Beer nr4 : Duvel

Helly bloggers,

The next beer i am going to talk about is Duvel. Duvel is a 8,5% strong golden pale ale brewed in Belgium. Moortgat brewery was founded in 1871 by Jan-Leonard Moortgat, who was descended from a family of brewers that lived in Steenhuffel, Belgium. In the 1950s, the third generation of Moortgats took control of the brewery. In the early 1970s, when the company was struggling financially, Moortgat bottled and distributed the Danish beer, Tuborg. The two companies ended this arrangement in the early 1980s, but it did save the brewery who, by then, had managed to also set up massive distribution channels for their flagship beer, Duvel. In June 1999, Duvel Moortgat NV went public on Euronext Brussels. Duvel Moortgat was an original investor in the Brewery Ommegang craft brewery founded in Cooperstown, NY, in the late 1990s. More recently, the Belgian company took over complete control of the brewery and founded a stateside sales organization Duvel USA to handle both Ommegang and Duvel Moortgat brands and others (including Rodenbach). In September 2006 Duvel Moortgat bought fellow Belgian brewery Brasserie d'Achouffe.

To commemorate the end of World War I, the Moortgats named their main beer Victory Ale. But during the 1920s, an avid drinker described the beer as "nen echten duvel" (a real devil in Brabantian Dutch) - perhaps in reference to its formidable alcohol content and the name of the beer was changed to Duvel. It has become the brewery's flagship beer. Considered by many the definitive version of the Belgian Strong Golden Ale style, Duvel is brewed with Pilsner malt and white sugar, and hopped with Saaz hops and Styrian Goldings, the yeast still stems from the original culture of Scottish yeast bought by Albert Moortgat during a business tour of the U.K. just after World War I.

My opinion: This is one of my favourite beers. It's strong and slightly bitter but it taste very well! :) Duvel is drunk by all ages but not by alot of teenagers.