When UNESCO inscribed Belgian beer culture on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity on 30 November 2016, it was simply giving official recognition to what every enthusiast had known for a long time: Belgium is not just a country that produces beer, it’s a country where beer has become a genuine common language. Belgian beers, breweries and beer culture are so deeply embedded in society that they have become inseparable from Belgian identity, uniting Walloons, Brussels residents and Flemish people in a shared sense of “belgitude”. But getting there was a long road, sometimes winding, passing through Benedictine monks, imperial decrees, revolutions, world wars and unexpected rebirths. Here, across eight centuries, is the story of a drink that became a civilisation.
At the origins: the founding role of the abbeys
Before beer became what it is today, it was for a long time a domestic product, a craft skill practised in households, mainly by women. Everything changed in the Middle Ages. At that time, the water in towns and villages was often contaminated, a carrier of dangerous diseases. Beer, because it was boiled during production, became a much safer alternative.
This is the context in which monasteries entered the picture. Originally, brewing was a domestic task entrusted to women, but in the Middle Ages, due to the very poor quality of the water, monks and abbeys decided to use their extensive knowledge of agriculture to develop a product they could drink safely. While monks in southern Europe opted for viticulture, those in Belgium, whose climate is not well suited to growing grapes, naturally turned to brewing.
From as early as the 6th century, monastic communities offered lodging and food to pilgrims according to the Rule of Saint Benedict: beer became a symbol of hospitality. From the 9th century onwards, Charlemagne decided to increase beer production in abbeys by requiring that brewing be carried out exclusively by experts and that each monastery have its own brewery. This edict transformed the landscape: abbeys became structured production centres, equipped with technical resources unmatched in lay society.
Several major Belgian abbeys established their breweries during this period. Abbeys gradually acquired brewing equipment, as at Grimbergen Abbey from 1128, the Abbey of Dinant where Leffe would be produced, and Affligem Abbey from 1086, which is said to have been the first to use hops. Beer became an identity product, a hallmark of the monastery’s reputation.
From gruit to hops: the revolution of the 14th century
For a long time, brewers did not have hops as we know them today. They used a blend of aromatic plants called gruit, made up of heather, bog myrtle, yarrow and other herbs depending on the region. This blend balanced the sweet taste of the malt but did not preserve the beer well.
Before the 14th century, there were no hops in Belgian beer: gruit was used, a plant blend that helped counterbalance the sweet taste of the malt. Hops only became widespread following a decree in 1364 requiring brewers to use them for their preservative properties. This decree, issued by Emperor Charles IV, marked a turning point: not only did hops improve preservation, but they also brought the aromatic bitterness that would become one of the signatures of modern brewing.
At the same time, towns saw the emergence of brewers’ guilds, true professional corporations that organised and protected the trade. In the Middle Ages, brewers began organising into guilds in Bruges from 1303 and in Liège from 1357. These bodies dictated production rules, controlled quality, defended collective interests and set prices. In Leuven, the Den Hoorn (the Horn) brewery was founded in 1366; six centuries later, it would become the birthplace of Stella Artois.
It was also during this period that the myth of Gambrinus emerged, the patron figure of beer, most likely inspired by Jan Primus, Duke of Brabant, who embodied good humour and local brewing pride.
Lambic: a treasure of the Senne valley
While abbeys were refining their recipes and towns were structuring their production, a distinct tradition was emerging in one very specific region: the Senne valley and the Pajottenland, just to the south-west of Brussels. It is here that lambic has been brewed since the 13th century, using a method unique in the world: spontaneous fermentation.
At the heart of the Pajottenland, the valley air is laden with hundreds of specific wild yeasts, the best known being Brettanomyces Bruxellensis and Brettanomyces Lambicus. These micro-organisms make it possible to brew a beer using an exceptional method: spontaneous fermentation, also known as natural fermentation. Unlike other beers where cultivated yeasts are added, lambic is left exposed to the open air in large shallow vats, and it is the naturally occurring micro-organisms that do the work.
The result is a beer unlike any other: dry, wine-like, slightly sour, sometimes described as “wild”. According to some sources, the word lambic may derive from Lembeek, a village located in the spontaneous fermentation beer production area. Lambic is typically from Brussels and was the only beer brewed in the capital in more than a hundred small breweries until the mid-19th century.
From lambic, brewers developed an entire family of beers: gueuze (a blend of young and old lambics that referments in the bottle, nicknamed the “champagne of Brussels”), kriek (lambic with cherries), framboise (raspberry lambic), and many other fruit variants. Since 2016, traditional Gueuze Lambic has been recognised as a Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG) product by the European Union, ensuring that ancestral methods are respected.
The golden age of the Trappists
While brewing abbeys have existed since the early Middle Ages, the most demanding branch appeared in the 17th century: the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance, more commonly known as “Trappist”. Trappists live according to the Rule of Saint Benedict, based on the formula “ora et labora” (pray and work). Brewing is not for them a commercial activity but a means of meeting the community’s needs and funding their charitable works.
It was in 1595 that the first Trappist brewery was founded at the Abbey of Saint-Rémy, which produces Rochefort Trappist beer. It was not until 1794 that Westmalle Trappist beer, now world-famous, was created, having begun to be sold commercially in 1870. The other great abbeys followed in the 19th century: Westvleteren obtained its brewing licence in 1839, Chimay began in 1862, Orval resumed brewing in 1931 in a rebuilt abbey.
The “Trappist” designation is strictly regulated. To carry the “Authentic Trappist Product” logo, three cumulative conditions must be met: the beer must be brewed within the walls of a Trappist abbey, under the direct control of the monks, and the profits must go to the community or to charitable works. This legal protection was won through a hard-fought battle: it was from February 1962, the date of a Ghent court ruling that sided with the monks, that the situation began to normalise, putting an end to decades of commercial misappropriation of the “Trappist” name.
Today, of the eleven officially recognised Trappist breweries in the world, six are Belgian: Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle, Westvleteren and, until recently, Achel. The latter lost its label in 2021 when the monastic community left the abbey, as there were no monks left to supervise the brewing.
The personalities of the six Belgian Trappists
Each has its own personality. Westmalle Tripel, launched commercially in 1934, has become the world benchmark for the tripel style. Westvleteren 12, brewed in deliberately limited quantities by the monks of Saint-Sixtus Abbey, is regularly voted the best beer in the world and is only sold at the abbey by reservation. Orval, with its distinctive bottle shape and Brettanomyces refermentation, is the only Trappist beer to exist in just one commercial version. Chimay, more accessible and international, offers a range of colour-coded caps (red, blue, white, and more recently gold and green). Rochefort, in its numbered series 6, 8 and 10, offers deep dark ales with notes of chocolate and coffee.
Revolutions, wars and the destruction of the brewing fabric
The 19th century opened a mixed period. Political upheaval came first: the French Revolution, which affected the Belgian regions under occupation, dissolved the brewers’ guilds and led to the closure, and even destruction, of many abbeys. Many monastic breweries simply disappeared. Competition from cacao and sodas also began to make itself felt.
Yet Belgium still counted around 3,000 breweries in 1900. The industrial revolution transformed methods: mastery of refrigeration, pasteurisation, fermentation chemistry and the advent of selected pure yeasts (particularly bottom-fermentation yeasts from Germany and Bohemia) opened the era of the pils, a pale, light and reproducible beer.
In Leuven, the old Den Hoorn brewery became Artois in 1717 when Sébastien Artois, master brewer, took ownership. In 1366, the Den Hoorn brewery in Leuven was founded. In 1708, Sébastien Artois became its master brewer. In 1717, he purchased the brewery where he had been working for 7 years. In 1926, the company created Stella Artois, a bottom-fermented pils-style beer stronger than those brewed until then. Originally conceived as a Christmas beer (hence its name, “star” in Latin), Stella would go on to become one of the most exported pils in the world.
In Jupille, near Liège, the Piedboeuf family followed a parallel path. From the early 19th century, the Piedboeuf company, based in Jupille, sold boilers and vats to Belgian and German breweries. It then switched to brewing and launched Jupiler in the 1960s, which would become the best-selling pils in Belgium.
But the two world wars hit hard. Copper requisitions, blockades, destruction, shortages of raw materials: by the end of the second conflict in 1946, only a quarter of Belgian breweries had survived. It was a spectacular collapse that could have spelled the end of the country’s brewing diversity.
The renaissance, from the 1970s to today
It was precisely when least expected that Belgian beer got its second wind. In the 1970s, the general public rediscovered it. Specialist brewers, who had kept traditional recipes alive despite the dominance of the pils, found a new audience. Tasters, journalists and enthusiasts, in Belgium and abroad, celebrated the depth and diversity of the national brewing heritage.
This renaissance was accompanied by massive industrial consolidation on one side, and a flourishing of craft brewing on the other. The merger between Artois and Piedboeuf in 1987 gave birth to Interbrew, which became InBev in 2004 through a merger with Brazilian AmBev, then AB InBev in 2008 after the acquisition of American Anheuser-Busch. This group, whose global headquarters is in Leuven, is today the world’s number one brewer. Alongside it, the Alken-Maes group (a Heineken subsidiary) forms the country’s second industrial pillar.
But the other side of the story is equally remarkable: since the 1980s, craft beer has seen spectacular growth. Microbreweries have sprung up everywhere, in villages and cities alike, reviving forgotten styles and experimenting with new approaches. Nearly 1,500 types of beer are produced in the country using different fermentation methods. Since the 1980s, craft beer has become particularly popular.
This diversity is unmatched. Trappists, abbey beers, lambics, gueuzes, krieks, wheat beers, blondes, amber ales, dark ales, Hainaut saisons (seasonal farmhouse ales), Flemish old browns, tripels, quadrupels, bières de garde (conditioning ales), fruit beers, Belgian IPAs and all manner of hybrids: the range is unequalled.
UNESCO recognition
This richness finally received its official recognition. The news was made public on 30 November 2016 in Addis Ababa: Belgian beer would henceforth belong to the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. In the Ethiopian capital, UNESCO decided that Belgian beer culture deserved this recognition.
The inscription does not cover a product but a living culture. The production and appreciation of beer are part of the living heritage of several communities spread across Belgium. This culture plays a role in their daily lives and at festive events. UNESCO particularly highlighted the transmission efforts of master brewers, the measures to prevent excessive consumption and the sector’s environmental commitment.
Beyond national pride, this recognition underlines a deeper truth: beer, in Belgium, is one of the rare common denominators between Walloons, Flemish, Brussels residents and German speakers. It crosses linguistic and regional boundaries, bringing people together in estaminets (traditional Belgian cafés), village breweries, festivals and cafés. It is drunk, but it is also discussed, compared, paired with cheeses and regional dishes, and finds its way into cooking (beef stew braised in beer, rabbit with kriek, Chimay cheese).
A tradition that keeps reinventing itself
Today, the Belgian brewing landscape oscillates between two poles. On one side, the industrial giants who sell by the millions of hectolitres and export Belgian brands to every continent. On the other, hundreds of small craft operations that revisit the classics, experiment with American hops or mixed fermentations, and revive forgotten regional styles.
Between the two, abbey beers occupy a particular, sometimes ambiguous, place. To be carefully distinguished from Trappists, they refer to beers inspired by a monastic tradition but most often brewed by commercial companies under licence. The abbey beers you see in shops are 99% made by large industrial producers (Affligem, Grimbergen, etc.). The “abbey beer” designation has then become little more than marketing. To find your way around, the “Certified Belgian Abbey Beer” label, managed by the Belgian Brewers’ Union, guarantees at least a historical link with a real abbey and the payment of royalties to it or its works.
As for the Trappists, they continue their deliberately limited production. The monks refuse the race for volume, faithful to the principle stated by Westvleteren: “we brew to live, we do not live to brew”. This deliberate restraint, going against the dominant commercial logic, is perhaps the best guarantee of the tradition’s authenticity.
Conclusion: eight centuries, and then?
From Affligem Abbey in the 11th century to 21st-century urban microbreweries, from Charlemagne to AB InBev, from medieval gruit to contemporary IPAs, Belgian beer has crossed the centuries by transforming itself without ever losing its soul. It is made of this paradox: a know-how deeply rooted in its terroir, from the micro-organisms of the Pajottenland to the specific yeasts of each abbey, and a permanent openness to innovation and the world.
The 2016 UNESCO inscription is not a finishing line but an encouragement: to preserve this living culture, pass it on, defend it against industrial uniformity. As long as there are brewers to experiment, monks to brew at dawn, enthusiasts to appreciate the complexity of a five-year-old gueuze and cafés to serve draught beer faithfully in the right glass, the story of Belgian beer will keep on being written. And every sip tells, in its own way, eight centuries of invention, struggle, patience and shared pleasure.
FAQ: the history of beer in Belgium
- Why do Belgians use a different glass for each beer?
- This tradition comes from the idea that each beer has its ideal glass to reveal its aromas and its head. Breweries long supplied their own glasses to cafés, both for technical reasons (a tulip glass concentrates the aromas, a balloon glass lets a Trappist breathe) and for commercial ones (displaying the brand). Refusing to serve a beer in its designated glass is almost a sacrilege in a traditional Belgian café.
- What is the difference between a top-fermented and a bottom-fermented beer?
- Top fermentation uses yeasts that work at a relatively warm temperature (15 to 25°C) and rise to the surface: this is the traditional method for Trappists, tripels, abbey beers and wheat beers. Bottom fermentation, more recent, takes place in the cold (around 10°C) with yeasts that settle to the bottom: this is the technique for pils such as Stella or Jupiler. Top fermentation generally produces more complex and aromatic beers, bottom fermentation more clean and thirst-quenching ones.
- Why do some Belgian beers reach 9 or 10% alcohol?
- The “doubles”, “tripels” and “quadrupels” take their historical name from the quantity of malt used: the more you add, the more sugars there are to convert into alcohol. This is a legacy of monastic recipes, where strong beers were brewed for feast days or to keep the drink longer. Today, these high alcohol levels are part of the assumed character of Belgian beers, which prioritise aromatic richness over lightness.
- Are there still breweries run directly by monks?
- Yes, but they have become rare. In Belgium, only the six Trappist abbeys (Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle, Westvleteren and formerly Achel) have had real monks supervising the brewing on a daily basis. Most other “abbey beers” are produced by commercial breweries under licence, with no real monastic presence. The decline in religious vocations is even putting pressure on some abbeys, such as Achel, which lost its label in 2021.
- What is the difference between a Belgian white beer and a blonde beer?
- White beer (witbier), like Hoegaarden, is brewed with a significant proportion of wheat in addition to barley, giving it its cloudy, milky colour and often citrusy taste thanks to the addition of coriander and orange peel. Blonde beer, on the other hand, uses mainly pale barley malt and offers a cleaner, drier or maltier profile depending on the recipe. Visually, the white beer is immediately recognisable by its hazy appearance, the blonde by its golden clarity.
- Why has Belgium maintained such brewing diversity when other countries have become uniform?
- Several factors combine: a strong regional attachment to specific styles (saison in Hainaut, old brown ale in West Flanders, lambic in Brussels), the absence of a strict purity law like the German Reinheitsgebot that would have limited permitted ingredients, and sustained local demand that allowed small breweries to survive alongside industrial pils. Demanding and curious Belgian enthusiasts also played a major role in refusing the uniformisation of taste.
- How is brewing know-how passed on in Belgium today?
- The trade is transmitted through several complementary channels: professional training courses (the Meurice Institute in Brussels has been training internationally recognised master brewers for over a century), family transmission in multi-generational breweries, and zythologist (professional beer taster) training courses open to the general public. UNESCO particularly acknowledged this transmission structure when inscribing the heritage in 2016.
