{"id":8175,"date":"2011-11-12T09:30:15","date_gmt":"2011-11-12T15:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/?p=8175"},"modified":"2011-11-12T10:32:02","modified_gmt":"2011-11-12T16:32:02","slug":"when-yvan-de-baets-speaks-i-listen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/when-yvan-de-baets-speaks-i-listen\/","title":{"rendered":"When Yvan de Baets speaks, I listen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.appellationbeer.com\/images\/20111112-yvan.jpg\" alt=\"Yvan De Baets\" class=\"alignright\"\/>Wendy Littlefield took a few seconds from her busy schedule getting ready for Tuesday&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/belgianexperts.com\/\">Coast to Coast Toast<\/a> to drop me a link to a story about what brewers in Belgium think of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theworld.org\/2011\/11\/belgian-beer-cafe\/\">AB InBev\u2019s Belgian Beer Cafes<\/a> OPENING SOON IN AN AMERICAN CITY NEAR YOU! For that I thank her.<\/p>\n<p>A few paragraphs into the story I was thinking it would be better if the author talked to Yvan De Baets. I&#8217;m biased, because Yvan made important contributions to both <em>Brew Like a Monk<\/em> and <em>Brewing With Wheat<\/em> (including the foreword). I try not to go back to the same experts for every book, but he&#8217;ll also be contributing to <em>For the Love of Hops<\/em> because nobody makes more sense to me when we are talking about the integrity of beer.<\/p>\n<p>So as I scrolled down into the story and first saw the top of a photo of Brasserie Verschueren, which is located in the neighborhood where he lives, I smiled. Two more clicks and there he was in front of it. Of course, he totally nailed it. <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>He says he understands and supports In-Bev\u2019s Belgian Beer Cafe idea from a financial point of view, but not from a human one.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou don\u2019t build create a Belgian beer cafe in five minutes,\u201d De Baets says. \u201cIt\u2019s generations of owners and customers that build the place, and then give a soul to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>De Baets likens In-BEV\u2019s Belgian Beer Cafes to the \u201cIrish pubs\u201d  that sprung up around the world in the 1990s. It\u2019s a gimmick, he says, it\u2019s kitsch, and he wonders how outdated they will look in a few years.<\/p>\n<p>The beer menu, he notes, features well-known InBev heavy-hitters like Stella, Hoegaarden, and Leffe. It also has Westmalle, and Chimay, two beers still brewed by Trappist monks.<\/p>\n<p>And while those beers are part of the Belgian brewing heritage, Da Baets says, he thinks the Belgian Beer Cafe could do better.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s beers in which all the angles have been rounded. There is no character, no real personality. I hope this is not the real image of Belgian beer,\u201d says De Baets.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s not 10 a.m., but I find myself suddenly thirsty for a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.brasseriedelasenne.be\/accueil.html\">Brasserie de la Senne<\/a> <em>Zinnebir<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wendy Littlefield took a few seconds from her busy schedule getting ready for Tuesday&#8217;s Coast to Coast Toast to drop me a link to a story about what brewers in Belgium think of AB InBev\u2019s Belgian Beer Cafes OPENING SOON IN AN AMERICAN CITY NEAR YOU! For that I thank her. A few paragraphs into &#8230; <a title=\"When Yvan de Baets speaks, I listen\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/when-yvan-de-baets-speaks-i-listen\/\" aria-label=\"More on When Yvan de Baets speaks, I listen\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[292],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4wTn-27R","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8175"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8181,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8175\/revisions\/8181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}