Beer Pouring Ritual

What? You're not sick of hearing about Belgium yet?

In Belgium, there’s a little more to receiving a beer than pulling a pint glass of questionable cleanliness off a shelf and dumping some beer into it (which I would argue is what usually happens in the US). It feels a little more ritualistic, and the ritual starts after you select your beer.

Each beer has its own special glass. Some serving vessels are quite elaborate, but most are fairly ordinary. More like wine glasses, actually, with a beer name on the side. I’ve never seen anyone pour a beer into a glass with a different name. If they don’t have the right glass, they’ll choose either a blank one or one from the same brewery with no specific beer name on it.

Various Beer Glasses

If your beer is on tap, you glass is filled with delicious nectar at the bar. You’d hate to have any of that beer dribble over the edge of the special glass, so any foam that has risen over the top of the glass is scraped off with a straight knife. If any of it managed to sneak down the side, the bottom of the glass will be dipped in water or wiped with a towel to clean it off.

Many beers in Belgium undergo a secondary fermentation in the bottle and are unavailable on tap. In that case, the server loads your beer and matching glass onto a tray and brings it to your table. At your table it will be poured carefully to achieve just the right amount of head. Rarely will they pour the entire bottle into the glass. This is because any yeast sediment in the bottom of the bottle would cloud the beer in the glass. It’s fine to drink the yeast, but they don’t want to ruin the presentation.

Your beer is then presented to you. The glass is placed in front of you and then deliberately rotated so that the logo on the glass is facing you. The same for the bottle, if present. This process applies for all of the places we drank. From the snooty restaurants to the seediest, smokiest, smallest of bars, the Belgians take their beer seriously. And they should. It’s f’ing great.