The best Luxembourgish beer

Last modified: 08/11/2020

Imagine the following scenario: you are at a bar or party and one of your mates orders a particular beer, which is far inferior to other beers, in your personal opinion of course. As a good friend you immediately have to point out that he or she should probably start questioning their life choices, considering their poor taste in beer.

Before you know it, you end up in a never ending, philosophical discussion about THE best beer. I think, we all have been there and to finally settle this dispute, here is an honest attempt to crown the best Luxemburgish beer as objectively as possible.

We wanted to do a post about some of Luxembourg's best beers, because surprisingly our small country has and is producing a number of amazing beers, but what fun would it be to simply tell the reader what the best beer is in our personal, not so objective opinion? Why should anybody believe us if we declare some random beer to be the best? There are quite a few prejudices regarding some beers and brands and people might not always be open and willing to give them a try even if we were to recommend them. So, we had to find another way: a blind beer tasting.

If you want to try the winner, be sure to read on, we are giving away a six-pack of the best Luxembourgish beer to one lucky winner!

The concept

Let's start with the concept which is rather simple: We preselected 10 Luxembourgish beers, which are rather well known and available in store, bars and restaurants. The contestants didn't know what beer they were being served, nor the beers which were selected. The only thing they knew was that they were Luxembourgish Pils-style beers. After tasting the beer from a non-descriptive pint glass, the participants had to rate it from 1 to 10, 1 being the worst and 10 the best. They were also allowed to guess what beer they just drank if they felt like it.

The beers

For the selection of beers, we stuck to a couple of rules:

Pils style beers only. We didn't want to compare apples to oranges, meaning comparing an Ale or wheat beer to a stout would be completely unfair, and we would've ended up with far too many beers.
All beers being served were poured from 0,33l beer bottles and/or cans
Easy to obtain: The beer needs be sold in one of the big supermarkets in Luxembourg.

This left us with the following 10 contenders, sorted alphabetical:

Are we missing your favorite Luxembourgish beer or brewery? Let us know by e-mailing us at hello@insideoroutside.lu! We'll make sure to give it a try and include it in the second edition, which might also include other types of beer.

The breweries

Overall, 10 different beers from 5 different breweries were contenders and before we reveal the results, we would like to give you some background information on these 5 different breweries.

Brasserie National de Luxembourg, Bascharage
- History Brasserie de Luxembourg as we know it today started with a merger of two breweries in 1975: The Brasserie Bofferding and the Brasserie Funck-Bricher. At that point of time, Funck-Bricher ceased to exists and only Bofferding was continued. In 2004, they additionally acquired the Brasserie Battin and transferred the production to Bascharage where today they produce Bofferding, Battin and Funck-Bricher, which was resurrected in 2018.
- Beers
  Bofferding: Bofferding Pils Tradition, Bofferding Hop, Bofferding Hausbéier and Bofferding Christmas
  Battin: Battin Gambrinus, Battin Brune, Battin Extra, Battin Fruitée, Battin Triple, Battin Blanche, Battin Pils and Battin Christmas
  Funck-Bricher: Funck-Bricher
If you want to see the brewing process first hand and taste their products you can schedule a visit: Visit the Brasserie Nationale

Letzebuerger Stadbrauerei, Luxembourg City
- History This micro-brewery was founded in 2006 and actually uses the old, abandoned buildings of the Mousel brewery, which merged with Diekirch brewery in 2000.
- Beers
  Clausel: Clausel Classic, Clausel Gezwickelt and Clausel Monk

Brasserie de Luxembourg, Diekirch
- History The Brasserie de Luxembourg was founded in 1871 and since the year 2000, this bedrock of the Luxembourgish art of beer brewing is in the hands of the Belgium company Anheuser-Busch InBev, which also owns renown beer brands like Budweiser, Franziskaner, Corona, Hoegaarden and Leffe.
- Beers
  Diekirch: Diekirch Pils, Diekirch 0.0, Diekirch unfiltered, Diekirch grand cru, Diekirch radler agrum, Diekirch lemon and lime and Diekirch Chrismas
Usually it's possible to visit the brewery, however, due to construction works the brewery is currently not open for visitors.

Fox Beer, Luxembourg
- History Fox beer, founded in 2016, is owned by Fox Dinks and managed by two Luxembourgish entrepreneurs. Their headquarter is located in Luxembourg but it is not really transparent where they actually produce their beer but it seems to be done in Belgium. Besides beer they also produce other drinks like sparkling wine.
- Beers
  Fox Beer: Fox Beer, Fox session ale

Brasserie Simon, Wiltz
- History Brasserie Simon was founded in 1824. In 2005 they've have taken over the Okult brewery followed by the acquisition of the micro-brewery Ourdaller in 2016. The brewing for Simon and Okult is done in Woltz, while the Ourdaller brewing process continues in Heinerscheid.
- Beers
  Simon: Simon Pils, Simon régal, Simon dinkel, Simon bio, Simon IPA, Simon noël
  Okult: Okult Blanche, Okult Summer
  Ourdaller: Ourdaller Wäissen, Ourdaller Karel, Ourdaller Wëllen, Ourdaller Hanna

The results

During a warm summer night, we invited a bunch people over to our house and served them the preselected 10 beers in a random order. In order to check all the boxes we invited a demographically inclusive crowd, young (but of course old enough to drink), old(er), male, female, Luxemburgish, foreigners and beer lovers. We even went as far as to invite people that would never even open a beer at home let alone order one somewhere. I guess this is a nice way of saying we did not discriminate against beer haters. Overall, about 20 people participated.

Best beer

Let's just jump the gun, because we know all you all want to know is who the winner is; but please do read along as we have some more fun statistics for you guys.

So without further ado, the winner is:

Battin Gambrinus is a blond, Pils type beer with an intense golden colour, with discreet hop and sweet malt flavours from the Brasserie National. Battin Gambrinus also has a slight bitter taste. To those who know their Luxembourgish beers well, this might not come as a surprise as Battin is widely popular throughout the country and a staple in many bars and restaurants. It is also Chris and mine personal favorite. It might not be the most drunken beer in Luxembourg but it is however a lot superior in quality, colour and taste compared to many other Luxembourgish beers. If you could only try one of those ten, we recommend you go for Battin, it is easily drinkable and refreshing but still has intense flavour.

Bofferding, the 2nd contender from the Brasserie National comes in at a very good 3rd place and is a light, bubbly and easily drinkable beer and is probably Luxembourgs most well-known beer and a staple for many, so it is no surprise that it has come out near the top. Funck-Bricher however, the Brasserie National's 3rd beer in this selection, fell short, coming in 7th. This beer markets itself to be organic and vegan and paying attention to reusable and recyclable packaging, this beer seems to cater to a more environmental conscious consumer base.

The silver medal goes to Ourdaller Karel, coming in 2nd. The Ourdaller line includes 4 different varieties, including a wheat beer, a dark beer and a hemp-infused beer. The most known variety however is Karel, an unfiltered rye beer which is a bit darker and murkier compared to the other standard Pils beers, however, it is excellent in taste. Ourdaller started out in 2000 in a micro-brewery in the north of Luxembourg. Their goal was to brew amazing beers with quality grains from local farmers. Since Simon brewery has taken over this micro-brewery the recipe has not been changed and the focus on using different grains to make beer remains. For example, their dark beer uses buckwheat and their white beer wheat grains.

The mid field is dominated by the Brasserie du Luxembourg with its two contenders Diekirch premium and Diekirch unfiltered. Diekirch premium is known for its quite distinguishable taste and we included the new, unfiltered version to test whether people would recognize the unique Diekirch flavour. The premium version is a blond beer, classically brewed with malt and hops whereas the unfiltered version tastes a bit more like an IPA with a fruitier, flowery flavour. A couple of contestants actually recognised the unique Diekirch flavor on Diekirch unfiltered, guessing it would be the original premium version, so the brewery seems to stay true to its flavours. Personally, we think that the unfiltered version is even better than the original, so be sure to give it a taste! Besides Boffering, Diekirch is a beer often found on tap in many bars and restaurants throughout the country.

Luxembourg's worst beer?

A rather sad surprise is that the classic Simon Pils came in 10th and last place. We honestly do not think that this beer deserves the title of "worst Luxembourgish beer", however we have confirmed that there is a big difference between a bottled Simon and a freshly draught Simon, which is a hundred times better taste-wise than its bottled counterpart. Of course, a freshly draught beer is always better but for us there was a significant difference in taste with Simon Pils. The difference in fermentation between draft and bottle might be the reason for this, so we do recommend you give it a try, provided it's a draft. Oggi e Domani for example has Simon Pils on tab in their restaurant. Their 2nd contender in this race, Simon Dinkel, a spelt and barley beer did unfortunately not do much better, coming in 8th, however, this unfiltered beer only contains 4.5% alcohol and is less bitter and sweeter than a classic lager, so this might be a good beer for the ladies, or lightweights.

Most underestimated beer

A fun finding was our most underestimated beer, a beer we had initially included in our selection to kinda fool the participants: Fox. Fox is a low-calorie beer, with no artificial flavours and no unnecessary carbs and sugars. The brewery claims that a bottle of Fox has about 33% fewer calories than other Pils beers. As many people might have preconceptions regarding a low-carb beer, this was a perfect contestant for our blind taste test. Coming in at just over 6 out of 10, this beer did very well in the tasting, some people even rating it 8 or 9, proving, that you do not necessarily have to sacrifice taste to save calories. So, if you are conscious about your diet but you might also want to enjoy a beer from time to time, check out Fox. They also now offer a low-sugar, low-carb version of sparkling wine.

Most recognized beer

As mentioned before, people had the chance to guess what beer they were trying. During our analysis, we've counted the times a beer had successfully been recognized, with Ourdaller Karel and Battin being the clear winners. Battin has a very distinguishable taste and Ourdaller has a very deep, murky colour, so both of these beers have a great recognition value.

The losers in this category are mostly new beers, with Diekirch unfiltered, Funk-Bricher and Fox. Clausel, being produced by a micro-brewery since 2006, has also seemingly not yet been able to establish itself taste-wise in the minds of the people in Luxembourg. Another surprise was that Bofferding, as probably Luxembourg's most famous beer can only be found in the middle range and still seems to have trouble getting recognised, which seems to confirm the fact that this beer is lighter and less pronounced in taste in comparison to other Luxembourgish beers. So, an easily drinkable beer but without much recognition value to make it stand out of the growing competition.

Most controversial beer

This is actually a fun statistic: the most controversial beer. What beer were people most divided over, or differently put, which beer did people agree most on compared to the average rating? People most agreed on some of Luxembourg's most classic beers, such as Bofferding, Diekirch and Simon Pils but were most divided over Fox and Simon Dinkel, people seemed to not like these specialty beers at all or really enjoy them, rating them quite high.

Most bang for your buck

Are you a penny pincher and want the best beer at the cheapest price? We went to the main Luxemburgish grocery stores and calculated how much money you need to put on the table to get 1 bottle of 0.33l beer. We divided the average rating of a beer by the average price per bottle, which left us with a value per bottle, the higher the value, the most bang you get for your buck.

Boffering, considering the taste and price is the clear winner in this rating. However, it also shows, that the newer, more special beers are more expensive, this includes Fox, the low-carb beer, organic Funck-Bricher as well as Diekirch unfiltered.

In or Out?

Considering that all beers scored well over 5 out of 10 with an overall average beer rating of 6.06, we would say that we can be proud of the beer we have here in Luxembourg and that it is pretty amazing, even though people were pretty tough and rated rather low and often abstained from giving top marks during the tasting.

There is a clear winner, however, there should be something for everybody on our list, whether you prefer a lighter, more intense or deeply flavoured beer. Another point to consider is that bottled beer can often be different from a fresh draft, so always be open to trying the draft version even if you did not really enjoy the bottled one.

In order to share our beer love with you guys we would like to give you the opportunity to win a six-pack of the winning beer, all you have to do is enter the prize draw on our Facebook page and follow the instructions: Like the Inside or Outside Facebook page, like and share the beer tasting post and tag your friends you wanna share your Battin six-pack with.