When Nino Bacelle and Guido Devos started homebrewing together in the 80’s, Belgian beer was in the midst of a sea change. Consolidation was afoot as larger industrial breweries swallowed up smaller concerns, while an earlier generation of brewers had reached retirement age with few of the younger generation interested in carrying on the brewing tradition. The beers that they loved and grew up drinking were disappearing—subsumed by a wave of sweeter mass-produced crowd-pleasing beers. To be fair, there were (and continue to be) some historical holdouts. But generally speaking, bitterness was slowly leaving the lexicon of Belgian brewing.

Bacelle, who grew up around beer (his father was a guezesteker, or blender, but did not brew), longed for the beers he had tasted growing up. Together with homebrewing partner Devos, he decided to launch a beer brand, De Ranke, to address the opportunity they saw in the market for beer that embraced bitterness. First was their Guldenberg Tripel, followed closely by what is now considered a paragon of hop-forward beer, the aptly named XX Bitter.

Today, these beers feel familiar, but they were groundbreaking in their time and remain somewhat unique today due to the peculiarities of De Ranke’s process. In this episode, Bacelle explains that process and more, including:

The challenges of buying and brewing with whole cone hops
Working with growers to source local Belgian hops
Understanding the qualitative difference between whole cone and pellet hops
Brewing with a kettle purposely designed for whole cone hops
Using closed fermentation vessels to mimic open fermentation
Two-stage cellaring with a free-rise fermentation followed by a cooler secondary fermentation then bottle conditioning
Stylistic changes over time in classic Belgian abbey styles
Differences in hop terroir
De Ranke’s blended approach to acid-forward beer

And more.

“The Belgian public is so used to sweetness from all the industrial beers they know,” says Bacelle. “Sweetness is easy selling, and bitterness needs a public that is more aware … and is willing to experience other tastes.”

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230: The Bitter Truth About Belgian Beer With Nino Bacelle of De Ranke

Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast