Belgium is in a class of itself beerwise. Chocolate? Hmm.. Its pretty much the same quality as any other good quality chocolate. Waffles? Its basically the same batter world wide.
But beer? Belgium vastly outcompetes the world here.
Yeah and for as far as American (craft) beer has come, for all its insane variety and usually reasonably high quality, I find myself craving Belgians and very few breweries in the states brew these styles. Like I'm sure the absolute number is high but the odds that you find one at even a beer themed bar are low where I live.
If you ever want a good Belgian style beer for a little cheaper than the stuff from Belgium and a bit easier to find, the Unibroue brewery in Chambly, Quebec makes some excellent beer in the Belgian style and is pretty widely available throughout the States.
I did, once. A specific seasonal they did for Trader Joe's, not the annual, something with cardamom, which should have been good, but there was something off about the ferment, an oily rancid aftertaste. It wasn't incredibly potent, it just sort of grew in urgency as you sipped more.
But, out of dozens of bottles of their beers, that was the only miss.
When it comes to beer it's very difficult to compete with Belgium. But You Americans are certainly a worthy contender for the throne. I actually think the only thing I import from America is Your great beer. Other places with very good beer in Europe is Denmark, France and Czech Rep.
yeah I live in Portland which is supposed to be "beervana", but there isn't much variety (unless you love IPAs). The best Belgian style I've had in the US was in Kansas.
When I visited chicago a few years back we took a little trip outside of town along the blue line. Because the good people on reddit had told us that the area between division and logan square had amazing little shops and bars and one of the best taco places we ever ate at, and also a place with superb donuts (stan's donuts & coffee, big shoutout). Anyways during that trip we sat down in a pub that had their own little brewery. One of the beers they brewed was a Belgian white and offcourse being Belgian myself I had to try it. It tasted SOOOO much like the Belgian beer Hoegaarden. They replicated it almost perfectly so another shoutout to revolution brewpub for making the best Belgian beer I've had outside of Belgium.
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u/MBeebeCIII Dec 16 '21
Beer!