Belgium is a country that offers its residents and visitors a wide variety of different beer styles. Although there are countless styles, our neighboring country is best known for its strong beer. Many brews from the pen of Belgian brewmasters have significantly more than the usual four to six percent. But that is not the only special feature of these brews: Some variants are brewed with rock candy and other sweeteners to help the yeast ferment, others contain large amounts of fruit, are mixed from young, freshly brewed and old, stored portions, or are stored in oak barrels. Due to the sheer number of different preparation methods, there is a corresponding abundance of drinking recommendations.
In general, Belgian beer tastes better from a glass than from a bottle. One reason for this is suspended particles that settle on the bottom of the bottle during the second fermentation. As with wheat beer, you briefly swirl the bottle and pour the sediment over the rest of the beer so that the compressed taste is evenly distributed. The perfect glass is the Liefmans goblet, for example. This bulbous vessel with a capacity of 0.25 liters sits on a small, interestingly shaped stem, maintains the optimal temperature and gives the aromas space to develop.
Liefmans
