Beer Styles

Which beer styles belong to Limburg? Pils comes first, in an "Edel" version from Alfa, as an organic variant from Gulpener, and as Brand Pilsener. Alfa Edel Pils was named style winner in the Classic Pilsener category at the World Beer Awards, according to the brewery's own account.

Limburg's Pils has the classic shape: golden, clear, with a white head of foam and the dry, lightly bitter finish of a bottom-fermented beer. Compared with North German Pils, it often comes across as somewhat rounder, since the bitterness is less sharp.

Gulpener's Korenwolf witbier comes in at 5.0 percent and is a cloudy, pale wheat beer with spice notes. It differs from Bavarian Weissbier, which tastes of banana and clove, through its light citrus and spiciness and its lighter body.

The Gerardus Kloosterbier range comes as Blond, Dubbel and Tripel. The word Kloosterbier here is a style name—it doesn't mean monks are doing the brewing. According to the brewery, the Tripel comes in at 8.5 percent, the Dubbel around 7. That's strong, but far smoother than the alcohol content would suggest.

Then there's the Bockbier tradition. Brand, by its own account, makes the oldest specialty beer style in the Netherlands with its Imperator, alongside the UP and Dubbelbock varieties. A Bockbier is a strong, malty beer with at least 16 percent original gravity, as required by German beer regulations for the designation. In the Netherlands, such Bockbiers appear especially in autumn, and Brand and Gulpener both offer them seasonally.