Joe Stange

“I could buy conventional grain and save some thousands of bucks per year, but then I don’t have anything to tell,” Jan Kemker says. “I don’t know if we need to call it terroir. It’s liquid storytelling, I think.”

• Saison
• Farmhouse
• Germany

In various places around the world, brewers are choosing to limit their choices and root their beer in its place. In the first part of a triptych, here’s a look at Norway’s Eik & Tid and its kveik-fermented, oak-aged, mixed-culture raw ales.

• Farmhouse
• Mixed-Culture
• Terroir

Ready to build a fire and brew a traditional stone beer at home? Grab your tongs and get ready to rock.

• Stone Beer
• Steinbier
• Mashing

Mashing with hot rocks isn’t just an antiquated quirk of a few farmhouse brewers. In fact, we may be able to blame the technique for the founding of human civilization.

• Ancient Brewing
• Steinbier
• Stone Beer

Tilquin’s strategy for blending gueuze is one part romance, one part math, as the experience he’s developed with lambics from different Belgian brewers informs every piece of the blend—from age to technical performance and flavor.

• Podcast

This homebrew recipe is based on everything we know about how Duvel brews its iconic golden strong ale.

• Beer Recipe
• Golden Strong Ale
• Belgian Ale

From our Love Handles files on beer bars we love: This longtime Beltway cornerstone serves exceptional beers and pizzas.

• Washington D.C.
• Love Handles
• Pizza

Known for their high-gravity beers and irreverent attitude, the Struise Brouwers have injected fresh energy into Belgian beer over the past two decades. Yet the systems they’ve built to brew these big beers are as creative as the beers themselves.

• Podcast
• Belgium
• Struise Brouwers

In the Belgian province of Limburg, near the town of Hasselt and the Haspengouw region known for fruit-growing, the Bokke blendery is getting back on its feet.

• Podcast
• Lambic
• Gueuze

Here are two titles worth adding to your shelves—and well worth clearing some you-time to put up your feet, crack a beer, and crack a book.

• Beer Books
• Sexism
• Women Brewers

For De Ranke, looking back was looking forward. When the Belgian beer industry was minimizing bitterness, De Ranke embraced it instead, carving out a hop-forward niche that’s been influencing fellow brewers for nearly three decades.

• Podcast
• Hops
• Bitterness

In France near the Belgian border, family-run Brasserie Au Baron fuses the character of local ingredients, a distinctive house yeast, and the traditions of both saison and bière de garde.

• Podcast