From The Everyday Pintje: Searching for Belgian Pils By Jeff Alworth

The Nature of Belgian Pils

Given the variable quality of these pilsners, trying to arrive at a firm description is challenging. It doesn’t help that Belgians are famously irreverent with regard to style.

Belgian-born Joran Van Ginderachter cofounded Atlanta’s Halfway Crooks Beer in 2019, but he moved to the United States as an adult. “I grew up drinking the local pils,” he says. “We had never really thought much about it. If you live in this part of Belgium, you [drink] that kind of pils.” The experience stuck in his mind. When he and partner Shawn Bainbridge opened Halfway Crooks, they made a crisp, hoppy version that, for Van Ginderachter, evokes Flemish countryside cafés.

When I ask why they vary so much, he says, “We have a saying: ‘We make it work.’” He points out that the regional ale breweries weren’t configured to make lager. “When Belgians started brewing pilsner, they figured out how to do it their own way. They probably all have their own yeasts—and they make sure to filter it out, so you don’t get it! They all have their own fermentation and lagering processes for sure.”

Two things seem to be common: Belgian malt and Saaz hops. Although Belgium has historic hop-growing areas, the acreage today is relatively miniscule. A tradition seems to have formed around the peppery snap of Saaz—which adds zip even to a low-bitterness pils. While few breweries divulge much about their process or ingredients, those that do often cite Saaz. Verhaeghe and Bavik use Saaz in their pilsners, as does Moortgat in its Bel Pils.

At the Brasserie de la Senne in Brussels, cofounder and brewmaster Yvan De Baets spent a long time thinking about Belgian pils before releasing Zenne Pils in 2020. He agrees that malt is one key to the distinctiveness. “The malt will also play a big role, indeed,” he says. “There is something that seems to be common. They are less hoppy and bitter than the Northern German pilsners, and less malty than the Southern ones.” De Baets also notes the routine use of corn, though that’s more typical in the mass-market versions.

De Baets uses organic Dingemans pilsner in his all-malt, German-style pils. Halfway Crooks also uses Dingemans, which Ginderachter describes as “more robust than German malts—more golden.” To my palate, the Belgian malts are slightly sweeter and less grainy than German counterparts—but in a pils, that may also owe something to corn in the grist.

What else? The yeast are important, even if the fermentation profiles vary. Dupont, of course, is one of those outfits with an older brewery not designed for lager. After boiling it on their direct-flame system, Dupont ferments the wort in the same squat, square fermentors that help make their saison so distinctive. Dedeycker’s grandfather Rosier selected the lager strain in the 1940s, and it’s the same one they use today. After fermentation, it spends six weeks lagering.

On the other hand, in Atlanta, Halfway Crooks ferments theirs for only three weeks—but they also kräusen their Pintje Pils. It’s dry and assertively bitter at 44 IBUs—about the same as Zenne Pils, in fact. Both those examples are considerably more bitter than a typical Belgian pils, which usually hovers closer to 25 IBUs.

Until I sat down last fall with a glass of Halfway Crooks’ Pintje, I wondered if I’d fallen prey to the romance of these hidden-in-plain-sight Belgian pilsners. Perhaps the distinctiveness came from me, not the beer. Pintje quickly dispelled such doubts. There, in the American South, in a condensation-covered mug rather than the ribbeke, was the flavor I’d fixed in my mind: light sweetness, zesty hops, a quick, dry finish—it was all there. I couldn’t quite explain how it was different from the other lagers on tap, but it was.

It tasted Belgian.