Of wolf and boar

There's something a bit medievally heraldic about Wallonese breweries and their wild beast avatars. Today I'm visiting two of them.

Brasserie Minne is one I've encountered before, in Brussels bar Gist. The brewery itself is not far out of Marche-en-Famenne, where I was staying for this year's Brussels Beer Challenge judging. That said, it's still quite remote, and based in a very utilitarian industrial park, so I don't know who is making the effort to come and drink in the compact but well-appointed two-storey taproom. The company logo is the wild boar (sanglier, en Français) and it features heavily in their branding.

The flagship, as far as I can determine, is Super Sanglier, a blonde ale of 4.8% ABV, and a distinctly unBelgian one, I thought. It has a lightly floral aroma but none of the fruit esters or yeast-derived spicing that I would expect of a Belgian blonde, even at this low strength. Instead, it's thin and dull, lacking even the cleansing crispness of a lager. I'm sure the brewery cares not in the slightest for puns in English (who does?), but I found this to be a massive bore.

Sangl'IPA is Minne's take on IPA, and presumably pitching for the American style, with a new-world combination of Citra, Cashmere and Wai-iti hops. It's quite hazy, and looks quite dark in my picture but is really no more than a medium amber, showing fully yellow in the right light. An inviting tropical aroma starts us off, though the astringent bitterness in the first sip was something of a shock. That softens quickly, however, restoring the gentle mango character, with a lightly tart gooseberry finish. It's not terribly complex for 6.5% ABV, but what's there is enjoyable, bringing some summery refreshment to another otherwise dismal November afternoon.

There was a promise of something more interesting from Vinum, the grape ale. Minne makes several variants of this, and I had the newly-released 2025 Gewurztraminer version. The wine variety has a signature floral character, and here it's heavily concentrated, with an intense pear and lavender perfume effect. I couldn't help thinking it has something of fabric softener about it, which is unfortunate. It's a stonking 9.5% ABV and quite cloying, even in small doses. If you're a Gewurztraminer superfan it might float your boat, because the grape side is unmistakable. Otherwise, exercise caution with this one.

A barley wine to finish, and a change of animal. My Deer is another one that comes in many forms; this is the 2025 Cognac barrel-aged version, given 15 months of contact with the oak. It's 12.5% ABV and all of that comes out in an immediately hot aroma and foretaste. It smells more like red wine than brandy, and the flavour has an oddly off-putting redcurrant sour side. This lacks the mature smoothness that barrel-aged barley wine ought to have, instead offering a rough acidity mixed with a cheesey funk. Although its heart is in the right place, the execution careens randomly. I would strongly recommend leaving this for a year or two's maturation in the bottle, though am far from guaranteeing it will be any better after that.

I feel a bit ungrateful after that, having enjoyed the brewery's hospitality but only one of their actual beers. Try the tripel and the stout instead: they're pretty reliable.

We go south for today's second brewery, almost to the border with Luxembourg proper. The village of Gouvy is home to Brasserie Lupulus, its clean and modern brewery across the courtyard from a rustic-styled bar and restaurant in a converted barn.

Our hosts welcomed us with what I'm guessing is their flagship, Lupulus Blonde. No half measures on the strength here, with the full 8.5% ABV of the classics. Maybe because it was served very cold, it tasted nothing like that. It looked proper, being indeed blonde and very slightly hazed, even on draught. The outline of the taste is correct too, with crisp and grainy cracker meeting a bite of grapefruit peel, but all is low-key and dialled back. I found it refreshing after the journey, but I doubt that's the point of a beer with this degree of heft. A high level of drinkability is usually a positive, but here it creates a paradoxical hybrid of dangerous and boring.

Lupulus Pils was the place to go next. I don't know how far it gets from the brewery but it seemed to me much more of a kellerbier than a pristine pilsner. That's in its favour, as is the fact it's not one of those metal-dry Belgian-style pilses. Instead, there's a gentle Germanic greenness about the hopping, all salad and celery. The balance is superb, with an invigorating bite of bitterness and acres of clean, crisp grain. I tend to use pilsner as a kind of test of a brewery's ability, especially when drinking at source. This one passed with honours.

There's a nod to contemporary beer trends with Hopera, the Lupulus IPA. There's maybe also a quick wink to the Belgian way of doing things, with a little hard-candy sweetness, but otherwise this 6%-er is clean and quite west-coast-ish. There's a fresh and zesty grapefruit aroma, and a flavour based on wholesome biscuit with gentle citrus layered delicately on top. The hops are maybe a little too muted to fool anyone into thinking it's actually American, but it's very clean and accessible, with a preciseness to the taste which reminded me of how German brewers tend to do IPA. That's a compliment.

Before leaving, I took a random chance on Jolly Poupée without knowing anything about what it is. It arrived bottled, described on the label as "modern red beer" and with an ABV of 6.671% -- the brewery's postcode. Hilarity! I've no idea what makes this "modern", because it has a lot in common with many an Irish red ale, though the better sort. The base is very roasty, with strange but welcome notes of coffee. This contrasts with sweet summer fruit, and strawberries in particular, before the grain reasserts itself for a dry finish. That ABV gives it a lovely smooth richness, and on the whole it's rather enjoyable. Where it fits into the rest of Belgian beer is a bit of a mystery, but perhaps it's what De Koninck might taste like if it wasn't chock full of disgusting diacetyl.

Apart from a side trip to Rochefort, where they had no new beers for me to tick -- disgraceful -- that was all the brewery visits of the trip. One of the competition stewards did bring a beer he, as Oldskool Brewery of Eindhoven, had collaborated on with the Weiherer brewery near Bamberg. It's a Rauchweizen, and I was quite apprehensive about that since the only smoked weissbier I know is Schlenkerla's, and I don't think it works -- the savoury smoke clashing badly with the sweet esters. This one was altogether better, and I put at least some of that down to the cask serve, giving it a beautifully soft texture and a subtle flavour, untroubled by busy carbonation. It's very much a weissbier at heart, centered on light clove and banana notes, while the smoke is barely noticeable at first, but builds gradually on the palate as it goes. There was a lot of it to go round, and a lot of building was done, but it never became excessive or difficult, being more sessionable than expected, even at a modest 5.3% ABV. Masterful stuff, and not a beer I would have even thought possible.

I didn't fancy trying to get to Brussels airport and home from Marche-en-Famenne directly, so broke up the journey with a night in Brussels. With some of my fellow judges I trooped along to Lord Byron where we shared a bottle of their house beer. It's from Lambiek Fabriek, a brewery I check in with only occasionally because I tend to find their beers too harsh, and it's a geuze with added blood oranges, called Bloody Byron. And it's good! Although bright Lucozade orange in colour, the fruit makes only a minor contribution, adding a mild zestiness to the picture. Otherwise it's a straightforward geuze, with a sizeable quantity of brick-like minerality and gunpowder spice. None of the brewery's regular roughness is detectable, so perhaps it's time I gave them a proper reappraisal.

The evening finished, as all the best ones do, at Le Coq. My signature move here is to check the specials blackboards first, and that got me L'Annexe's Saison de Bruxelles. It is saison cromulence in a glass, with all the right elements in the right places: light peachy fruit meeting a dry grain rasp. What more could anyone want? As it happened, there was some Saison Dupont in circulation too, and that was an eye-opening comparison. Though the beers are broadly similar, Dupont's is just bigger flavoured, with more of the almost tart dry aspect. L'Annexe's could hold its own to an extent, but didn't have the beatings.

Finally, an unfamiliar beer from De La Senne: Tabula Rasa, a 5% ABV pale ale, brewed in collaboration with French brewery Cambier as a fund-raiser following a devastating fire. It's the pale hazy yellow of grapefruit juice, and tastes a bit like it too. The body is quite thin for the strength, despite the inclusion of rye, wheat and spelt in the recipe, and the citric bitterness is laid on heavily: a sharp workout for the gums. A couple of mouthfuls in, however, and I was used to it, and actively enjoying its punchy assertiveness. Amazingly, it's all done with French hops, tasting classically American. Regardless, it's another very flavourful and pintworthy De La Senne beer of the sort we've come to expect.

And that wrapped up another highly enjoyable few days in Belgium. I feel virtuous for having explored the southern reaches of Wallonia, though I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone but the most dedicated of Belgophiles.

Dennis Kort serving his Rauchweizen in Marche-en-Famenne town square