Wallonia

Dry, peppery and highly carbonated, with a bracing finish — the most refreshing thing strong beer does.

A low-strength Walloon farmhouse ale, historically brewed for miners — dry, wheaty and gently peppery.

The most widely distributed Trappist dark strong ale, and for many drinkers the first Belgian beer of any depth they encounter.

The Trappist tripel from Chimay, drier and more hop-forward than the style’s usual reference points.

The beer the monks brew for their own table, sold commercially — low in strength and not at all low in character.

The Trappist dubbel from Scourmont, and the most widely available reference for the style.

An early and long-running Belgian IPA, hopped at American rates and fermented with an expressive Belgian strain.

An Ardennes strong blond ale with coriander, and one of the most recognisable modern Wallonian beers.

The dark counterpart to La Chouffe, built on the same Ardennes yeast, and a Belgian strong ale wearing a Scottish name.

A dry-hopped Trappist ale refermented with Brettanomyces, deliberately designed to be a different beer at three months and at three years.

A benchmark Belgian dark strong ale of enormous depth — figs, dates, port and dark chocolate — that carries 11.3% almost invisibly.

The smallest and least-known of the three Rochefort beers, and the one that shows what the strength in the others is doing.

The middle Trappist strong ale from Rochefort, and by many accounts the best-balanced of the three.

The beer the modern saison category was substantially reconstructed from — dry, peppery, bitter and extremely carbonated.