Stella Artois is a Belgian pilsner of between 4.8 and 5.2 percent ABV which was first brewed by Brouwerij Artois in Leuven, Belgium, in 1926. Since 2008, a 4.8 percent ABV version has also been sold in Britain, Ireland, Canada and Australia. Stella Artois is now owned by Interbrew International B.V. which is a subsidiary of the world's largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV.
Kriek lambic is a style of Belgian beer, made by fermenting lambic with sour Morello cherries. Traditionally "Schaarbeekse krieken" from the area around Brussels are used. As the Schaarbeek type cherries have become more difficult to find, some brewers have replaced these with other varieties of sour cherries, sometimes imported.
Sint-Pieters-Leeuw is a Dutch-speaking municipality of Belgium located in the province of Flemish Brabant.
Praline is a form of confection containing at a minimum culinary nuts and sugar; cream is a common third ingredient.
Lambic is a type of beer brewed in the Pajottenland region of Belgium southwest of Brussels and in Brussels itself. Types of lambic beers include gueuze, kriek lambic and framboise. Lambic differs from most other beers in that it is fermented through exposure to wild yeasts and bacteria native to the Zenne valley, as opposed to exposure to carefully cultivated strains of brewer's yeast. This process gives the beer its distinctive flavour: dry, vinous, and cidery, often with a tart aftertaste.
A craft brewery or microbrewery is a brewery that produces small amounts of beer, typically much smaller than large-scale corporate breweries, and is independently owned. Such breweries are generally characterized by their emphasis on quality, flavor, and brewing technique.
New Belgium Brewing Company is a nationally distributed brewery in the United States that is owned by an international beverage conglomerate. The brand produces Fat Tire Amber Ale, Voodoo Ranger IPA, Mural Agua Fresca Cerveza, and La Folie Sour Brown Ale, among other regular and seasonal beer varieties. Founded by Kim Jordan and Jeff Lebesch in 1991 in Fort Collins, Colorado, the company expanded to Asheville, North Carolina, in 2016 and Denver, Colorado, in 2018. In 2019, New Belgium was acquired by an Australian subsidiary of the Japanese Kirin beverage group, Lion Little World Beverages.
Beer in Belgium varies from pale lager to amber ales, lambic beers, Flemish red ales, sour brown ales, strong ales and stouts. In 2016, there were approximately 224 active breweries in Belgium, including international companies, such as AB InBev, and traditional breweries including Trappist monasteries. On average, Belgians drink 84 liters of beer each year, down from around 200 each year in 1900. Most beers are bought or served in bottles, rather than cans, and almost every beer has its own branded, sometimes uniquely shaped, glass. In 2016, UNESCO inscribed Belgian beer culture on their list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
Gueuze is a type of lambic, a Belgian beer. It is made by blending young (1-year-old) and old lambics, which is bottled for a second fermentation. Because the young lambics are not fully fermented, the blended beer contains fermentable sugars, which allow a second fermentation to occur.
Neuhaus is a notable Belgian chocolatier which manufactures and sells luxury chocolates, chocolate truffles, biscuits and ice cream. The company was founded in 1857 by Jean Neuhaus, a Swiss immigrant, who opened the first store in the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert in central Brussels. In 1912, his grandson, Jean Neuhaus II, invented the chocolate praline, a decadent chocolate cream ganache center inside a chocolate shell, the original filled chocolate.
Lindemans Brewery is a Belgian family brewery based in Vlezenbeek, a small town in the Flemish Brabant southwest of Brussels. It produces lambics, a style of Belgian ale that uses raw wheat and wild yeast.
Blue Moon Belgian White is a Belgian-style witbier brewed by MillerCoors under the name the Blue Moon Brewing Co. It was launched in 1995, and was originally brewed in Golden, Colorado.
3 Fonteinen is a Belgian brewery, specialized in geuze and kriek. The brewery is situated in Beersel, near Brussels and produces classic versions of both kriek and geuze.
The High Council for Artisanal Lambic Beers is a non-profit organisation that brings together the gueuze brewers and blenders of the Pajottenland and Zenne Valley in Belgium.
The term grand cru is used in a non-official context in the names of some products, particularly beer, chocolate, whiskey and cognac, to denote a high-quality product. While the term grand cru is well defined with respect to vineyards, its use with respect to other products is unregulated.
Christiaan Antonius Lindemans, the fourth son of Joseph Hendrik Lindemans and Christina Antonia van Uden, was a Dutch double agent during the Second World War, working under Soviet control. Otherwise known as Freddi Desmet, officer in the Belgian army and SOE agent with security clearance at the Dutch Military Intelligence Division of the SOE (MID/SOE). He is better known under his nickname "King Kong" or in some circles as "le Tueur" as he undertook missions to kill and was ready to shoot at the slightest provocation. There is speculation that Lindemans may have been a member of Colonel Claude Dansey's Z organisation.
The Château de La Fougeraie, also called the Château Wittouck, is a stately home in Belgium built in 1911 for the industrialist Paul Wittouck.
Tilquin is a Belgian lambic beer blendery based in Bierghes, Brussels, founded in 2009 by Pierre Tilquin. Tilquin is the only lambic blendery in the mainly French-speaking, southern region of Wallonia. Tilquin also is exclusively the only blendery that is allowed to blend of one, two, and three-year-old lambics with wort acquired from Boon, Lindemans, Girardin, and Cantillon breweries.
A barrel-aged beer is a beer that has been aged for a period of time in a wooden barrel. Typically, these barrels once housed bourbon, whisky, wine, or, to a lesser extent, brandy, sherry, or port. There is a particular tradition of barrel ageing beer in Belgium, notably of lambic beers. The first bourbon barrel-aged beers were produced in the United States in the early 1990s.
