Consorting with the...Duvel

Duvel is probably my second-most favorite Belgian beer (after Orval). The USA importer has a content-free website here. Wikipedia, as usual quite chatty, has more information here. There is even a club, but my Flemish is not so good---I could get that their server just crashed on the 9th, however. A technical description of the style is here.

The brewers of Duvel are very secretive, but we do know that Duvel is bottle-conditioned, i.e. fermented in the bottle. That is believed to be the third fermentation overall. The first fermentation is assumed to be normal (i.e. for a Belgian beer), and the second caused by an infusion of candy sugar (and why not?). The homebrew digest (main site here) has had some informed speculation in the past (use the search function), but all of us brewers have our own truth when it comes to consorting with this beer.

I think of it as a light-tasting, velvet-wrapped bierhammer. I'm making 10 gallons for a party.

The head on this beer is awesome and it leaves a very delicate lace on the perfectly shaped glass that reminds me of a diamond string bikini...
OK, maybe this is more like they mean by Belgian Lace...



I bet I know the image stuck in your head now.