Delirium Tremens

Where to buy: The Beer Store

Price: $2.95 per 330 mL bottle

Food pairings: Fresh chevre, fondue, pork roast

The verdict: Even if the name’s hard to swallow, the beer is delicious.

Alain Delaet’s best-known beer is available in 80 countries. The latest market he entered was the toughest.

“There’s no contest. Ontario was the most difficult place to get into,” said Delaet, owner of Belgium’s Brouwerij Huyghe.

The difficulty had nothing to do with the quality of his strong, fruity and slightly hazy golden ale. Instead, it’s all about the name: Delirium Tremens. Yup, that’s right: The beer’s named after the DTs, also sometimes known as the shakes. It’s a nasty withdrawal symptom that sometimes occurs when hardcore alcoholics have their booze taken away from them. In addition to shaking, the symptoms also sometimes include hallucinations. (In a nod to the hallucinations, the beer’s label is festooned with pink cartoon elephants).

The beer, first brewed in 1989, has attracted criticism for its name wherever it has gone, including a few hundred cases that were abruptly yanked from LCBO shelves in 2004 because of concerns the liquor monopoly could be seen as making fun of a disease. Several attempts since then to get the LCBO to stock his brew were unsuccessful.

“We even offered to change the label so it would just say Delirium, but they still didn’t want it. The LCBO has no sense of humour,” said Delaet. Four years ago, he got approval to bring kegs of it into Ontario, through The Beer Store. This week, bottles finally began showing up on Beer Store shelves.

“I’m so glad that people in Ontario can finally have this. You can’t imagine how many emails we received from people asking why they couldn’t get it,” said Delaet.

While admitting that the beer’s name and label are designed to be funny and whimsical, Delaet says the last thing he wants to do is make fun of a painful condition.

“It’s against our philosophy,” says Delaet. Another criticism that has been leveled at Delirium Tremens over the years is that it encourages binge drinking, at least partly because of its hefty alcohol content (8.5 per cent).

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The quality and price make it an unlikely choice for someone just looking to get blitzed, Delaet argues. His brewmaster uses two varieties of hops (Styrian Goldings and Saaz) to lend a bit of a spicy note on the nose and a slightly bitter finish. Just one kind of malt — typically used in brewing pilsner — is in this beer.

There’s also a delightfully fruity character, which comes mainly from the three varieties of yeast used to ferment it. The third and final fermentation is done in the bottle, giving it a lively carbonation, and accounting for the slight haze in the brew. All in all, this is no simple beer to be guzzled by the pint.

“This is a beer for connoisseurs,” says Delaet.