The workman’s beer in the 19^th and early 20^th century. Very dark, with high food value, stout was the staple beer of the laborers in the Flemish textile factories, the Walloon coal mines and on the docks of the Flemish harbors, where physical labor was exhausting, and 12-14 hour days the standard. These Belgian stouts are ‘milder’, which means sweeter than the Irish stouts. 

Stouts had a very manly image with muscular arms pictured on the publicity posters. Today, however, the sweeter and rounder undertone with a complex taste and aroma of the best Belgians stouts attract a lot of female drinkers.