Beer, as we all know, was invented in England. Sadly, it was perfected elsewhere. Order a pint of lager in England and you will be served a glass of wee. I can always remember some years back a bloke in a pub I was drinking in waxing lyrical about German beer, saying how the British were being cheated because the beer we received wasn't anywhere near as good as the beer our European neighbours were drinking. I wasn't the only person there who thought 'why don't you go and live there then, mate?'. The truth is he was right. I had never tasted real beer before I came to Belgium. Belgians lay claim to making the finest beer in the world and I am not going to argue with that statement. One of the problems in Britain is that a lot of famous makes of beer from countries such as Denmark and Germany, to name two, are actually being brewed in Britain. It's obvious that the recipe instuctions haven't been translated into English!
In Belgium, almost every town has it's own beer and most of it is damn fine stuff. However, I have tasted one that reminded me of my own effort with a Boots brew your own lager kit I had some years ago. And the beer is strong, bloody strong! The beer in the photo that accompanies this post is 8.5% and that's a baby. The lucky monks of Westmalle make a beer that is 9.5% and the even luckier monks of Rochefort brew a beer that is 11.3%!
In Britain, we have a culture of drunkeness amongst the 18-30 year old population. Drinking too much leads to problems in our city centres of a friday and saturday night. I'm not aware of a similar problem with the younger population of Belgium but I think that's because after a few glasses of Belgian beer they are incapable of moving let alone causing trouble!
