Beer of the Week: Valhalla Strong Belgian Blonde

After releasing last week, we thought it would be a good time to provide a little extra spotlight on this wonderful new batch of the Valhalla by making it beer of the week, meaning it's 50% off all pints, off sale and shipping. One of the advantages of making a brew the beer of the week, is everyone gives it a try, and if good, which this is, will become a more regular consumed beverage, especially important if it's been off the tap for a while, people forget about it and it needs a proper re-introduction.

What makes Belgian brews so interesting?
From my experience, it's the process, yeast, herbs or spices, and culture.
The Process
Many brews in Belgium have their foundations with the Trappist monasteries, going back centuries and with that, a process for specific types of beer that have been perfected over countless generations. This is something that can be hard to replicate as every area has their own characteristics that affect the brew, such as water, equipment, yeast, adding in that it can take months or years for a brew to be ready, and well, over five years one might go through 10-20 iterations, over a couple hundred, this is 400-800 batches, no doubt this experience has significant value.

The Yeast
Given that the breweries have been going on for so long, they also have yeast strains that likewise have been conditioned and perfected over centuries. Not to mention on the other extreme with the lambics, capturing wild yeast from the air and oak aging it for years, this takes some serious faith and determination, as so many things can go wrong with so many unknown variables, yet given enough time, one can learn how to counter such extremes, some of which is discussed in this YouTube video about Chimay.

Herbs and Spices
While beer can be great with the pure basics such as malt, hops and yeast, similar to cooking where some of the best meals are the simplest, sometimes adding a pinch of this or that will give make the meal so better. Same with beer, adding some complimentary herbs in spices in just the right amounts and perfected over centuries, help to provide a subtle uniqueness, flavor, and complexity that pushes the limits of your taste buds and makes reaching for another pint. German, Czech, British and Irish beers don't do this bother much with such herbs and spices. Their location and climate could have something to do with it, providing more historical access to different ingredients from France and likewise the rest of the Mediterranean, combined with centuries of trial and error focused mostly on beer. Where as to the south in France wine was the big thing and to the north was more Scotch, whiskeys and other stronger liquors.

Culture
And lastly is the culture, beer is king in Belgium, forget wines and liquors, the only beverage that really matters is beer. There's this one monastery that sells beer to the public once per year, people wait in line for hours to get their maximum amount of one or two cases and if you're lucky, you'll meet someone willing to share a bottle. Nowhere does this happen anywhere in the world besides Belgium. Beer is practically their strongest identity, with chocolate a distant second. This strong beer culture helps and support their breweries, pushing them to continue producing the highest quality beer possible. 

So yeah, Belgian beers can be pretty interesting. At Loony's we have two main Belgian style brews to try, the Valhalla Blonde and the Drunken Loon Dark. The Valhalla includes coriander and light Belgian yeast, and the Drunken Loon is bit more eccentric with coriander, grains of paradise, cardamom, and star anise. Try them out with a flight or pint and get a taste of Belgium.