Belgium in Turmoil
This may or may not have substantial effects on brewing, but I am alarmed nevertheless:
BRUSSELS -- In the back room of an exclusive social club across the street from the U.S. Embassy here, Flemish separatists are plotting the breakup of Belgium....Will the Walloons have to start referring to their ales as "Belgian-style?" What other consequences might it have? Hmm...The campaign here is a modern-day separatist movement for a globalized world. This is not a war of guns and guerrillas in jungle hideouts or suicide bombings on city streets. It is a conflict debated daily in the news media, parliaments, cafes, bars and establishment clubs of a country confronting the schisms now facing nearly every European nation: the struggle over national identity following mass immigration from Asia and Africa, the preservation of native culture and language, and economic competition in an era of global markets.
Belgium has been without a national government for more than three months now.