That's the style of Belgian Scotch ale, not all Belgian beers. Sure, there was lots of cultural exchange between the UK and Belgium in the aftermath of WWI - not least through battlefield tourism etc - but British yeasts represent only a small proportion of all yeast used in Belgium. After all, one of the main ways to create a new style is to try and clone a "foreign" style with the ingredients you have to hand - so West Coast IPAs were trying to make British IPAs with clean American yeasts, people in Cologne and elsewhere made lagers with their local ale yeasts and so on.PeeBee wrote: ↑Thu Dec 12, 2019 3:12 amFurther to my suggestion that Belgium yeasts came from Scotland: I dug this up from Ron Pattinson's "Guide to Vintage Beers":Northern Brewer wrote: ↑Wed Nov 20, 2019 2:45 pm… Not all Belgian yeasts came from Scotland, but specifically Duvel uses a strain (formerly two) that originated in a bottle from Mcewans, harvested by the great brewing scientist Jean De Clerck between the wars. …
Pg134, 1928 Usher Old Scotch Ale, "One of the Scotch ales exported to Belgium --- helped shape the Belgian style".
The Belhaven Wee Heavy has a direct link to Fowler's Twelve Guineas, as it was contract-brewed at Heriot brewery where George Howell worked before becoming head brewer at Belhaven. Belhaven subsequently contract-brewed Twelve Guineas before InBev killed it, so they wanted to keep the tradition going.