Must read: Dem Bier auf der Spur

In Hidden Beers of Belgium suchen Breandán Kearney und Ashley Joanna Belgiens verborgene Biere. Was sind das für Biere – und wie haben sie das angestellt? Ein Interview.

Autor Breandán Kearney und Fotografin Ashley Joanna ist ein Kunststück gelungen. Um ihr 240-Seiten-starkes Buch Hidden Beers of Belgium (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)zu mögen, muss man kein beinharter Beer Nerd sein. Aber man kann. Es ist eine Geschichtensammlung, ein Bildband, ein Bier-Kompendium, ein Reiseführer. Ashley Joanna (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)s Bilder erzählen ihre ganz eigenen Storys, Breandán Kearneys (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) Texte sind elegant, gehen in die Tiefe, ohne zu langweilen. Jedes der gescouteten 24 Biere wird mit allen wichtigen Infos auf einer Doppelseite vorgestellt, gefolgt von einem Porträt der Brauenden, erzählt in vier Kapiteln. Das alles ist ziemlich liebevoll und durchdacht. Wie genau ist Breandán (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) bei seiner Arbeit vorgegangen? Das und einiges mehr haben wir ihn gefragt.
Das Interview fand schriftlich und in englischer Sprache statt.

“We racked up quite the kilometres and spent more than our fair share of time on Belgium’s busy roads.”

Breandán, you are Irish. What brought you to Belgium?

Breandán: I met my Belgian wife on a volunteer placement doing earthquake reconstruction work in Peru in 2010 and then moved to Belgium in 2013. We married in 2017 and now have two young kids. 

How did the move affect your passion for beer?

Before I moved to Belgium, I knew very little about beer. I enjoyed beer in Ireland as many Irish people do, but it was only when I moved to Belgium that I became interested in Belgian beer culture, the diverse flavour profiles of Belgium’s indigenous beer styles, and the unique processes involved in the production of Belgian beer.

Breandán Kearney ist ein irischer Autor und Chefredakteur der Website und des Podcasts Belgian Smaak (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre). Er hat für Lonely Planet, National Geographic Traveller (Food), The Brussels Times, Parliament, Craft Beer and Brewing usw. geschrieben. Er ist BJCP-Richter, akkreditierter Biersommelier (UK Institute of Brewing & Distilling) und zertifizierter Cicerone. Breandán wurde sowohl von der British Guild of Beer Writers als auch von der Irish Guild of Food Writers als Bierautor des Jahres ausgezeichnet und von der International Association of Culinary Professionals in New York zum Getränkekolumnisten des Jahres ernannt.

How long have you wanted to write ‘Hidden Beers’?

I’d been wanting to write a book since I began writing professionally about Belgian beer ten years ago, but despite discussing several proposals with various potential partners over the years, I never found the match between the right project, the right collaborators, and the right publishers. In Hidden Beers, we found this match.

Ashley Joanna stammt aus New York. Ihr Portfolio umfasst Motive von renommierten Köchen und Sportlern bis hin zu Künstlern und indigenen Völkern. Ashleys Fotografien wurden weltweit im Rahmen von Kampagnenstarts für Olympus-Kameras ausgestellt. Darüber hinaus hat sie mehrere Auszeichnungen erhalten, darunter zwei Jahre in Folge den Preis „Bester neuer Bierautor“ der British Guild of Beer Writers für ihr Projekt „Humans of Belgian Beer“, das sie für Belgian Smaak verfasst hat. Dieses Projekt verbindet Fotografie und Storytelling und wirft ein Licht auf Einzelpersonen in der belgischen Bierindustrie.

How long did you actually work on the book?

I signed a contract with the publisher to write the book in mid-2022 and it was published in late 2024, so in strict terms, I worked on the book for just under 2 and a half years. However, much of the reporting and research for the stories that feature in the book was carried out during the ten years since I moved to Belgium. It’s a culmination of all that work and experience.

Who else was involved besides you and Ashley?

Myself and Ashley worked very closely with the team at Luster Publishing (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), whose editors really helped with fact-checking and clarity. My brother, playwright and screenwriter Oisín Kearney, helped with story consultancy and writer and editor Claire Bullen helped shape the stories and refine how we explained some of the technical beer information. We were lucky that Rob Tod of Allagash Brewing Company agreed to write the Foreword to the book. Sarah Schrauwen and Mathieu Vancamp from Doublebill Design in Antwerp worked closely with us and Luster on layout and graphic design. And we have some great PR and distribution teams across the world helping us get the book into people’s hands, including Sarah Gruft of Dog and Book PR (UK), Kate Greenberg of Arply (US), and ACC Art Books (UK and US).

You present 24 beers. You write yourself how hard it was to decide which of the beers to present. Due to the abundance of breweries in Belgium, due to possible language barriers. How long did it take to make the final selection of beers?

It was a working list over a period of two to three years, in fact right up to the months before the publication date. I started with a longlist, then narrowed this down, and then in the last year, made only tweaks with a view to finding balance in beer styles, geographical spread, types of producer, and story themes.

What came first: the individual chapters to cluster the beers, or the beer selection? 

I had the rough idea of the sections from the outset, but the beer selection came first. Then I shaped the selection in terms of properties shared by the beer across that list. 

How often did you visit the individual protagonists, how much did you travel for this book?

Both Ashley Joanna and myself travelled to all of the producers profiled in the book to meet them, see the spaces, interview them, and shoot photography. Sometimes we conducted several interviews and sometimes over a number of years. We racked up quite the kilometres and spent more than our fair share of time on Belgium’s busy roads.

You describe it in your book, but perhaps in a few words summarised: when is a beer really ‘hidden’?

It’s a subjective delineation, of course, but we were looking for beers which might not be known very well nationally or internationally and which met the value system we outlined in a set of rules published in the beginning of the book. 

And if the beer is ‘hidden’, how did you discover it to present it in the book?

I’m lucky to be well-connected in beer circles in Belgium; perhaps because I’ve been travelling around the country for the last 10 years to meet producers, café owners, and beer enthusiasts in different regions. I was able to lean on these contacts to create a long-list for the book, as well as go and visit breweries, attend festivals and events, and check out beers in various cafés in different provinces. If a beer struck me as particularly interesting, I made a note of it. 

What I like about this book, besides the structure, is your way of telling stories. You learn a lot about beer in a cheat sheet, but basically you tell stories about people. I like anecdotes like the front-door rule (Brouwerij de Tochter). Do you have a favourite anecdote that you came across while writing this book?

The front door rule from Brouwerij De Dochter van de Korenaar is indeed a fun one, especially the story about the Belgian lady moving her house from one country to another by changing where the door and the window are located on the house.

Other interesting anecdotes that appear in the book include: a cycling accident in the US that kicked off a neighbourhood taproom in Kessel-Lo (Colleke); a brewery whose brewing water is filtered through the dead bodies in the nearby local cemetery (Cnudde Bizon); and the search for Belgian identity through the imagery of an iconic coin (Franc Belge).

What did you learn about beer, and perhaps also about brewers, while writing ‘Hidden Beers’?

I always knew it, but it was reaffirmed for me when writing the book: producing beers and running a business in beer is extremely hard work, and requires both fervent passion and incredible resilience. 

Which beer surprised you the most?

I think I was surprised to some degree by every beer in the book, whether it was a surprise relating to the flavour profile of the beer (such as the soft acidity and fruitiness of the Geuzes from Het Boerenerf); a surprise relating to the behind-the-scenes commercial success of a lesser-known beer (such as Triomf, a Smoked Ale from Dupont that’s the second biggest selling beer in Ghent’s Grand Café at Vooruit); or a surprise relating to the human story behind the beer (such as Misery, who suffered devastating floods, or Des Champs, whose owners lost a family member to suicide).

You can read this book in different ways. As a beer encyclopaedia with a glossary, as a coffee-table book. Since you also list places that can be visited alongside the brewery, it is even a kind of travel guide. How would you like the team to read and understand this book? What and who do you want to reach with it?

At the outset, we had discussions about whether we wanted the book to be a beautiful and inspiring photographic coffee table book, a useful guide with technical information, or a narrative read featuring inspiring human stories. In the end, we decided to do it all; to try to make the book all three of these things. Whether we succeeded will be up to the readership, who we hope will be a mix of beer enthusiasts, homebrewers and pro-brewers, and culture and travel lovers.

In the US, ‘The Good Beer Hunter’ has just pulled the ripcord. Award-winning, great work. Belgian Smaak, the beer cosmos you have built up, is, in my view, similarly ambitious and of a high journalistic quality. What about you? What is the economic situation – and how does ‘Hidden Beers of Belgium’ fit into it?

Longform reported narratives—whether through the written pieces on Belgian Smaak or our podcast—are indeed ambitious, especially in a niche like Belgian beer. This work demands significant time and resources for travel, interviews, editing, photography, and publishing.

The aspirational business model for such work relies on partnerships and subscription-based funding rather than traditional advertising, which often prioritises click-driven content over meaningful storytelling.

For Hidden Beers, the aim is twofold: to become financially sustainable on its own through global sales; and to enhance the visibility of Belgian Smaak.

What about the Belgian beer scene from your perspective? Losses are being recorded, consumption and export figures are declining…

As with the beer and hospitality sectors of all countries around the world, Belgium is facing the challenges of declining beer consumption, reduced export, increased costs related to energy and production, and different drinking behaviours of its population.

The brewers and blenders I spoke with during my reporting for the book made it very clear to me how difficult the situation currently is for them. 

Belgian brewers have, however, always been pragmatic and adapted to circumstances, and their beer culture is so deeply-rooted in Belgian culture and society that it’s likely to evolve in a way which sees brewers create new and different beer experiences that people will value. 

How will the Belgian beer scene develop? To what extent can tradition help, and to what extent can it hinder it?

Belgian beer will continue to tread the line between traditional styles and processes and innovation brought about by both practicalities of circumstance and the influx of international influence. 

This might result in better lower alcohol offerings of more traditional beers, the rise of hybrid styles blending techniques from Belgium and other countries, an innovation in business models as brewers seek new ways to connect with their consumers, or more consideration of sustainable practices, whether that’s in sourcing ingredients or thinking about the impact on the environment. Whether tradition helps or hinders will up the mindset of the individual producers.

There are more men than women represented in this book as well. Do you see any change in terms of gender equality in Belgium? In Germany, it is happening very slowly…

The beer industry in Belgium is still very much male-dominated, and women do not yet have full equality of opportunity when it comes to jobs in the sector, securing financing for brewing and hospitality businesses, or holding decision-making roles in policy and representation. That said, I do see more women in production and ownership than before. Change is indeed gradual, and it remains to be seen whether Belgium will see a significant shift in gender equality within the beer industry in coming years.

A question we always ask in our HHopcast: What is your personal desert island beer?

An almost impossible question to answer, but there are a few classic beers I regularly enjoy which never disappoint: Orval Trappist Ale, Saison Dupont, and Oude Geuze Boon Mariage Parfait. Regarding beers from the book, Pils 13 Delta might be a great thirst quencher for a hot desert island stay.

Thank you!

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