VBDCK Brewery - Kerel Paradise Ale

Paradise Ale presents a bright yellow-golden hue with a voluminous head of persistent white foam. Brewed with real passionfruit concentrate, the aroma is unusually fruity for a Belgian blonde ale, with prominent passionfruit taking center stage and whisking us away to the tropics. Secondary notes of overripe citrus join subtle yeast-driven herbal tones. We found this brew to be quite vibrant and crisp on the palate, with a neutral malt center offering clean support to the brighter hop, yeast, and fruity notes. There’s a distinct phenolic herbal spice here that seems to us a bit more prominent than in the aroma, contributed by the famously expressive Belgian yeast. Look for these yeasty notes to meld nicely with the bright fruitiness and a good dose of lifting carbonation to create an intriguingly unique and quite refreshing brew. For pairing options, we’d steer towards lighter dishes, especially seafood. Fish & chips, grilled white fish, mussels & frites, and shrimp skewers sound good to us. Additionally, chicken tacos with a tropical fruit & citrus slaw should hit the spot too. Cheers!

The roots of the Verbeeck-Back brewery stretch back to 1867 in the town of Tielrode, Belgium. As an independent brewery, the business was always a family affair – as it remains today. The brewery was passed down through successive generations of family brewers until 1966 when that generation rebelled and decided to go in a new direction. The brewery closed, and its old brick brewhouse fell into disrepair.

Thankfully for us beer lovers, in 2015 a new generation decided it was time to return the brewery to its old glory. The brother and sister team of Jozef and Charlotte De Cock acquired the brewery and set about restoring it to working order – no small feat given the sellers considered most of it to be a tear-down-and-start-over sort of project. The duo managed to salvage and restore the brewery, and opened it for business in June of 2017 under the new name of Verbeeck-Back-De Cock, which they style simply as VBDCK. But, the building wasn’t the only thing they saved. They loved the name of the original beer brand sold by Verbeeck-Back, which was Kerel (which translates roughly as “dude” or “guy”), and so all their beers carry that name once again. Additionally, and perhaps most remarkably, an unopened bottle of the original Kerel beer was salvaged and subjected to the wonders of modern science to analyze and recapture the original yeast strain. Considering the character of Belgian ale styles is so driven by the yeast, this was an absolutely critical success in the mission to resurrect Kerel’s identity.

While VBDCK naturally embraces their nation’s extraordinarily rich brewing tradition, they refuse to be limited by it. In fact, the brewery amusingly revels in pointing out their independence from stuffy limitations as well as their independence as a family brewery by highlighting that there are “no monks or big corporations in sight”. Along with excellent takes on traditional styles like saison, witbier, and bière de garde, the brewery produces an array of modern and not traditionally Belgian styles like grapefruit IPA, dark rye ale, tropical-oriented ale, stout, and more, including limited-run beers like summer ale with prickly pear and yuzu. For more info, you can visit their website at vbdck.be, and for more info on the backstory, check out this excellent on-location interview with Charlotte and Jozef by Jeff Bradford on YouTube: youtu.be/xnk1B9yw1TY.