Belgian Ales cover a huge range of styles. Often the phrase makes people think of heavy, alcoholic and cloudy beers. But there are also lighter Belgian beers, and some very unusual styles as well. Belgian ales can offer flavours very distinct from your typical ale which at times can make them an acquired taste. But if you are willing to jump in there is a whole new world, or rather country, of beer waiting for you. Trappist and Abbey ales are probably some of the best known styles of Belgian beers. But technically they are not really a style. A Trappist beer could be light, dark, 5%, 10%, dry hopped or more malty. The name is actually about the production of the beer. A Trappist beer must be
Another year gone and Ale Smithing Homebrew continues to grow. Our goals of expanding have been successful this year, while also keeping interest up in what we were already doing. Hopefully this can continue well into the New Year, but we intend to carefully consider the direction the company should go in. Hops were probably our biggest growth area this year. We saw a massive rise in sales, more than tripling what we sold last year. With this we have brought in more varieties, some of which we haven’t introduced to our line up yet. Our plants have managed to keep selling through Autumn and Winter which has been a huge surprise to us. With more plants propagated now we hope this is an area th
