Belgium has more recognized beer styles than any other country, and the range on offer runs from a light, refreshing witbier to Trappist ales strong enough to sip slowly over an evening, plus a category of sour, spontaneously fermented beer found almost nowhere else in the world. That range exists because Belgian brewing developed along two separate tracks for centuries: monasteries brewing under their own strict rules, and farmhouse brewers in the countryside making beer with whatever wild yeast happened to be floating in the local air, a method most of the world abandoned once controlled yeast strains became standard. Both traditions are still alive and commercially available today. If you are only familiar with lager, Belgian beer is one of the best places to start branching out. Here are ten brands that between them cover most of what makes the country’s beer culture distinctive, from a 14th-century pilsner to a wild-fermented lambic aged in wine barrels.
Duvel: The Strong Blonde That Started It All
Duvel, first brewed in 1871 and still made by the fourth generation of the Moortgat family, is the beer most credited with defining the “Belgian strong golden ale” category. At 8.5% ABV, it looks deceptively light, pale gold and clean, but it packs real strength behind a dry, slightly spicy finish. The name reportedly comes from a taster remarking that an early version was “a real devil” of a beer, which is exactly what “Duvel” means in Flemish. It is the beer most likely to convince a skeptic that strong Belgian ale does not have to taste heavy.
Westmalle: The Trappist Original
Westmalle, brewed by Trappist monks at the Abbey of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, is credited with essentially inventing the tripel style with its Tripel, first brewed commercially in 1934. Along with its Dubbel, Westmalle’s beers are considered benchmarks for their respective styles by most Belgian beer writers, and both are still brewed within the walls of the active monastery. If you want a deeper look at what qualifies a beer as genuinely Trappist, our guide to Trappist monks and their beer covers the rules in full.
Chimay: The One You Actually Find on the Shelf
Chimay is the most widely exported of the Trappist breweries, which makes it most people’s first real exposure to abbey-brewed Belgian beer. The range runs from the approachable 7% Red dubbel to the 9% Blue dark strong ale, with a dry, hoppy White tripel in between. We cover the whole range in detail in our Chimay Red, White and Blue guide.
Hoegaarden: The Gateway Witbier
Hoegaarden is a Belgian witbier, a cloudy, pale wheat beer brewed with coriander and orange peel, and it is one of the biggest reasons the style survived into the modern era at all. The original Hoegaarden brewery closed in 1957, and the style was effectively revived in 1966 by former employee Pierre Celis, who founded a new brewery in the same town. At around 4.9% ABV, it is lighter and easier-drinking than the other three beers on this list, and a good entry point for anyone who finds Belgian strong ales intimidating.
Delirium Tremens: The Pink Elephant Strong Ale
Delirium Tremens, brewed by Huyghe Brewery in Melle since 1989, is a Belgian strong pale ale best known for its distinctive bottle, covered in illustrated pink elephants and other tipsy-looking creatures, a nod to the hallucinations associated with severe alcohol withdrawal that give the beer its name. At 8.5% ABV, it uses three different yeast strains during fermentation, which is unusually complex even by Belgian standards, and produces a beer that has picked up gold medals at the World Beer Championships more than once. It sits in the same strong golden ale category as Duvel, but with a fruitier, spicier character from its yeast blend.
Stella Artois: The Belgian Pilsner Everyone Already Knows
Stella Artois traces its roots to the Den Hoorn brewery in Leuven, with records referencing brewing there as far back as 1366, though the Stella name itself dates to a 1926 Christmas beer. It is a pilsner rather than an abbey ale or strong golden, brewed with Saaz hops and served at 5.2% ABV in the brand’s own branded chalice glass, a service ritual the brewery has pushed hard globally. It is the most internationally recognized Belgian beer brand by volume, and often the first “Belgian beer” many drinkers outside Europe ever try, even if it does not represent the abbey and Trappist side of the country’s brewing tradition.
Orval: The Trappist Ale With a Wild Yeast Twist
Orval, brewed within the walls of Orval Abbey since 1931, is one of the founding members of the International Trappist Association covered in our guide to Trappist monks and their beer, and it stands apart from other Trappist beers for one reason: it is dry-hopped and bottle-conditioned with Brettanomyces, a wild yeast strain that most breweries actively try to keep out of their beer. That gives Orval a tart, funky, increasingly dry character that changes noticeably as the bottle ages, unlike the sweeter dubbels and tripels most other Trappist breweries make. At 6.2% ABV it is also lighter than most of its Trappist peers.
Leffe: The Abbey Beer Most People Meet First
Leffe traces its name to Notre-Dame de Leffe Abbey, founded in 1152, though the beer itself has been brewed commercially since 1952 under license rather than inside an active monastery, which makes it an abbey beer rather than a genuine Trappist beer under the rules covered in our Trappist guide above. Leffe Blonde, the flagship at 6.6% ABV, has a soft, slightly sweet malt character with a touch of clove and banana from its yeast, and its wide availability on tap across Europe makes it many drinkers’ first introduction to abbey-style beer before they ever try a true Trappist ale.
Saison Dupont: The Farmhouse Ale That Defined a Style
Saison began as a practical beer, not a stylistic choice. Farms in Wallonia, the French-speaking south of Belgium, brewed it in winter and stored it through the year to give seasonal farm workers something refreshing during the summer harvest, which is where the name comes from, saison meaning “season” in French. Brasserie Dupont, founded in 1844 in the village of Tourpes, is the brewery most credited with keeping the style alive and defining what it should taste like: dry, highly carbonated, fruity and spicy from its yeast, with a bitterness that borders on peppery. Saison Dupont sits at 6.5% ABV and is still bottle-conditioned, meaning it continues to carbonate and develop in the bottle after it leaves the brewery, the same way it would have when farmhands actually depended on it lasting through summer.
Cantillon: The Sour Side of Belgian Brewing
Everything else on this list uses a cultivated yeast strain the brewer controls. Cantillon, a family-run brewery in Brussels operating since 1900, does not. Its lambic beer ferments spontaneously: the wort is cooled overnight in a shallow, open-topped vessel called a koelschip, exposed directly to the air so that whatever wild yeast and bacteria happen to be floating around Brussels settle into it naturally, then it ages for one to three years in secondhand wine and port barrels. A young lambic on its own is sharply sour and barely carbonated. Gueuze, Cantillon’s best-known product, is made by blending lambics of different ages together and rebottling for a second fermentation, the same principle as blending champagne vintages, which builds natural carbonation and balances the sourness of younger batches against the mellower character of older ones. It is a completely different experience from a dubbel or tripel, and one of the few beer styles in the world that cannot really be replicated with modern brewing shortcuts, since the wild yeast and bacteria specific to the Brussels air are part of what makes it taste the way it does.
Want to try the witbier too? Shop Hoegaarden on Saucey. Orval and Leffe are harder to find through US retailers in stock consistently, so check availability directly with Orval’s own site or Leffe’s brand site for stockists near you. Cantillon is even harder to find outside specialist bottle shops and Belgium itself; Cantillon’s own site lists its Brussels brewery shop and current stockists.
Belgian Beer Styles at a Glance
| Style | Typical ABV | Example from this list |
|---|---|---|
| Witbier | 4.5-5.5% | Hoegaarden |
| Pilsner | 4.8-5.5% | Stella Artois |
| Saison / farmhouse ale | 5-8% | Saison Dupont |
| Dubbel | 6-7.5% | Westmalle Dubbel, Chimay Red |
| Abbey ale | 6-8% | Leffe Blonde |
| Trappist ale (dry-hopped) | 6-6.5% | Orval |
| Tripel | 8-9.5% | Westmalle Tripel, Chimay White |
| Belgian strong golden/pale ale | 8-9% | Duvel, Delirium Tremens |
| Dark strong ale / quadrupel | 9-12% | Chimay Blue |
| Lambic / gueuze | 5-8% | Cantillon |
FAQs
What makes a beer “Belgian style”?
Belgian styles are usually defined by their yeast character rather than a single flavor. Distinctive Belgian yeast strains produce fruity esters and peppery phenols that give the beers their signature spicy, fruity complexity, regardless of whether the beer is pale or dark.
Are all Belgian beers strong?
No. Witbiers like Hoegaarden sit around 5% ABV, similar to a standard lager. It is specifically the abbey and Trappist styles, like tripels and dark strong ales, that tend to run 8% or higher.
What is the difference between a Belgian abbey beer and a Trappist beer?
Trappist is a legally protected term that only applies to beer brewed within an active Trappist monastery under the monks’ supervision. Abbey beer is a broader category that may be brewed in the style of a monastic beer, or even licensed from a monastery, without meeting the strict Trappist criteria.
What is a lambic, and why does it taste sour?
Lambic is fermented spontaneously with wild yeast and bacteria from the air rather than a cultivated yeast strain, then aged in barrels for one to three years. That wild fermentation and long aging produce the sharp, sour character that sets it apart from every other Belgian style on this list.
What is the difference between a saison and a witbier?
Both are lighter, refreshing styles, but a saison is typically drier, spicier and slightly stronger, around 6 to 8% ABV, while witbier is milder and lower in alcohol, around 4.5 to 5.5%, and relies on coriander and orange peel for its character rather than yeast-driven spice.
