. Right. So, you know, it would, it would be completely inappropriate to have them in this book. However, what I would say is that so many of the beers in the book are heavily influenced by what the Trappist breweries have done. Uh, even to the point where, for example, there's a beer in the book called, uh, Arden, Arden Saison, which is from Brasserie Minna. Um, the, one of the head brewers there, um,

did his kind of engineering and biochemical internship at Rochefort, which is one of the Walloon Trappist breweries. Sure. And the brewery itself, Minna, Philippe Minna and Catherine Minna, they went to Orval to source yeast for their like conditioning yeast for that particular beer. Yep. And, you know, Cuvée de Villers, which is another beer in the book, which is a story of,

a kind of a professional pianist, like musician transitioning into a brewing engineer for a number of different breweries in Belgium. Wow. His family were inspired by Orval and then created this Brett pale ale called Cuvée de Villers, which is like a really interesting and like one of the better like Brett conditioned amber ales in Belgium outside of Orval.

Um, so, you know, even like, like the winter reel from Dillawains, which is also in the book is like, you know, it talks about like how a family of sisters, you know, created a brewery in a town where kind of, they were excluded from doing things when they were younger.

Um, because they were women, like they were excluded from this big festival where only brothers could participate to, to basically create the biggest brewery in the town and then be, be the main sponsor of the festival from which they were once excluded. Um, but their beer is like a winter ale. So Belgian dark, strong ale, very, you know, influenced by what the trapeze are doing. And, um,

you know, also gives me the opportunity to talk about like what, what a winter ale is and what the tradition of, of drinking, you know, those types of beers in the winter is in Belgium. So, um, yeah, I mean, there's no traffic spears in the book, but they, they're all over the book in a way, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I guess I can't call them Trappist beers, right? Even if they're to style, right? In many cases. I would say they're Abbey style. Abbey style, yeah. That's what I guess. Trappist is not a style. It's a delineation. Yeah, kind of almost patented or something, right? Trademarked, I guess. Well, I think it's, yeah. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, they have the authentic Trappist product logo. So once that's on there, you can call it Trappist, but otherwise. And that's the same for cheese and everything, not just beer. Right, right.

Um, well in another chapter you have a titled Wolfpack, you actually cover hoppy beers and, um, you know, I wasn't aware that Belgium was making a lot of American style, you know, IPAs, if you will, and hazy IPAs, things like that. Um, but several breweries have now started doing that, right? Yeah. And I guess the point that I wanted to make as well was that, um, just because, just because, sorry, am I still with you, Brad? No, you are. Yeah, absolutely. I guess the point that I wanted to make was that, um,

Belgians are sort of very well known for fermentation forward beers and for their use of yeast. But actually, Belgians have a very skilled and considered use of hops in pretty much all their beers. Yes, there's probably more of a restraint in using them, but there's definitely no lack of creativity in terms of their choices and in terms of how they're using them.

for example, you know, we just mentioned Orval that's been dry hop since 1937, you know, and you know, that's, it's not like they don't know anything about how to use hops. Poperinga in the Northwest of Belgium is like one of the main hop growing regions in Europe. It's has very close connections with the Southeast of England, Kent, where they're growing a lot of English varieties there. They have a lot of, um, contacts with the German, um, uh, hop growing regions as well. And most of Belgium gets their hops from Poperinga in Belgium. Uh,

And there's a lot of beers which, you know, have pushed the boat in recent years to do new things like Troubadour Magma is like a kind of a Belgian triple meets triple IPM. They're using like Simcoe and that type of stuff. And even a brewery like Brasserie de la Seine in Brussels, who are well known for only using noble European hops, like have hoppy beers, which are, you know, have this like

Nice bite, a lot of earthiness, and it doesn't have to be all seductive Yakima to be a really great hoppy beer. Having said that, there are more and more particularly younger, internationally focused brewers that are trying their hand at these kind of juicy, hazy, or sort of seductive hop forward beers. Yeah, I mean, we were talking about the Alchemist right before the show, for example.

Yeah. And one of the beers in the book from Misery, a beer called Harsington, which is actually the name of the beer is like a portmanteau of Harsay, which is the town land in Wallonia, which they're from, and Burlington, which is the capital of Vermont, is very much inspired by their time in that part of Canada and America. So they studied in Canada in a brewing school there, in a French brewing school there.

And then they spend some time in Vermont, particularly chatting to John Kimmich at the Alchemist. And they're obviously looking around and visiting breweries, asking about

you know, water chemistry, how they're using hops, the types that they're using. And the brewer there, Remy from Misery, he is a brewing engineer and his family have all worked in Jupil, which is an old family brewery that was subsequently taken over by Ebby and Bev and now produces the famous Jupiler beer, which, you know, is very popular in Belgium.

So, I mean, they're one of the few breweries that are doing really good, like Hazy IPS. They're in a beautiful manor in the Liege Valley, which was an old sort of water chemistry science lab surrounded by forests.

And, you know, they're a resilient brewery because in 2021, they suffered massive floods in that region. And, you know, pretty much the whole brewery was flooded. And a lot of the people in the village lost their homes. There was a lot of destruction. But the whole community rallied around them.

in the same way that they did with The Alchemist when its initial brew pub was destroyed in Vermont. So that shows that there are interesting things being done with hops, but there's a beer in the book that's also from a producer who's a hop farmer in Poperinga,

There's a beer, which is what I would consider to be like a Belgian IPA, so yeast forward, but also very, very interestingly hopped called Eldorado, which is from a brewer who was originally a cancer researcher and whose family all worked as miners in that region of Wallonia where mining was basically the lifeblood of the economy for decades.

And then there's a story about Contreras, which is a very old, archaic brewing setup. But they invested in some

Modern equipment on the cold side for fermentation kept all their sort of old equipment on the hot side. And they produced this very well-regarded Belgian ale, Valeur Blonde, and hopped it essentially with Amarillo back when nobody knew about Amarillo in Belgium. I think it was 2007.

And it was kind of this really interesting, very balanced, super drinkable, hoppy Belgian ale that still today does really, really well for them. And just a beer people should check out if they get a chance because of how well it's constructed. So, I mean, there's a variety of types of hop forward beers, but I didn't want it to be all hop.

Sort of, yeah, New England IPAs. No, no, I understand, yeah. Are a lot of them using American or New Zealand, Australian hops? Or are they pushing the boundaries with some of the continental hops?

And I think more and more they're going back to continental hops. So a lot of them are attracted to use Belgian hops again. Obviously what they can offer in terms of like essential oils is very different because of the climate here. Yeah. Um, but no, there, I mean, there was a period when, you know, everyone went, you know, tried to use American hops to experiment with them and see what, what it would give and how that would pair up with the beers that they were already making.

And yeah, New Zealand, Australia, Pacific, they all kind of feed their way in. But even German hops that are maybe more fruit forward are starting to also appear more regularly. But it's definitely, I wouldn't say there's an aggressive use of hops in the same way that I would see in other countries, even in the UK. There's still this restraint and there's still this kind of

I think a focus on the beer as a whole, rather than just like the hop element of the beer, if you know what I mean. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Balance, I guess. Well, Belgium has a kind of a very unique and complex brewing tradition. You've got a chapter called unusual suspects where you cover things that are outside the box. And so I guess my question is what, what does it take in Belgium to really make a beer that's outside the box for, for Belgian beer?

Yeah, I guess that this section is like the beers on the short list that I didn't know where to put. So yeah, like one of the beers in there is a Whitloaf Triple. So Whitloaf, I think it's a vegetable that I think in the US you call Belgian endive. And in the UK they call chicory. And it's like...

Uh, it's kind of a very, um, better vegetable. It's like a really fascinating vegetable in its own right, because you kind of have to grow it twice. You grow up once to, to, to get the root and then you grow it twice to have the, the kind of the rocket shape white head, but you have to do that under the cover of complete darkness. Uh, so it's mostly done in warehouses or, or under canvases and it requires a little bit of skill in terms of like taking the root, moving it to a different environment. It's very nutritious. It's extremely bitter. Uh,

But I've heard of chicory. So that, that, that kind of a spicy thing, I think. Right. Yeah. It's, it's kind of got this nuttiness. It's, it's very bitter.

And I mean, they're using mostly the roots of it in the beer, uh, again, not to replace hop bitterness, but to add an extra dimension. And I mean, it's also like, uh, there's a cultural reason because the region that the brewery, the family who own the brewery, which is basically a farmhouse brewery, Hoft in Dormal in Tildonk, they have a farm. They're actually more farmers than brewers in a way, but they have this brewery and, um,

The Whitloaf is kind of from their region, Campanote. Their family is originally from Campanote, which is like the big Whitloaf region in Belgium. And it's like a very...

well-known Belgian delicacy. Mostly it's served with like ham rolls and a cheese sauce. It can also be served with some sauces as like a starter. Um, it can be served like quite crunchy or it can be wrapped up in these sauces, but they're using it in this beer and it's kind of, it's, it's a vegetable which is kind of very resilient and very old school. And

And that's kind of mirrors the character of the family who are resilient and old school. And, you know, the family actually, their, their brewery was burnt down in a massive fire. Wow. Um, about, I think it was like 10 years ago, maybe a little bit more. And it took them years to rebuild. And there was a lot of challenges and they had to like basically produce beers, you know, on half a kit with no roof on their brewery. And, um,

They've come back now and they've kind of made this really good, you know, they've matured, they've learned, they've come back, they've made this recovery. So there's a real resilience on there, you know, like I think, you know, agricultural, like farmer farming families, they like just have to get on with it. Um,

So that's one like, I mean, there's another beer from a young group of creative sort of very artistic guys in Brussels called Terrum de l'Empereur, which is from Brasserie de l'Hermitage. It's a jasmine and green tea pale ale. There's another one, which is like an aperitif beer, which I think is like going in the direction of like Brut or champagne beers. You probably know Deus and Malheur, but like this is more,

an experiment to find how to replicate those flavors without doing the like champagne methods of like Degorgement and Remouage and all that sort of stuff. So they're using like lager yeasts with lactobacillus and adding elderflower syrup. And it's really interesting. And, you know, it's something that I was really, really enjoyed those conversations and tasting those, those beers, those brewed beers. That's from Duvelier in Holdsbeek. Mm-hmm.

And then you have Adelheid, which is an Oakt Calvados barley wine from a region very famous for apples. And they kind of are working closely with a stokere or a distillery there in the kind of fruit growing region of the Haspenhau in Belgium, in the east in the province of Lindbergh. Small brewery doing very interesting things and trying to connect with the place that they're from. So, yeah.

You know, maybe as a way to conclude this section, it's like to say that Belgians, and maybe you'll notice this if you're an American beer talking to Europeans or to Belgians in particular, there's much less categorization here. And, you know, it's harder to get them to put things in boxes, which sometimes is frustrating because you just want simple information which helps you understand what things are.

Um, but, um, yeah, so it's like, we're going to make the thing we want to make rather than make the thing that's in the category. If you understand. Well, we're always, uh, I'm always amazed at the variety of beers that in such a small country, there's just a huge, huge variety. It's really small. It's kind of amazing. Yeah.

Um, well in your chapter, serial killers, you, uh, focus on, uh, uh, malt forward beers. And I was happy to see a stout there cause I'm a big fan of dark beers. Can you tell us about the story behind the export stout in that chapter? Yeah. So that's from a brewery, which I think a lot of people will know it's, um,

a brewery called De Dolla Bravurs near Dixmude, village of Eysen. And he's kind of a very charismatic guy. Chris Hethelader used to be an architect. He was also an artist. He still does all the art for the brewery. But that beer kind of...

evolved from his experiences when he was younger. His brother, I think when he was a teenager, they were playing football. His brother broke his leg and the doctor said, Hey, you need to drink a milk stout. So they got some wet bread stout from, from the UK. Sure. And he was like, wow, what's this? And then of course they discovered like Guinness, a special export, which is the eight and a half percent Guinness that is very popular here. Yeah.

So, I mean, it's completely different to the dry start Guinness version, which you get in Ireland on draft. And, you know, it's only in bottle. It's distributed by Anthony Martin here. And then he kind of, Chris Hathaway sort of went to visit one of the Guinness breweries in London and said,

you know, he met a very charismatic sales guy who was wearing a dickie bow and pointy shoes. So that then became his, you know, his kind of outfit when he was in his brewery back in Belgium. He designed his own like Urbierman like illustration yeast character and put that on all his dickie bows and shoes. But he's, he's, he's brewing in like a big copper brew house. He's cooling his beers in a cool ship. Now these are,

what people would describe as clean ales, right? So they're not, there's no, so he's cooling in a large cool ship. He's then having additional cooling on a Baudelot cooler, which is,

where the wort comes down the side of plates, which have cold water going through them. You know, it's like, it's very archaic way of cooling. Yeah. And I'm asking, I'm like, are you worried about oxygen here at all? Or, you know, I'm asking about infections and things that we worry about now.

And, you know, he's like, no, there's never any problems. And then the wort then is transferred into these open baths in just a room, right? So he does an open fermentation then? Open fermentation. You walk into the room, the carbon dioxide is like right in your face, but all the esters and all the sort of fermentation aromas are right there too. It's very, very interesting. And then he's bottling these beers and they're extremely characterful.

He's probably almost certainly picking up wild yeast there as well, right? Yeah, and I think he was also using the Rodenbach yeast for a long period of time. So there would have been probably some

Well, most definitely would have been like some sort of a lactobacillus element in that to have slight acidification. But the beers are fairly high alcohol and I wouldn't characterize them as like acidic beers. You know, they just have this really interesting character. Yeah. And the quality is like excellent, which is like, you know, surprising when you see the brewery.

But quality is really excellent. Consistency is excellent. And his beers are like very highly respected amongst his colleagues as well. So, but this, I think he's also, with that open fermentation element where you might have this sort of lactic acid bacteria element, there's a good roastiness there. He's also trying to, because he is a historian as well, and I think he's trying to refer back to, you know, the porters and stouts of,

um, like 19th century London. Yeah. Which were, which were wildly popular. So that very, very good start, very interesting start, very interesting brewery. And again, to show that Belgians also, you know, know how to use malt, you know, as well as they do yeast. I think it's really cool how they do that. Um, what, what are your thoughts on, on sort of the evolving evolution of, of Belgian beers, which is obviously still ongoing. Um, well, I think, um,

Belgium is in a, in a way there's a lot of similarities to what's happening in the beer markets in other countries. So there is a changing dynamic in terms of how people are drinking in terms of attitudes to alcohol. So there is, um, younger people are definitely more health conscious. I think also there's like a different social, um, element in terms of like how young people meet and drink. Uh, that's, that's sort of informing, uh, where they consume beer. Um,

I think also there has been, in the same way that America has experienced a massive explosion, there has been like a big explosion. And I feel like COVID put a stop to that. And there's kind of now like a contraction and people are kind of, you know, changing the way they drink in cafes. So yeah, that's definitely a change. However, you know, Belgian beer is so like deeply rooted in,

life and culture here that, you know, I think what, what will change most is like volume beers, like sort of the lagers, which are, you know, what I would call like the European lagers, you know, the Jupiter's mass, all those, which kind of make up, I think probably around 70% of the market, whereas the 30%, let's call it specialty beer market. Um, you know, people will still have their, uh,

you know, triple in a cafe in its own bespoke glassware. And maybe they'll have, instead of having a 9% beer, they'll go for a 6% beer, but they still want that flavor profile and they still want that experience. And so I'm curious as the world pans out, there's less breweries opening now. I think for the first time this year, we had a drop in like the total number of breweries in Belgium. There's definitely a drop,

by 5% or 6% in terms of beer consumption in the country. There's a drop in the beer exported from Belgium between this year and last year. So things are changing, but, you know, it's, Belgian beer culture is the only beer culture in the world recognized by UNESCO. It is part of the fabric of life here. So it will change, but it will change into something else in the same way that Belgian brewers who are pragmatic, who have dealt with

different languages and different people ruling them for centuries and different circumstances will find a way to do interesting things and make it work. Well, Brandon, I appreciate you coming. Can you give us your closing thoughts? Well, I just really hope that people, those that do decide to grab the book, they do enjoy it, that it inspires maybe a trip to Belgium for them, which I think is really the only way to, or the best way to

to fully experience Belgian beer and Belgian beer culture. And, you know, I hope that there are stories in there which are inspiring to them as humans, that as brewers, they can learn something or get tips or ideas. And, you know, that it's a guidebook as well, which they can enjoy. So I'm just hoping that it's valuable to people. And, you know, I'm proud of it and I hope people check it out.

Well, thank you again for coming on. I appreciate you being here. Where can people find your book? Yeah, so it's available in all the major book retailers. So if you want to get it on the big international sites. Like Amazon. Like Amazon. It's available on Amazon.com. But it's also available in bookshop.org, independent bookshops. I think even in some of the big...

the big retailers in the U S like, like Walmart and target it's available online there, maybe in some of the stores as well. Um, so we have a, we have a distributor sec books in, in the U S and it should be, you know, I'm hoping that it's really easy to find. Well, thanks again for coming on the show. I enjoyed the, uh, enjoy the book, hidden beers of Belgium. Uh, lots of great pictures and great stories there. Uh, Brandon, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Brad. Real pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Today, author Brandon Carney joins me. His new book, of course, was Hidden Beers of Belgium. Thank you again.

A big thank you to Brandon Carney for joining me this week. Thanks also to Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine. They recently launched an all-new experience called Craft Spirits and Distilling. If you make or love spirits, check out spiritsanddistilling.com for recipes, how-to videos, their Spirits and Distilling podcast, and much more. Again, that new site is spiritsanddistilling.com.

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