This week we hear from Bentspoke Brewings’s Richard Watkins and it’s all about delicious barrel-aged Flanders Reds.

Beer is in a really interesting place right now. If you look at the early generation of craft brewers, many were inspired by travels through Europe, especially Belgium. Later, it was hop forward beers that inspired brewers and beer drinkers alike. Hop forward gradually morphed into hop driven beers and we saw an IBU arms race. More recently hops have meant haze and we have seen a race to be the cloudiest most fruit punchy beers on the market.

Another notable trend has been the rise of what are termed sour beers, which has also seen a race to be the most mouth puckering, or wildest combination of flavours. It’s all good fun and great for headlines and for attention, and also interest in the sector.

But, at risk of prematurely earning an ‘ok boomer’ from you, I was a beer drinker whose palate was shaped by the classic beers of Belgium and whose touchstones in sour beers were beers Flanders Red beers such as Rodenbach and Orval. To me, these beers are still amongst the greats, that show how good beer can be.

If you haven’t already, seek out some BentSpoke Flemm. It is sublime.

Also, have a listen, or a relisten, to our conversation with Rodenbach’s Rudi Ghequire from last year. It was a another very insightful delving into the world of Belgian beers.

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