A sign in Flemish outside the Moortgat Brewery in Belgium says: "Ssh…Duvel is ripening".

They treat the production of their leading beer with enormous care, taking it through several fermentations and rest periods before it’s ready for consumption.

Duvel – pronounced Doo-vul – means devil, based on a remark by a brewery worker when he first tasted it: "This is a devil of a good beer". 

It’s now so celebrated on a world scale that the name of the brewery has been changed to Duvel Moortgat.

The brewery in Breendonk near Antwerp dates from 1871 and it has always been a specialist ale producer.

In the 20th century, when imported British beers were popular in Belgium, Moortgat launched a new beer using yeast from a bottle of McEwan’s Export.

When the brewery worker declared it to be devilishly good, the name Duvel struck. It was an amber beer at first but as fashion changed Moortgat turned it into a golden beer in 1970 to counter the growth of such pale lagers as Stella Artois.

French and Belgian barleys are specially grown for the production of Duvel, which has a colour only fractionally darker than a Pils lager. Czech Saaz hops and Styrian Goldings from Slovenia are added in three stages when the wort or sugar-rich liquid is boiled in the copper.

Dextrose – pure brewing sugar – is added to encourage a strong first fermentation that lasts for six days. The beer is stored for a further three days at low temperature when a second fermentation takes place.

The brewers are not finished yet. They "cold condition" the beer for a month then they filter it and add a dosage of fresh yeast.

The beer is bottled and held at the brewery for two weeks during which time it enjoys a third fermentation. The end result is a beer with a powerful strength of 8.5 per cent.

When I was invited to sit in at a brewers’ tasting panel at Moortgat I was amazed by the way Duvel ages and improves during that long production cycle.

The beer that finally emerges has a famous signature aroma of Poire William pears, balanced by tangy hop resins and lightly toasted malt. The palate is rich and bittersweet followed by a long, complex and warming finish with perfumy hops, ripe pear fruit and honeyed malt.

Can you improve on perfection? Moortgat thinks so. In 2017 it produced a series of different versions of the beer, all with different additions of hops.

It invited beer drinkers worldwide to vote for their favourite version and the result was a victory for Duvel Citra, using the renowned American hop with its big grapefruit character. The new beer has a formidable strength of 9.5 per cent.

Both beers are on sale in Morrisons at £2.50 and £3 respectively but they are widely available from other retailers.

▪I’m sure many readers who commute into London will recall the wonderful Bree Louise pub a few yards from Euston station. It was named pub of the year and cider pub of the year by the local branch of the

Campaign for Real Ale but its popularity didn’t save it from the wreckers’ ball when it was razed to the ground in 2018 to make way for HS2.

The publicans, Craig and Karen Douglas, lost their livelihood and also their home as they lived above the pub. But they could have continued to trade for many more years as HS2 won’t start from Euston until the 2040s and there are doubts the line will ever run from there.

Pub lovers were horrified when one of London’s favourite pubs was destroyed. The Bree Louise was the victim of one of the greatest financial cock-ups this country has ever witnessed – one that makes you weep in your beer.