nen echten Duvel! ("a real Devil!")

exclaimed Van De Wouwer, a shoemaker, who had tasted what was the earliest innings of the Belgian Golden Strong Ale style in the 1920's at a locally organised beer tasting, and so the name stuck - Duvel.

A literal 35-minute straight route highway drive south from Belgium's capital of Antwerp resides the Brouwerij Duvel Moortgat (Duvel Moortgat Brewery), who is credited with the creation of the now famous and beloved Belgian Golden Strong Ale style that somehow has a sentimental hold on brewers around the world who have often sought to pay homage or even make an attempt at replicating the beer. 

Yet when one digs beneath the surface, the Duvel story is hardly about just the creation of one beer - it is in fact an impressive series of shrewd choices made across four generations of the Moortgat family in creating and recreating themselves.

Let's get into it!

The story starts with one Jan-Leonard Moortgat in 1871. Jan had come from a family of brewers who had up till that point lived and worked in Steenhuffel, Belgium, and would establish the very Brouwerij Moortgat with his wife on their farm. The brewing at the time was fairly rudimentary and beers were made using a combination of family recipes as well as simple trial and error, yet its beers did well enough that the Moortgat family had itself a business. Into the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Jan had by the time gotten too old to run the business and had passed along the family's brewery to his sons Victor, Albert and Jozef. With Jozef's sudden death, Victor and Albert would split the duties, with Albert making the beers and Victor handling sales.

As the first World War ended, English beers would start to become popular in Belgium, much of which was supplied to the British army, and in celebration of the end of the war, it became common for breweries to create commemorative beers (often called Liberation Ales) that captured the widespread euphoria of the time. Victor and Albert weren't far behind - they knew that if sales was going to improve, they would have to come up with their own celebratory beer. Having seen the success of English beers in Belgium, the Moortgat's too wanted to model a beer that would fit in, and yet they were missing one key ingredient - the yeast.

Not just any yeast, they needed the same yeast that these English beers were using, a top-fermenting ale yeast to be specific - this would over the next century come to be known as Duvel's most prized possession. And so according to Moortgat lore, Albert had decided that unlike most other Belgian breweries who would have otherwise simply sourced their yeast from a culture bank cared for by the local Belgian universities, he would go the full mile of travelling to Scotland in order to procure this special yeast. It is claimed by Duvel that Albert had used but just an aluminium milk can in which he had supposedly carried the yeast from the William McEwan Fountain Brewery in Edinburgh all the way back to Belgium in order for the brothers to create their Victory Ale.

As with all great stories of yore, some would later cast doubts as to where the yeast actually came from and if that fateful trip to Scotland even really did take place - theories have suggested that the yeast was in fact procured by Albert without even having had to leave Belgium through English beer importer John Martin, who had brought into Belgium beers from William Younger's Brewery (William McEwan and William Younger later merged to form Scottish Brewers, which in turn became the legendary Newcastle Breweries and finally Scottish & Newcastle, once one of the largest and most formidable brewing groups in UK), and was located just a short drive away from the Moortgat's own brewery in Breendonk. As such, it would have been fairly easy for Albert Moortgat to have simply gotten yeast cultures from John Martin, with also a further out theory suggesting that Albert had perhaps in fact harvested yeast from English ales that had landed in Belgium! This was likely supported by the fact that Albert had close ties with one Professor P. Biourge, who was a renowned yeast expert, and was said to have played a hand in combining several yeast strains (called the Edinburgh yeast) which was used to produce said Victory Ale. The Victory Ale was thus said to have tasted closer to a Belgian Scotch Ale than the Belgian Golden Strong Ale that Duvel is today famous for, with some spectators also suggesting that the beer was so named after the initials of Victor and Albert (hence "V" and "A" which became Victory Ale).

Regardless, the Victory Ale was a success, and in a later locally organised beer tasting, it was said that a shoemaker by the name of Van De Wouwer had enjoyed the beer so much and exclaimed in the regional dialect that the beer was "a real Devil" - knowing that they had real branding cachet on their hands, the Moortgat's would change the name of their beer to Duvel.

Unfortunately, it was but a short respite for Europe (and the World) before World War II broke out in 1939 and the Duvel story would take a massive turn. As Albert Moortgat eventually became more than a brewer - he also became Mayor of Breendonk, which was the role of a politician - he would find himself caught up in of course politics and find himself jailed for several years. Nevertheless, the post-war years saw Duvel create new lines with the addition of the likes of Vedett, a premium lager that was aimed at trendy and younger demographics. Getting into the 1950's, it was thus Victor's sons Emile and Leon (with also Albert's sons Marcel and Bert) who would take over the family's brewery as the third generation Moortgat's. Where their fathers helped steady the family's business and put it on the right course, it was the third-generation of Moortgat's who created the Duvel we know of today, having created the iconic Belgian Golden Strong Ale style!

Emile and Leon would begin growing Duvel beyond its brewery walls, first with a partnership with the Maredsous Abbey that saw it get into Abbey styled ales, and later also helped with the bottling and distribution of the major Danish beer, Tuborg. This set the pace for what would be a major expansion in Duvel's beer endeavours beyond its brewery and brands, and allowed Duvel to reduce its reliance on its own niche whilst also getting into newer markets and in front of fresh customers. The Tuborg deal in particular stands out as a pivotal move for Duvel as it bought the brewery just enough time to properly conceptualise what would be its creation of the Belgian Golden Strong Ale, supplying it with the financial resources it needed to tide through the decade of experimentation and then also gave the brewery inroads into major distribution channels that opened up first for Tuborg and later for Duvel.

And so getting into the 60's and 70's, Emile in particular would begin to work with one Professor Jean De Clerck, at the time already well recognised as a leading expert on brewing (and who would be familiar to those who've read the Chimay story). Professor De Clerk had established himself greatly having helped the Trappist monks at the Abbey of Notre Dame de Scourmont to create the iconic Chimay Blue, which hard launched the Belgian Dark Strong Trappist Ale style, which led the Moortgat's to believe that he could produce the same feat at Duvel. Working his magic, Professor De Clerck would successfully retrieve Duvel's original Edinburgh yeast, and would also decide to produce a comparatively lighter coloured beer (blond). To couple with this new version of Duvel, which poured a big and persistent foamy head, the brewery would thus also introduce the now beer connoisseur standard Duvel glass. The glass was groundbreaking at its introduction, proving to be amongst the first tulip ballon in Belgium, and was designed to hold the contents of a full 33cl bottle whilst giving just as much room for the foamy head, having been inspired by the Burgundy wine glass.

The fourth generation Moortgat family today.

At last in 1970 the Belgian Golden Strong Ale was finally created and it is thus the Duvel we know and love today!

As the fourth-generation of Moortgat's took on the reins in the 1990's, the family's brewing portfolio would only continue to expand. Michel Moortgat, who took over in 1991 when he was just 24 years old, would with his brothers Bernard and Philippe sought to consolidate the company which had begun to count numerous family shareholders after four generations of being passed down. With a buyout offer from Heineken on the table which came with the condition that the Moortgat family would depart from the family business, Michel and his brothers would instead wrangle the finances needed to fully acquire back their family's brewing company, and would even go public on Euronext Brussels. This was an incredibly daring move by Michel as it necessitated the business taking on substantial debt which meant there was little room for anything aside from serious sales growth. Yet as it stands, the brothers would grow the company's sales by more than 16x over the next three decades.

Knowing full well that growth could not come from Duvel alone, Michel and his brothers would raise finances so as to acquire breweries such as the also famous Belgian De Koninck, Achouffe and Liefmans breweries, as well as breweries in the USA, from the legendary Firestone Walker to Ommegang and also Boulevard. Across Europe, Michel would also secure joint-ventures in breweries such as Bernard (Czech), Brouweij 't Ij (Netherlands) and Birrificio del Ducato (Italy), even going so far as to invest in breweries outside of the beer category, with a majority stake in London's JARR Kombucha. Riding the growth wave, Duvel was able to get in and get out of the public markets with little pain, finally delisting itself in 2012 so that it could go back fully into the hands of the Moortgat family.

With all that family history covered, it's time to dig into Duvel's iconic Belgian Golden Strong Ale!

In essence, Duvel - The Original Belgian Strong Blond -  is made with pure spring water, pilsner malt and liquid dextrose, which is then hopped with Czech Saaz and Slovenian Styrian Goldings, and subsequently fermented twice with the use of two strains of yeast. It is then bottle conditioned and aged for at least 6 weeks in cold storage before it is released, taking a total of 90 days from start to finish. It is one of the driest beers in Belgium and is most famous for three particular aspects - how it's fermented, it's pale colour and it's substantial carbonation.

It all starts with fermentation. One of the biggest remarks made about Duvel is that it doesn't feel like 8.5% ABV in the slightest, and this is due to the beer being incredibly dry thanks to the work of its proprietary yeasts. Duvel aims for its yeast to create very clean flavours, which it supports through a four day primary fermentation that is done with a dynamically moving temperature control (ie. the wort is always cooled to 10°C under its temperature, rather than adhering to a fixed ideal temperature) which allows for a more gentle fermentation that is said to create the brewery's desired esters and phenols. After the first round of fermentation, the beer is cold conditioned for 20 days before being put through the centrifuges to remove particles. It's then primed and re-fermented in the bottle for two more weeks in a special warm (and very large) chamber, after which it goes through a final 6 week cold conditioning in the bottle before it makes it out the brewery's doors. The bottle conditioning allows for live cultures to live in on the bottle and "age" the beer, where the yeast reduces the typical pocket of air found in most beer bottles, and thus can continue to ferment the beer to greater dryness. This entire 90 day process is significantly longer than most other top-fermented beers, and yet is crucial to creating Duvel's signature fruity and spiced, hoppy and yeast-driven flavours.

Created into the 1970's, the Original Duvel Belgian Strong was designed to tap on the increasing popularity of pale beers and thus unlike many of the darker Belgian styles of ale, Duvel was to be much lighter in comparison, closer to a pale lager despite being an ale itself. This is achieved through the use of just one type of malt, pilsner, which gives it its lighter colour, along with liquid dextrose, which allows the beer to ferment to a higher ABV without having the beer become too malty. Duvel goes through quite the effort then to maintain this colour through minimising the thermal load of the beer, where the beer is essentially prevented from being heated which can cause a darkening either through the Maillard reaction that results in caramelisation or through exposure to oxygen which causes oxidation. The brewery using steam to heat its wort, takes away any unnecessary contact in the mash tuns by removing the mixing arm, and even has the world's biggest wort centrifuge so that it is able to separate out any solids from the beer without contact whilst also cooling the wort as quickly as possible. The brewery is also incredibly specific about what they require from their suppliers for their pilsner malts, and have also rearranged their brewing processes (such as adding the liquid dextrose post-boil instead) to preserve the beer's colour.

Finally, anyone who's poured our a bottle of Duvel has most certainly been struck by how much carbonation it has - each bottle contains 4.3 volumes of carbon dioxide, which stands at being twice as much as most English ales and 1.5x as much as typical American ales. This is created by Duvel force carbonating the beer first before live yeast and sugar is further added for a round of in-bottle re-fermentation, the result of which is a Duvel tulip glass being half beer and half foam.

And so now that we understand everything we need to about Duvel, let's get to tasting!

Beer Review: Duvel The Original Belgian Strong Blond (Belgian Golden Strong Ale), 8.5% ABV

First up - the Original Duvel Belgian Strong Blond!

Tasting Notes

Colour: Blonde - Amber

Aroma: A moderate richness, it's fresh with this rustic quality, with a really clean and pure profile that also comes through really balanced. It's citrusy with grapefruits and a gentle and bright floral hoppiness that comes without pine or resin but is really much more floral and delicate. It's also garnished with a good amount of spices of cloves and coriander seeds. With time much more of that orange and tangerine peel shows up, quite a bounty! There's still a light yeastiness and some farmhouse bit of hay. More on banana hard candy with little bouquets of white florals and orange blossoms. At the back there's a nice maltiness with some lightly herbal manuka honey as a canvas.

Taste: Moderate richness, the body has some malty weight to it, giving it a lifted yet luscious velvety texture, although it's not quite thick. It opens with lots of toasted grain, with this rustic cereal grist quality, that's then filled in with lots of citruses of tangerine peels, then dusted with aromatic spices of cloves and white pepper. The flavours are gentle and delicate, with this subtle complexity. More on oats, with also this light herbal bit of manuka honey. 

Finish: It gets into this persistent toastiness, bringing up notes of dark chocolate, cloves, white pepper, tangerine peels and just whiffs of yellow banana hard candy. There's a slightly herbal honeyed lemon candy quality, with also this delicate floral aromatics that's also somewhat herbal. A clean and refreshing finish, seamless and gently yet firmly crisp.

My Thoughts

This was incredibly quaffable! It's got just the right amount of richness where it's not heavy yet has a very satisfying weight to it that backs up the velvety luscious texture that's then given this incredibly liveliness with the carbonation. It's nicely rich and creamy, yet not heavy at all, really lifted, and just enough to contain these deep yet sensual tones of herbal citrus and spices, coloured then by heaps of tangerine peels.  The hops here come off floral and herbal, without any bitterness. The flavours are gentle yet so distinct, which makes it really elegant. It doesn't feel like 8.5% ABV in the slightest, yet has such a beautiful richness. It's vibrant and lively, yet rich and rustic, underscored by such a gentle and delicate complexity. It's texture is just so incredibly uplifting! It feels so intentional and so well executed that I can't help but marvel at how much it really hits the spot - which as a side note, is also perfect for a sort of chocolate pairing! 

My Rating: 8.5/10

Beer Review: Duvel 6.66% Belgian Blond, 6.66% ABV

To celebrate its 150th Anniversary in 2021, Duvel wanted to pay homage to its roots, namely how it got its name - and they of course went the full mile! Not only does the brewery's Quality team have to check and make sure that the beer's ABV strikes exactly 6.66%, but they've also. gone and used 6 hop varieties (which are dry hopped) instead of their standard 2. This particular release is also unique as it marks one of the rare instances that Duvel can be served on draft (the Original Duvel has historically not been possible to be served on draft except in very specific instances, due to the nature of its re-fermentation and high carbonation). Worth noting is that this was also based on a collaboration that the brewery did with Brewery Ij.

Tasting Notes

Colour: Blonde - Amber, Slightly Darker

Aroma: Really full bouquet, incredibly aromatic! It heaps on all that citrus with here a more tropical and fresh fruit driven aroma. Ripe apricots, dried mangoes, squeeze of grapefruit, that's then backed by richer and more luscious, somewhat sweeter manuka honey that adds to this candied profile of maltose. It's also incredibly floral with lots of orange blossoms. It's not as rustic here, instead concentrating more on beefing up its richness. Light dusting of clove spices as well, with a touch of brioche. The spice profile here is much more gentle.

Taste: Medium-bodied, it's really pillowy with much more richness. It opens toasty and honeyed, with an incredibly velvety texture. It tends towards a more narrow profile that is focused on herbal manuka honey, lots of orange peels and clove spices. There are delicate notes of apricots and pineapples, with a tinge of orange blossom florals, yet it's much more subtle here. It's very well-integrated, with a rounded lusciousness.

Finish: It starts to build up much more here. The spices really ramp up with much in the way of cloves, white pepper and coriander seeds, as well as lemon peels and lemon herbal candy really developing more intensely here. It finishes clean and dry, with a lingering maltiness and almost chewy barley sugars, dusted with still the same spices.

My Thoughts

The Duvel 6.66% definitely amps it up and already on the nose you get this uber fruity burst of aromas that definitely scream IPA hops. It's got those tropical fruits, much more zesty citruses, and is incredibly fruit driven and super fresh, with this vibrant robustness that makes you go "Wow!" It's also really rich and candied, that's just so juicy! That nevertheless does seem to overshadow the Belgian qualities somewhat with the herbal, spice and yeasty notes taking quite the backseat, although they're still certainly present.

This carries through to the body as well, where instead of the subtle elegance and delicate complexity that we found in the Original, here we have again all that juiciness, although this time the Belgian traits do come back into the spotlight. It's again really amped up and just bursting it seems, yet that pillowy texture is just to die for! Where it starts to get really interesting and catches my fascination is into the finish where those spices and citruses start to almost build up to quite the intensity before finally finishing clean and dry. As a testament to the likely large amount of malt used, there's all these lovely, almost chewy barley sugars that persist with a light dusting of spices to remind you of its Belgian origins. 

Incredibly refreshing, also super expressive and vibrant, richer and really cohesive, which therefore makes this a definite crowd pleaser!

My Rating: 8/10

Beer Review: Duvel Tripel Hop Citra Belgian IPA, 9.5% ABV

 First released in 2012 as a limited bottling, the Duvel Tripel Hop Citra joined the permanent lineup in 2017! This brew makes use of a third hop that's added (dry-hopped) to its otherwise two-hop recipe, with here the use of Yakima Valley (Washington, USA) Citra hops.

Tasting Notes

Colour: Deep Gold

Aroma: Incredibly vibrant and aromatic, this is a blast of bright tropical tones with loads of tangerine peels and yellow banana hard candy. There's a touch of that hay, with also more rustic scents of toasted bread, all backed up by honey and maltose. Alittle reminiscent of of the Original, yet much more candied.

Taste: Big honeyed body that's also really malty and rounded. It's supple and rich, striking a medium-bodied yet very plush body. It begins to show floral tones of lavender, with also a more herbal side of acacia honey. Touch of that farmhouse hay still persists, with then the spices of cloves, white pepper and coriander seeds. Really light accent of grapefruits here that starts to become alittle more apparent towards the back.

Finish: The richness begins to recede and the dryness starts to pick up, peaking only right at the end. More white pepper starts to come through as well, giving this really peppery quality, even alittle bit tingly. It works to a really smooth, seamless and clean finish. Incredibly refreshing, with a persistent bit of burnt ends savouriness and even some espresso outlined by a brighter note of grapefruit rind and pith.

My Thoughts

This was really interesting! And also really enjoyable! It's by far the most hoppy as well as the richest of the line-up! Beyond the more classic Belgian traits, which themselves really shined through here, it also demonstrated more exotic qualities from lavender to espresso, a range that you'd think impossible and yet made completely cohesive here. This was entertaining to no end, with also a big maltiness that makes it really accessible and easy to dig into, yet without any foggying of the details and nuances that give it its complexity. It's super vibrant, with a whole lot going on, yet somehow it all make sense! Texturally it's also super satisfying, going from this beautiful plume on the nose, to the malty richness of the body that then so seamlessly and masterfully recedes to the perfect dryness right on the finish. The flavours are all vibrant and well saturated, super distinct, yet never clashing and somehow finding more than enough space for the full palette to be painted with. All of that and somehow it still keeps that Belgian core identity!

Perhaps the only bit I find somewhat surprising is that the typical Citra tropical fruit flavours seem to not come through on the palate - although rather interestingly where the fruits are held back, the delicate floral lavender notes which typically go missing in most Citra IPAs seem to step forward! Nevertheless it strikes me as intentional considering that the more subtle (and harder to coax out) Citra flavours really show themselves, lending to it that Duvel-esque style of emphasising the floral tones of its hops. Yet for a beer that screams Hop Citra, it's somewhat unexpected! Yet I'm loving this so much!

My Rating: 9/10

Beer Review: Duvel Tripel Hop Cashmere Belgian IPA, 9.5% ABV

With the success of the Duvel Tripel Hop Citra, Duvel was of course tempted to add one more to its core line-up, this time with the Duvel Tripel Hop Cashmere that was added in 2020, after an initial limited release first in 2019.

Cashmere hops are made from cross breeding Cascade hops with Northern Brewer hops, and is known for not just delivering the classic tropical fruits but also with accents of coconut, melon, lime and also a herbal undertone.

Like the Duvel Tripel Hop Citra, the Cashmere hops here were also dry-hopped to the otherwise classic Duvel two-hop recipe. 

Tasting Notes

Colour: Light Gold

Aroma: Rich yet much more gentle here, with tones of nectarines, orange jelly, with also some of that yellow banana hard candy. It's got quite a biscuity breadiness, with also that now signature citrusy tangerine peels. It's honeyed with a tinge of herbal qualities, altogether leaning sweeter and maltier.

Taste: Really rich and rounded, very malty and luscious body. It kicks off with a citrusy bite of lemon and lemon pith, with then an interesting twist that leads into coffee and unsweetened cappucino. This is really quite lemony, with the body filled in with gently herbal manuka honey that's then dusted with an increasingly more prominent clove spice into the finish. A touch of farmhouse hay that also comes through.

Finish: The intense lemony quality carries right through the finish, backed up by a canvas of maltiness that is here alittle more gristy and rustic. The finish is clean and a little tart, with some more grapefruit pith lingering and also a little bit of that burnt meat savouriness.

My Thoughts

This takes Duvel in quite a different direction. You still get those signature Belgian qualities of orange peels, spice and bananas, with here that same big maltiness that we got in the Tripel Hop Citra, yet this is quite intensely dominated by a lemony profile. There's also those little twists of coffee and even oak that comes through, although here alittle less cohesive than what we got with the Tripel Hop Citra. It's nevertheless intense in its flavours and certainly very generous with hop rounded and luscious it is. That said, this tends towards a more linear and narrow profile that's alittle less accessible. I found this enjoyable yet I would've liked to see that same mastery we saw on the Tripel Hop Citra brought over here, where perhaps we could have seen more of those subtle Cashmere accents!

My Rating: 7.5/10

Kanpai!

@111hotpot