Beer Lovers Celebrate Duvel On Tap
Food and drink critics and bloggers gathered at The Draft House this week to celebrate the Duvel’s traditional Belgian beer recipe: the 90-day re-fermentation that makes their citrus-y, spicy ales so palatable and its new, patented draft debut in the UK. Before, the brand could only be enjoyed via their signature chubby bottles, poured into a trademark tulip-shaped glass.
Duvel execs, including beer master Olav Blancquaert, flew in from Belgium to help show Londoners how to pour the perfect pint, gathering the industry’s best and brightest in beer to nosh on chips and fried calamari while getting first-hand fancy at the taps. It was a treat to see everyone’s attempt at trying their hand at their own Belgian pour, and editors turned into bar staff as they took to the taps themselves and tried to get just the right result: pour at a 45-degree angle, with the right amount of foam in their glasses. The traditional amount is just about half in the glass. Some got it right and some (like me) got it really wrong. Blancquaert supervised everyone’s results with a lot of humour, bless him.
There’s a lot of pressure to get the style of beer just right. Belgian beers are known throughout the world as being top quality. Any beer drinker will tell you: the rule of thumb for most beer buffs and even brew novices is that if it’s from this region of the world you can be pretty confident that you’re drinking a good one. Bottle or draft, you’re in safe, reliable hands with a Belgian beer: consistent taste, easy to drink and you get major kudos for picking the right draft.
“Duvel has always needed a sturdy glass bottle strong enough to keep the re-fermentation process in check, hence why its stumpy brown glass bottle has become so iconic,” says Duvel’s general manager for the UK, John Wood.
The golden ale ingredients and process is the same but what’s different is the delivery system: a replaceable keg dispenser that’s wired to shut down after each keg has been used so that the high CO2 content can offer drinkers that perfect, traditional Belgian pour: a foamy head with fine bubbles to amplify those aromas and give you authenticity in a glass. “Whereas other brewers usually adapt their beer to a standard draft system, Duvel is the first brewery to have created a special tapping system,” says Blancquaert. “This system allows Duvel to preserve the quality of its iconic beer. The brand’s re-affirmed its primacy in the beer world by becoming the only brewer producing beer which is re-fermented in a keg at such a high carbonation level.”
In other words, no other beer brand is serving its draft at such a high CO2 content level (hence the patent) and for that, Duvel, we in the UK say, cheers.
