10 Belgian beers that are worth traveling for

I've written about the beer industry for TheStreet for roughly six years, but I've seldom had the opportunity to do so from the European birthplaces of some of the most beloved U.S. styles.

Though I've had the pleasure of sipping England's “real ale” out of the casks of London pubs, savoring Czech pilsner in Prague's beer halls, it all predated my tenure here.

While I had the pleasure of witnessing U.S. craft beer win over taprooms in Amsterdam and Barcelona, it didn't hold the same weight of history as walking into an old Bavarian brewery that's hewed to Reinheitsgebot beer purity laws for 500 years.

However, being able to enjoy the breweries, taprooms and beer-reliant restaurants of Belgium with my wife without viewing it all through the lens of U.S. craft beer is liberating.

We've told you before that without Belgian brewer Pierre Celis, who revived the Hoegaarden brewery and its lemony, spicy witbier style, U.S. beer drinkers wouldn't have Blue Moon Belgian White from MillerCoors, Anheuser-Busch InBev's Shock Top or Allagash White to sip during long summers.

We've also mentioned that without Jeff Lebesch's European bike trips and a long stop inside Bruge beer hall t'Brugs Beertje in 1989, his partner Kim Jordan and he may never have founded Fort Collins, Colo.'s New Belgium Brewing Company or expanded it to Asheville, N.C. We've even showed you how a trip to Belgium inspired Pfriem Family Brewers to not only build a brewery, but to name their son after the Belgian town that is home to Browerij St. Bernardus.

But taking the train from Amsterdam and its expanding thirst for U.S. craft beer to Brussels, which is too concerned with hundreds of Belgian beers to give U.S. craft anything but a passing thought, was eye-opening.

Beyond some offerings from Denver's Crooked Stave at the Moeder Lambic taproom and aging bottles of Rogue and Sierra Nevada at the Beer Mania bottle shop, U.S. craft beer wasn't part of the discussion, nor should it have been.

Beer has been been brewed there in various forms since the 12th Century. Brasserie de Rochefort -- one of seven Belgian breweries run by Trappist monks -- brewed its first beers in 1595.The lambic style of spontaneously fermented beers dates back more than five centuries.

Even Anheuser-Busch InBev, which has a headquarters in Leuven, still produces Leffe beer that traces back to an abbey established in the 12th Century.