Tap 6
Kwak
Brouwerij Bosteels, Buggenhout
Style
Amber Ale
Alcohol
8.4%
Price
129 kr / 0.3 l
Amber classic served in its famous coachman's glass with wooden stand.
Taste profile
- Glass
- Kwak glass in a wooden stand
Legend has it
As the story goes, Pauwel Kwak was an innkeeper and brewer in the Napoleonic era. His inn stood on the post road between Mechelen and Ghent, and coachmen were not allowed to leave their carriages. So Kwak had a round-bottomed glass blown that could hang in a wooden stand on the carriage, and the coachman could drink without climbing down.
The tale is probably more advertising than history, but the glass and its stand are still served today, here too.
Beer stories travel from brewery to bar to guest, and rarely shrink on the way.
Interesting facts
- The brewery
- Brouwerij Bosteels in Buggenhout, East Flanders, was founded in 1791 by Evarist Bosteels and run by the same family for seven generations. AB InBev bought the brewery in 2016, but the brewing stayed in Buggenhout.
- Younger than its legend
- The Kwak name was registered in 1980 and the beer reached the market shortly after. Both the beer and the glass were launched in the 1980s, long after Napoleon.
- The inn
- In the brewery's telling, Pauwel Kwak ran De Hoorn, a coaching inn in Dendermonde.
- Sibling
- The same brewery makes Tripel Karmeliet, which we also pour. It was first brewed in 1996.
Especially good with
Beer mussels cooked in Kwak, coq à l'orange.