Food & Beer Culture

What do you eat with Gueuze? In the Pajottenland, often bread with Plattekaas, a fresh, soft cheese made from local milk, served with radishes. The beer's acidity cuts through the creaminess of the cheese, and the radish adds a sharp bite.

Ham also pairs well, if glazed in beer. The fruitiness of Kriek goes well with duck and dark chocolate, while Gueuze pairs nicely with mussels and fish. For something simple, just have bread and cheese alongside a glass of Oude Geuze.

This culture has its own special places. In small cafés in the Senne Valley, bottles line the shelves, and you order one the way you'd order a glass of wine elsewhere. Lambic is a topic of conversation in itself: who's been blending how long, which barrel is aging better, who belongs to the HORAL association and who doesn't.

Every two years, HORAL organizes the Toer de Geuze, an open brewery day in spring when breweries and blenders throw open their doors. Visitors walk or drive from farm to farm, getting an up-close look at coolships, barrels, and bottle cellars, in Lembeek as much as in Beersel. A single day is barely enough to see every stop.

Geuze is often shared from bottles of 37.5 or 75 centiliters, much like opening a bottle of champagne. The amount is suited to the table rather than to a single glass. When a bottle is shared between two or three people, it's drunk slowly, with more talking than glass-filling going on.