Rosa Mercx started working at Brouwerij Liefmans in 1946, so she was well positioned to see the impact of Jackson’s writing by the time he got around to it. “Before Michael came to Belgium, all breweries were selling their beer in the 30 kilometers around their breweries,” says the former head brewer at the Oudenaarde brewery. “Export boomed after he came. Michael made export possible.”

In 1990, before his first book was published, less than 20% of Belgian beer was exported (2.75 of 14.14 million hectoliters). According to the 2016 Annual Report of the Belgian Brewers Federation, that percentage had doubled by 1995. Last year, 14.09 out of 20.79 million hectoliters left Belgium, the country exporting a whopping 68% of what it produced in 2016.

Largely due to a relatively conservative, almost-parochial outlook, and traits of understatement and reservedness, Belgian brewers before Jackson’s arrival weren’t aware of how differently they were doing things compared to breweries in other countries. The book wasn’t just an eye-opener for those outside Belgium. It also woke up the Belgians.

“Michael showed us we should be proud of our beers,” says Anne De Ryck, head brewer of Brouwerij De Ryck in Herzele, and the fourth generation of the De Ryck brewing family. “Michael showed us what we had. For us, the way we made beer was normal. We didn’t know that we had something unique. He showed us that we were special. We should have a statue of Michael in Belgium for everything that he did.”

Yves Benoit was 24 years old when The Beer Hunter came to Brouwerij De Brabandere in Bavikhove, a large regional family brewery in South West Flanders. Jackson wanted to try the base beer they used in their Oud Bruin, and when Benoit returned with a sample, Jackson was surprised to see that they were using a Pale Ale aged for two and a half years in oak foeders to eventually produce a brown beer.

“He tasted the beer straight from the foeder and asked whether he could take some for his beer clubs in England and America,” Benoit remembers. “My boss, Ignace De Brabandere, immediately refused. He thought that it was much too sour to put on the market.”

After persistent requests, Ignace reluctantly agreed that Jackson could take the beer, but only if he bought 75 hectolitres. “My boss never thought that he would say yes to that,” Benoit says. “Seventy five hectolitres is a lot of this type of beer.”

But Jackson was into it. He even named the beer, describing it as it is: aged and pale. Word got out among beer consumers in Belgium that a rare and unique beer was being sent exclusively to the States and demand resulted in it coming on to the Belgian market in 2001. Petrus Aged Pale is still being sold 16 years later.