Gastro
Active member
I had a nice chat with the head brewer of a small breworks in NZ about Belgian beers...this guy is Swiss but trained in Belgium. Nice guy...nice beer...but he was saying how they tend to really over sugar their beers to get the potency up. And that in a nutshell is my main gripe with the Belgian beers I've tried: too sweet, too carbonated, too strong. Nice to have a small glass...but I enjoy 3or4 pints at the pub and that's hard going and way too sickly.
Thats what I dislike about most ales, porters and stouts, too sweet, too malty not enough hops. I actually find that the Belgians find a pretty good balance, between hoppiness and sweetness.
But then again I don't understand the majority of the beerdrinkers, atleast at Ratebeer.com. The top 20 of beer are all stouts, or porters that taste like coffee... (aren't allowed to taste like hops). If you want a drink that tastes like coffee and has alcohol in it, you get a coffee and a shot of liquor.
My preferences at the moment, Good Pilsners and Good Belgian Golds, (Duvel, Grimbergen etc..) and a nice Blonde