Kwak

🌱 Vegan

Kwak is a Belgian ale with a dark colour and 8.4% alcohol, best known for the long, footed glass it is traditionally served in. It is brewed by the Bosteels brewery in Buggenhout, Belgium.

History

The Bosteels brewery was founded in 1791 and has remained in the same family ever since. By tradition, the beer takes its name from Pauwel Kwak, an eighteenth-century innkeeper and brewer who ran the De Hoorn tavern.

However, the beer and its glass only reached the market in the 1980s. The link between the innkeeper and the brand is therefore largely a later attribution, which the brewery presents as the origin of the drink.

Culture

The glass, with its rounded base held upright by a wooden stand resembling a laboratory test-tube holder, is one of the most recognisable features of Belgian beers with their own branded glassware. Its image appears in bars and advertising, and for many enthusiasts it identifies the beer more than any documented history does.

Legend and fact

It is often said that the glass dates back to the age of stagecoaches: coachmen stopping at inns could not easily drink from ordinary cups while wearing riding gloves, so the innkeeper devised a long, stable vessel. It is an appealing explanation, but the sources do not confirm it, and it is presented as the brewery's own tradition.

Trivia

Double fermentation. The beer is fermented twice, a process credited for much of its 8.4% alcohol content.

A family brewery. Bosteels, the brewery that makes it, also produces Tripel Karmeliet and DeuS, and has stayed in the same family since it was founded in 1791.