The Germans may be top at brewing pure, obsessively honed lagers and smaller British breweries may have cornered the market in hand-drawn 'real' draught ales, but only the Belgians can claim to make beers like no other, in a diversity of styles that outstrips the rest of the world.
In south-west Flanders, brewers age brown ales in oak tuns for up to two years before bottling. Across the northern Ardennes into Limburg, farmhouse brewers sell their robust concoctions in large corked bottles, for sharing at the table.
The lambic brewers and blenders of Brussels and Payottenland ferment their uniquely cidery beers with naturally occurring airborne yeast. And the monks who oversee beer-making at the six Trappist abbeys create pungent, hop-laden pale ales and rich, dark, contemplative barley wines.
Belgium does originality like no other brewing nation. But despite growing success with exports, there is no better place to go sampling than the country's own unique blend of cafes, brasseries and 'tea-rooms'.
Brussels is a ragbag of grand architecture and messy streets, so to get the best from the city you need to know where to go.
Brussels' famous Grand' Place is the only Unesco World Heritage site to host an annual beer festival (the first weekend of September). But tourist traps are rarely home to great cafes and this is no exception. Photograph it and move on.
Opposite the Manneken Pis, the much-gawped-at statue of a pot-bellied boy piddling, is the Poechenellekelder (5 Rue du Chêne - closed Monday), and it is Bruxellois to its breeches. The wall adornments and collectibles are hand-picked and provocative, not a job lot from pub kitsch central. The list of 90 beers is a good introduction to Belgian ale.
Between 1892 and 1920, Victor Horta used the Brussels townscape to show off the architectural wing of the Art Nouveau movement. The Mort Subite (7 Rue Montagne aux Herbes Potagères) is probably the best surviving fin-de-siècle long bar in the world. Uniformed staff police rows of tables with a practised disdain, while customers sit on uncomfortable bench seats, a few backed with original leather and horse-hair. For adventure, drink gueuze sur lie from De Keersmaeker, with a small plate of local jellied meat, like tête pressée or kip-kap (pig cheeks).
The nearby Galeries Royales St Hubert was Europe's first shopping arcade (opening in 1847). Halfway along is an entry to the Ilôt Sacré, a tangle of medieval lanes, with its endless fish restaurants.
Off to the right in a blind alley is an extraordinary, sprawling cellar bar, Delirium (4a Impasse de la Fidélité). Here they serve more than 2,000 beers, the official world record. Despite this, most are drinkable. More than 400 are Belgian, and they delight in sourcing the rare and obscure. This goes for their cheeses too.
Belgium has almost as many restaurants as it has cafes. Many now stock strong lists of suitable beers to accompany fine food. Some specialise in cooking with beer. The capital has two classic examples.
Down in the Marolles, just off Place du Jeu de Balle and its famous flea markets, owner-chef Alain Fayt has created Restobières (32 Rue des Renards - closed Monday-Wednesday - www.restobieres.be), a delightful bistro with inspired food, great ambience and a beer list that Fayt has selected from recent travels round his native land.
Meanwhile, at In 't Spinnekopke (1 Place du Jardin aux Fleurs - closed Sunday - www.spinnekopke.be), an ancient tavern-style restaurant off the beaten track, Jean Rodriguez practises on clients the recipes for his cookery books which teach the art of cuisine à la bière. The list here reaches 80 and features the local classic, draught lambic.
Lambics are an acquired taste. Fermented using wild yeast they have a mustiness alien to many palates. Their most developed form is oude gueuze, a beer style that now enjoys a legally protected appellation. The best reach a refined character with the nobility of a fine peasant vintage. Imagine Jacques Brel in a bottle.
There is no better place to drink oude gueuze than the Zageman (116 Rue de Laeken - closed Saturday and Sunday), a simple, turn-of-the-century backstreet cafe on the unfashionable side of Boulevard Adolphe Max. Try Cantillon, Drie Fonteinen, De Cam and black-label Girardin while staring at the football-league results board from 1943 and an advert for the film Mémoires d'un Gynécologue
The beer aficionados' favourite spot is Patrick D'Hane's Bier Circus (89 Rue de l'Enseignement - closed Saturday and Sunday), uphill from Central station. The approbation is for the creativity behind the list of more than 200 beers. Ardennaise microbrewers get their chance in the big city here, along with Flanders' only 100 per cent organic beer-maker, Hopperd.
As evening wears on, if you are looking for something different, just outside the ring of boulevards that enclose the centre, L'Horloge du Sud (141 Rue du Trône) offers 40-plus beers, enhanced by a pan-African melange that includes a multi-ethnic menu from Algerian to Zairi and many stops between, plus regular world music gigs.
Further out, in the suburb of Uccle, is an ambitious brewpub called the Imprimerie (666 Chaussée de St Job - closed Monday). Baronial hall meets converted printing works, with a brewery backdrop. It transforms into a nightclub in the late evening.
Finally, en route to the Eurostar terminal, catch the Laboureur (3 Place de la Constitution - closed Saturday). This archetypal Brussels boozer is at its best on Sunday mornings when the open market stretches from here to eternity. Pew-lined and pool-playing, its walls nicotine-stained and its parquet flooring well worn, this is more the real Brussels than any vision of Euroland. Even if they do serve chips with taramasalata.
Beer lingo: what the labels mean
Lambic
The most wine-like beer produced anywhere in the world. An acquired, but very refined taste, these beers are left in open vessels in the attics of breweries, where they ferment spontaneously because of yeast in the air.
Oude gueuze
This is the authentic taste of Brussels and Payottenland, a bottled, sparkling blend of oak-aged lambics. Spritzy, pungent, tangy and unique.
Faro
A type of lambic sweetened with brown sugar.
Wheat beer
Cloudy, sweet and spicy, light ale (4-5.5 per cent) brewed with 30 per cent wheat.
Oude kriek
Rare form of cherry-steeped lambic largely superseded by sweet commercial versions. Using fruit to flavour the beer is thought to pre-date the use of hops.
Oud bruin
Dark, medium-strength ales (5.5-6.5 per cent) from south-west Flanders. The best are acidic from blending two-year-old oak-aged ales.
Trappist beers
Generic term for beers brewed at the six approved monastery breweries (Achel, Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle and Westvleteren).
Dubbel/Double
Dark, medium-strength (6-7.5 per cent) abbey beer not brewed by monks, but intended to imitate the monastic styles.
Tripel/Triple
Amber-coloured strong (7.5-9.5 per cent) abbey beer.
· The Good Beer Guide to Belgium is published on Thursday by Camra Books