With so many beers named for medieval abbeys, it’s easy to suppose Belgium’s most iconic brews have always been here. Several of the country’s internationally renowned ales, like Boon Geuze, Duvel, and Saison Dupont, have been on the market since at least the 1950s, and many—including some of those listed above—since long before.

It certainly feels the same with De Dolle Oerbier: a mahogany-tinged, toasty, and refreshingly tart ale, complex with cherry and woody esters, a cola-like herbal bitterness and a warm glow from its 9% ABV. It could be an aperitif, nightcap or pairing for any course in between. It could be the meal itself.

Whenever, or wherever it’s served, the “original beer” (as its name translates) tastes like a distillation of all the brewing traditions of its homeland.

The Westhoek of Flanders, this “west corner” by the French border, is traditionally the territory of red-brown sour ales—oud bruin and Flemish reds—alongside the monastic standard-bearers of Westvleteren and St. Bernardus. The hop fields of Poperinge are within easy cycling distance, if there’s not too much wind coming off the North Sea, and Oerbier feels as endemic and inevitable to this place as its flat horizon and grey clouds.

Seeing De Dolle’s brewery in the village of Esen, decked in the characteristic yellow brick familiar to West Flanders, the year 1835 on its cornice, reinforces the impression of a generational tradition like so many other Belgian producers. Yet “The Mad Brewers” and their flagship Oerbier date only to 1980. For a beer so innately Belgian in character, its story is familiar from any country where craft beer has taken hold: A 20-something-year-old home brewer, dissatisfied with the mainstream products on offer, who insisted on creating something a little bit different.

***

I knew only the mythological side of Belgian beer as a neophyte enthusiast in mid-1990s America.

My first encounter with De Dolle, like so many others, was at the Brickskeller Tavern (rest its soul) near where I lived in Washington, D.C. It had just become De Dolle’s first US importer, and it hosted brewer and founder Kris Herteleer for a series of talks that he remembers fondly, and I still regret missing. I didn’t yet know the backstory, but when I finally got my hands on a glass, Oerbier blew me away. I recall my mind boggling at the swirling layers of flavour, not to mention the heady power of the beer.

““It could be an aperitif, nightcap or pairing for any course in between. It could be the meal itself.””

According to Kris, at the time Oerbier was 7.5%—considerably weaker than today’s 9% version—with a bit more sweetness as well as sourness, for reasons we’ll get to shortly. Still, what a revelation to have something so interesting and drinkable at memory-scattering strength. As far as I knew at the time, this was the apogee of centuries of Belgian tradition.

While its history turned out more recent than I reckoned, Oerbier has greatly shaped my own idea of what Belgian beer can be. More to the point, however, it’s also inspired a new generation of the country’s brewers, who in turn have pushed boundaries in hop usage, mixed fermentation, barrel-aging and much more.

The story goes that Kris—formerly an architect—and his brother Jo craved something gutsier than the sweet, industrial concoctions dominating the Belgian market in the late 1970s.

Belgian brewers, then and now, typically arrive onto the scene with a blond ale, or perhaps a golden tripel, later filling out the lineup with a dubbel, or something else a little darker and maltier. Kris and Jo decided to go in another direction. They found that no pale malt profile could stand up to the woody esters of the yeast they were using, which came from Rodenbach, the venerable maker of tart, wood-aged beers from their hometown of Roeselare, to the west of Flanders.

The original—the oer-Oerbier—was slightly less potent. It was more acidic, and sweeter because the Rodenbach yeast came with more lactobacillus and other microbes that produced distinctive sour notes, while consuming less of the wort’s sugars.

Then in 2000, De Dolle faced a massive shock. Rodenbach, after a change of ownership, cut off its yeast supply. Kris attempted to propagate the strain (or, to be more accurate, various strains) as best he could, but the complex nature of this yeast made it difficult to tame. Over time, it changed.

A hungrier, more robust team of yeasts—as well as bacteria including Lactobacillus and Pediococcus—now holds sway, producing a beer with softer acidity and stronger fermentation. Kris has adjusted with a stronger malt profile and yet more hops.

Recently De Dolle has been forced to adapt yet again, as its original maltster, Huys, went out of business. Kris tells me how he had to tweak for the loss of a particular malt within his complicated grain bill featuring a blend of six pale and caramel malts, now sourced from Dingemans.

The brew remains stoked with candi sugar—this is Belgium, after all—then generously hopped with Goldings grown in Poperinge.

***

Dipping into a fresh bottle of Oerbier now I take in the smells of fresh sawdust and cherry orchards. Flavours of root beer spice and a spritz of lactic acid lightens an otherwise meaty mouthful.

I could be quaffing away a thirst or thawing myself in front of a fire. It’s hard to give this beer time in the glass to warm, but as it does (we both do, really) it opens up yet more with notes of vanilla, apricots, grape must, plum going on to prune, dried date, heading toward port territory. The herbaceous hops are assertive and pleasurable, all within the Belgian aesthetic of balance, hardly radical by today’s standards.

But Belgium’s brewing past was a very different country. Jef Van den Steen, who would later become Belgium’s unofficial beer-writer laureate and co-founder of Brouwerij De Glazen Toren, remembers it well.

“In that time it was one of the most bitter beers of the country,” he tells me of Oerbier’s early days. “[De Dolle Brouwers] were the start of the revival of beers with a lot of taste but not that sweet.”

Jef recounts how beer lovers, tired of the syrupy stuff from the country’s dwindling number of industrial brewers, were excited to learn of new breweries cropping up. De Dolle was among the vanguard.

Then as now, enthusiasts flocked to Esen for its weekend tours and tastings. Kris has long played the eccentric artist, greeting visitors in a bow tie and jacket with De Dolle’s yellow cartoon logo, a rotund yeast cell bearing a mash fork and a tipsy-looking grin. His wife, Els de Mûelenaere, remains the consummate host in the taproom and shop.

““It is not a Flemish red, it is not an oud bruin, it is not an amber or dark strong ale, the Oerbier is the Oerbier. Stop!””

— Lorenzo "Kauska" Dabove

Also long vital to the operation was Kris’ mother, a schoolteacher everyone knew by her nickname, Moes. As the main tour guide into her 90s, she proselytised in a properly Belgian polyglot manner about the healthy qualities of good beer. (She sadly passed away in early 2021 at the age of 103.)

“It was a very important part of the success, a nice visit to the brewery,” Jef says. “Seeing in what particular way the beers were brewed, and the big difference between the industrial beers of that time and the beers they made.”

One of my best experiences with anything, let alone beer, was a vertical tasting at De Dolle in 2018 of all the Oerbier Special Reserva vintages up to that time, going back to 2002. The Reserva, another sign of Oerbier’s adaptability, is created by ageing the beer in former wine barrels. Yet it started with the adjunct ingredients of necessity and serendipity.

Amid the Rodenbach disruption back in 2000—before anyone had really heard of a barrel program—a run of the Christmas special Stille Nacht was over-fermenting and causing its bottles to explode. With no empty tanks to stash it in, Kris borrowed used Bordeaux casks from Jean-Pierre Van Roy of renowned Brussels lambic brewery, Cantillon.

“I didn’t do anything,” Kris once told me with a characteristic shrug. “I waited. It’s God who made it.”

When later emptying those barrels, he had no Stille Nacht ready to put in, so it became Oerbier’s turn. And it has since become an irregular but recurring treat. The resulting Reserva is a monster at 13%, brimming with spicy and vinous notes, along with other funky goings-on beyond the realm of beer or—at least according to Kris—scientific explanation.

In that 2018 session, I noted huge variations among the 10 vintages produced over 13 years. Some tasted more like sherries than beers; others like fine balsamic vinegar (in the best possible way, trust me). Each was an experience, together almost overwhelming.

I was sampling these artefacts along with a group of Italian beer lovers. Their ringleader was Lorenzo Dabove, the beer writer known by his nom de plume Kuaska, and a frequent visitor since the late 1980s.

“This beer is one hundred percent Kris,” Kuaska tells me via email. “Like him, it is impossible to include it in a defined style, like him it is unique. It is not a Flemish red, it is not an oud bruin, it is not an amber or dark strong ale, the Oerbier is the Oerbier, stop!”

That’s as true now as it was forty years ago, despite all else that has happened in Belgian brewing.

In the decades to come, I can imagine that Oerbier will continue to adapt and evolve as, who knows, maybe De Dolle becomes one of those generational Belgian brewers. (Kris recently turned 66. Two of his and Els’ three sons have since started working in the industry.)

However much Kris may tinker with the recipe and introduce variants, Oerbier will remain the original, bringing together so many characteristics of Belgian beer culture. And to future drinkers, just as it did with me, it will feel like it’s always been there.