We partnered with fellow beer fan Erik Smith who manages express package delivery by day but shoots fantastic pictures at night to try and capture some of the feel of the festival in pictures. Let us know how you think he did.


You can find his album, nearly 200 pictures, from the festival on Facebook.

Erik also maintains an active travel blog that has several photo reviews of events at the 2012 Festival. This includes the opening Trappist Beer Dinner and the Lambic Blending Seminar. Enjoy. We sure did.

The featured brewer for the 2012 Ashley's Belgian Beer Festival is Brouwerij Van Eecke of Watou, Belgium. Van Eecke is a family owned brewery that traces it origins back to 1629.  We previously blogged about our visit with the brewery. We met with the owners & brewmasters Hendrik and Philip Leroy - the seventh generation of the brewery's current owners.


As some background on their Kapittel abbey beers we shot a video interview with Pete Larson of Global Importers. We hope you enjoy it. Note - we are an authority on beer, not video so no critiques on production quality please. Although now that I think about it we should have done multiple takes so as to drink more of their great beer.

A local columnist at AnnArbor.Com is out with a beer pairing article for Thanksgiving. He brings up a good point which we've long advocated with our guests: that beer pairs better with food than wine.

The fooodie web-site Epicurious points out:

This thought comes to mind when over Labor Day I shared with my brothers-in-law at a family gathering a nice assortment of Belgian beers.

We started out with some Bavik Pils, a Belgian Family Brewer. This is what a pils should be. It can make a great session beer. We had a guest in at Westland who was drinking Bud Light in the bottle. Jeff encouraged him to try a Bavik. He did a double-take as a smile lept across his face. He turned the bottle in his hand to scrutinize the label and said "Wow!". He didn't know what he didn't know and that the macro brewers like InBev, owner of Budweiser, don't want you to find out if they can help it. The guest proceeded to go through all the Bavik we had in (its now in on draft so we're less likely to run out.) 
 
We then went on to some of the abbey beers from Van Eecke brewery, located in the heart of Belgium's hops growing region. This included their Blonde, Pater, Prior and Abt. This worked through single malt to two types of triples (i.e., three times the quantity of malt is used in the brewing process.)  Bières d'Abbaye or Abdijbier designation indicate beers brewed under license to an existing or abandoned abbey and are exclusive to Belgium.

We finished up quite comfortably with some of the best beers from Van Steenberge Piraat (Belgian for pirate - a  strong golden ale with twice the amount of hops used in regular Belgian beer) and Gulden Drak (literally "golden dragon" named for the gold sculpture atop their home town of Ghent 's belfry.) We were in good spirits in more ways than one (and boy was I popular that weekend!)

One of my brothers pointed out what a really great value these great beers are. With the doubles and triples you often only have one or two as they are meant to be savored and give you that warm feeling in heart and mind without having to be 'Joe six-pack'. (The macro brewers are more interested in having you consume quantity as that's how they make the most money - regardless of what it does to your waist line.)



I pointed out that many of the Belgian beers are refermented in the bottle and keg. What that means is that the beers are still alive and will maintain their freshness for a long time. These beers don't have to worry about becoming 'skunk' as Budweiser warned about their beers.

One brother who I had previously gifted with a Van Steenberge variety pack told me when he had friends coming in from Canada that he hid the VS beer. He knew they'd want it. He wanted to save it for himself. I understand the sentiment. The real solution though is to have an extra pack or two around.

Great beers make great friends! Go make some great friends today.

We have close relationships with brewers here and abroad. One thing we noticed as a difference between many/most US craft brewers and the Belgium brewers we visited is that all of the Belgians had their own labs. We rarely see this in the US microbrewers.


In Belgium, they have colleges that award a four-year degree in Brewery Engineering. This is very serious work to them. We pointed out that US brewers seem to be a little more experimental, a little more entreprenurial, in their crafting of beers than the Belgians. But the Belgians are very disciplined in their brew process. With the handling of lambics which use wild, airborne yeasts, one can better appreciate the need for rigorous controls unless one wants highly variable beers.

This may not be what you think, yes its a tease headline, but it is VERY relevant to Belgian brewers and their beers. Ever wonder why Belgian beers produce that wonderful foam head and lacy after flow as it settles? Why don't the English ales do this? Well, it has to do with the headline.

As an historical hops growing region, the Belgians are quite picky about their hops. So much so that they only use female hops. Why? Because then they know there will be no polination and thus no seeds in the hops. It is chemicals in the seeds that reduce the formation of the head of foam. The English do not make this refinement and thus their beers do not produce the same amount of head.

The above picture is cropped from the larger picture below of Henrich Leroy, co-owner and brewmaster of Brewery Van Eecke located in the hops growing region of Belgium. Henrich, here seen with Jeff, is one of the judges for the hop harvest that rates and classifies the quality of the hops. Think what this intimate knowledge of hops brings to their beers. (If it wasn't for the dumb Coke glass, I'd have done a close-up of the Hommelbier glass with the ideal, lacy foam from the head settling. Click on the image and you can zoom in. I want some just looking at it.) "Hommel" is a regional word for "hops" although in other parts of the country it can mean hummingbird.


The Belgians take their hops seriously.In their growing region the streets are marked with brass, hop emblazened, medallions.

They have a museum dedicated to it. This large museum, is based in a former hop house. A building designed for the processing of hops. The most important varieties they grow are are Target, Magnum, Challenger and Golding.

Ashley's was an early advocate for craft beers starting back in 1986. We remember when Larry Bell of Bell's Brewing would deliver kegs personally from the back of his pick-up truck. What was key was we were willing to give a tap handle to support him in building his business. This was an era dominated by the macro brewers (think Anheuser Busch, Miller, and Coors). Over the past 30 years the craft brew industry has started to make a push back against the bland, mass-produced, colored water promoted as beer to the unknowing.

Although brewing is an ancient industry in Belgium, brewing at the monestaries goes back to the 12th century, currently the macro brewers are working to crowd out Belgium's craft brewers.

From Flanders Today newspaper:

In our search to bring  new and special beers to our guests we visited Belgium last fall. What we found as opposed to what we’ve seen available in Michigan shocked us.

Belgium brewers are facing challenges from the macro brewers, particularly InBev the Belgian-Brazilian owners of Budweiser. InBev and others have been buying up small Belgian brewers and closing down their operations and brands. Thus many of their craft brewers are being threatened. We found when we met with brewery owners and brewmasters was the passion for great beer that we see amongst Michigan craft brewers. They are threatened by the macro brewers and realize that they must reach out to markets outside of their country if they are to survive. What we also found he were beers that were being exported to the US but due to size and volume just not yet on the radar screens of most enthusiasts.

What you're not going to see at this Festival are Leffe, Hoegaarden, Plam, DeKonnick etc. as we want to focus on the craft brewers. When we did a blind taste test with some of Friend Of The Owners (FOTO) club members, they voted 8 to 1 Bavik Pils over Stella Artois (an Anheuser-InBev product).

We're still supporting our Michigan brewers (see the upcoming Cask Ale festivals and the Great Michigan Brewery tour in July where we bring the brewers to you rather than you having to travel to the brewers.) Its just that we're also going to highlight great beers where ever we find them. In this case its Belgium. Yummmm, as one might say.

  Amongst beer aficianados, some call them beer geeks but we know passion when we see it, sour beers are amongst the best beers available. On par with fine wines, these are special beers that take time, talent and occaissionaly a little luck to make.

We are opening the ABBF festival with the "Sour Fest."  The Festival will feature a selection of over 40 of these on draft and in the bottle, one of the largest offerings ever available at one place. So, a little background.

 What are Sours? From Wikipedia: Sour beer is a beer style characterized by an acidic, tart, sour taste.

These were even recently featured in a New York Times article: