Edel-Brau

Edel-Brau is a Belgian Table beer, it has an alcohol content of 0.3%.

It was predictable that Marc Strubbe would not let the grass grow under his feet. He even surprised everyone as being the first Belgian producer of near bear. ‘Edel-Bräu’ with a 0.3 % alcohol level says the label. Marc was thinking: “if brewery Henniger in Frankfurt, Germany, can brew a beer called ‘Gerstel Bräu’, with a 0,4 % alcohol level, so can I” minding that ‘Gerstel Brau’ had an alcohol level of 0.4%, so even 0.1% more than Edel-Bräu. This way, Marc Strubbe beat by almost two years all Belgian beer mastodons with their armies full of brewing engineers and lab assistants!

Near beer never scored high points in Belgium. It nearly reached a 2% market share. This wasn’t a big surprise if you know that some bar tenders gave customers a bar of soap with every glass of near beer, with the explanation: ‘this goes along with the water you ordered’.